Thief: A Bad Boy Romance (53 page)

I excuse myself to go upstairs, and with every step, the only thought running through my head is that if Oliver

Trouble?
I can feel the flush in my cheeks as I quickly exit the dining room. With every step, all I can think is that the only “trouble” I can see is
Oliver himself.

He’s trouble with a cocky, troublingly-attractive smile. Trouble with inked tattoos running down his muscled arms. Arms that I’m intimately familiar with; especially how they feel wrapped around my body.

He’s trouble with a dirty, devious, and panty-dropping mouth; one that I happen to know firsthand what it feels like to kiss.

Oliver? In trouble?
I bite my lip as I close the door to my new room behind me and lean against it and shake my head. It’s when I look up that I see that there’s a note on my pillow:

“8 am sharp. DO NOT BE LATE.”

Great
. I haven’t even started yet and I’m already getting yelled at by my boss.

My very bossy, very distractingly attractive boss.

My new stepbrother.

Yeah, no, Oliver’s not
in
trouble.

I am
, and with
that man
sleeping right next door all night and being my boss all day at work?

Yeah, I’m in big,
big
trouble.

I
’m leaning
against the outside wall back behind the kitchen, frowning at the cobblestone streets of London’s south bank and sipping espresso. I close my eyes as I take a sip, breathing it all in and just
loving it
.

I love the smell, the sounds and the taste of restaurants opening in the morning. This life is
not
for everyone, that’s for damn sure. Late nights, super early mornings, and all manner of drink, drugs, and sex in between. Honestly, those who cook your food might be the final great rock stars in the world, like the Stones back in the ‘70s or something.

We might be the world’s last pirates, and I fuckin’
love it
.

I love the chaos, the threat of danger, the pressure, the burns, the cuts, the screaming maelstrom of fuckin’ chaos that somehow births something beautiful. I love that, somehow, through the utter chaos of a commercial kitchen during service, the madness can still give birth to something pure and something perfect: a meal that transcends food and becomes a fucking experience.

And that’s what I want. I want people to walk away from a meal I’ve cooked them
changed
on a visceral, fundamental level. I want to rock their world; I want that first bite of food to be a fuckin orgasm for them.
That’s
what I love about all this. I love ending the night and looking out over my field of battle in that kitchen, and knowing that I bled for the cause and won. The cause of a perfect meal.

I take another sip of the espresso and frown. What I
don’t
love is lateness. Lateness like how Chloe is already ten fucking minutes late to her first day on the job. The job I’d never have given her, truth be told. I run a fucking
machine
back there on that line, and I do
not
have time to babysit fucking
hobbyists
trying to “rough it” with the big boys in the kitchen. Fuck that. And her being late is just pissing me off even more.

I can’t have it; not in any kitchen but
certainly
not here at this one. People here need to fear me like they do their father, or a Goddamn brigadier general.

And if she thinks I’m going to go easy on her because of our parents, or because of our...well,
history
, she’s sorely mistaken.

Oh, fuckin’ finally
. She’s coming around the corner, on her fucking cellphone of course, with a coffee. She looks up quickly, as if feeling my eyes boring into her. I sip the last of my espresso, my arms crossed over my kitchen whites as I narrow my gaze at her.

“Sorry!” She says, looking up from twitter or whatever bullshit has her late to
my
kitchen. She throws me her best “cute” wincing face.

It sort of works, even if I
hate
to admit it.

“The trains-” She shakes her head; “Sorry, I’m not used to-”

“So leave earlier.”

She shoots me a sharp look. “
Look
, I just
got here
last night, you know. It’s not like I’ve ever been to London bef-”

“So look at a map.”

She drops her jaw, her mouth going into this adorable and shocked looking “o” face. I have to suppress the urge to grin, because truth be told, I’m more interested in seeing how far I can push this girl than I am actually mad at her. Yes, lateness is something I abhor, but I’m not a fuckin’ dictator. Honestly, I’m partially amazed she’s
only
ten minutes late after trying to figure out London’s tube system on day one.

Not, of course, that I’m going to tell
her
that.

She shoots me another glaring look full of daggers, “You want to give me some fucking slack?”

“No, actually,” I say, smiling widely at her and loving the way it gets her all flustered looking, her mouth opening and closing like she can’t
even
find the words to express her anger at me. Her cheeks get all flushed and pink looking, and I can’t help but remember the last time I saw them like that.

Of course, that time I had her shirt half undone, my cock pressed against her thigh through our clothes, and her moans melting through my ears as she kissed me like our lives depended on it.

Suffice to say, I would be
extremely
curious to see
that
particular blush on her face again.

But I quickly shake that thought from my head. I have to be the hard-ass here. If not for her, at least for the rest of the kitchen.

“Be on time,” I say again, forcing the grin from my face and mustering my hard-ass chef glare.

And she
rolls her eyes.

“You know what, screw this,” she spits out, her eyes narrowing at me. “I don’t need this shit, not from
you
.”

I shrug. “Hey, you don’t want to work for me? Wicked, I don’t want you in my fuckin’ kitchen either.”

She whirls back and drops her jaw and opens her mouth, but I push a finger against her lips; her soft, pouty, totally fuckable lips.

Oy, you need to shake your head right clear of that RIGHT now.

“Look, just walk away, sweetheart. Maybe the kitchen just ain’t the place for you.”

To call the look I get from her after that
“fierce”
doesn’t quite do it justice.

It’s a look that says this girl doesn’t take shit from people. It’s a look that says she doesn’t back down from challenges, she chases
them. It’s roaring, and full of all the piss and vinegar in the world. It’s defiant.

And I
like it
.

Of course, a kitchen’s only got the room for
one
defiant hot-head, and that would be
me
. She wants to work in
this
kitchen, with
me
?

Well then, she better ask nicely, because I don’t recall her asking at all.

“Look, luv,” I say, leaning closer to her. So close that I catch the slightly imperceptible intake of breath across her lips, see the way her eyes dart around mine, smell the
faintest
scent of some sort of lotion on her skin. “Our parents might be together, and you might live in the room next to me. And at home, we might chat all chummy like and have dinner and go do whatever it is stepsiblings do. But here?” I smile widely at her, spreading my arms, “This is my
domain
.”

“Yeah,
got it
,” she says, frowning at me.

“I’m not gonna be easy on you in there, sweetheart, understand?”

She scowls.

Jesus, I’ve got tattooed, 20-stone tough guys working for me who would’ve already been on their knees begging for a second chance and forgiveness by now. And here we’ve got little miss sassy baker-girl - Ms. Prude, the spitfire -
still
just giving me lip right back.

I watch the defiant fire blaze in her eyes; that challenging, obstinate way she squares her shoulders at me and purses those plump lips together as she matches my narrowed gaze right back at me, not backing down
one bit
.

This kind of defiance, and generally not getting my way, is not something I’m too familiar with. When I say “jump” in my kitchen, they say “how high, chef?” And women? Forget it. Even before dad’s inheritance, and even before I ever worked in kitchens, I’d pretty much never heard the word “no” from a girl. I’ve been leveraging my looks and that asshole bad-boy charm girls seem to go ga-ga over to drop panties since I was old enough to figure out how much fun it was.

And yet, here we’ve got Chloe fucking Caulfield: the girl that said no. She said it five years ago, and I’ve been carrying that chip on my shoulder ever since. But now, here she is trying to throw sass in my face at the door to my kitchen domain?

I let my eyes dart for just a second to the way her blouse strains across the soft swell of those perfect tits, arched high as she squares off against me. And I want to strip that shirt from her body, I want to cover those mounds with my lips, and I want to slip my fingers down the front of those pants and tease her until she’s begging me for release.

The wicked little thought of Chloe begging me for
anything
is enough to get my cock rock-fucking-hard in my loose-fitting chef’s pants. Hard enough that if she looked down, she might get
quite
an eyeful.

I think it’s really a combination of things that puts the idea into my head, but once it’s in there, it burns like a hot coal.

Stepsister or not, I’m going to fuck Chloe Caulfield, and I’m going to tame that wildness.

The girl that said no? Yeah, I’m going to make her mine. I’m going to have her
begging
for it;
begging
me to make her come.

But first things being first, I
will
have her obedience in my Goddamn kitchen.

She starts to push past me towards the backdoor of the restaurant when I stick my arm out, stopping her as I just lean down a little into her ear. “Listen, I will
not
be easy on you in there. Do we understand each other, sweetheart?”

She mutters something.

“Chloe.”

“
Fine
,” she grumbles.

“Yes, chef.”

She turns to me, her brow wrinkled, “Excuse me?”

I grin; okay, this is going to be
way
too much fun. I look her dead in the eye, “You’ll respond with ‘yes, chef’.”

She narrows her eyes at me, “Are you fucking kidding me?”

“Do I look like it?”

Everything around us goes still and quiet, as if we’ve hit pause on the whole world as we just
stare
at each other; a cold war of wills right there at the backdoor of
Jolie.
It’s tough keeping that gaze, knowing from my position so close to her, I could probably look down and into some
delightful
cleavage, but I stand firm.

And then, the miracle happens: she
nods
.

It’s barely perceptible, but it’s there, and that little gesture is my small victory

“
Fine
,
chef.
” Her voice is
dripping
in sarcasm and disdain, and it’s not
quite
what I’m looking for. But, it’s still sweet, sweet victory to my ears.

“Lovely. Well, we’ll work on that.” I move my arm aside, nodding towards the door. “Go get changed and start prepping, we’ve got a shitload of work to do today.”

She walks away without another word, but I’m too busy eyeing that tight ass of hers in those jeans to bother saying anything this time.

M
ercifully
, my station in the kitchen is on the other side of the room from where Oliver stands by the service window, barking orders like freaking drill sergeant. So for my entire first shift at
Jolie
, I’m mostly left alone.

Thank God.

Because after that little run-in this morning, I walked away a raging little ball of fury, ready to lash out at the first person to look at me funny. And the worst part? The worst part was that I couldn’t tell if Oliver being that bossy and commanding had me more
angry
or more turned on.

Please be the first.

It has to be the first, and anything else attached to that is just...oh, I don’t know, withdrawal? A lack of anything
resembling
a sex life for the last few months since I made the decision that I wasn’t going back to school in the fall? That must be what it is, because anything else is just
wrong
. He is my
stepbrother
, after all, no matter how aggressively attractive he might be.

I briefly wonder if “inappropriate sexual longings” are a lesser known side effect of jet-lag.

And what am I saying;
‘bossy’
? Bossy does not even
begin
to describe Oliver when he’s in his little fiefdom of a kitchen. By the end of the shift, as we’re starting to wind down, I’ve seen him yell, threaten, break things, throw a fit, and hurl a cut of meat he deemed “ruined beyond any shred of redemption” straight from the poor grill-guy’s hands against the wall.

He mostly ignores me, mercifully, but he’s like a demon in that kitchen when the rush hits. It’s like he’s got five arms and three heads, cooking, expediting food from the service window to the servers; perfecting every plate like some little piece of modern art that someone’s about to just stick a fork into.

He might act like a dictator, but
this
is his domain, and he owns it. It’s certainly not
abuse
either, it’s...I don’t know, motivating? He’s really no different than a football coach, hurling obscenities and physically pushing his team to their breaking point because he
knows
they can take it.

And they do.

And they respect him for it too. Huge guys with tattoos and beards and facial scars bow their heads and say ‘yes, chef’ when he roars at them about making sure the hake is perfect, or that the béchamel is thick enough. It’s impressive, honestly, and, well, captivating I guess; the power he wields. He knows how to use that power, too.

I suddenly flash back to that first time, when we knew each other briefly before. That time he demanded my lips and kissed me hard and hot like I’d never been kissed before.

Oliver Beckett; cocky, demanding, and captivating. Looks like nothing much has changed since that time he had me moaning into his mouth.

I snap out of my daydreaming with a start, wrinkling my nose and shaking my head at the thought of fantasizing about my
stepbrother
.

My commanding, demanding, bossy stepbrother.

I suddenly look down and realize I’m burning the brûlée I’m about to put out for a desert ticket; badly.

“What the
fuck
is this?”

Of course
, he’s right there the second anything in his little kingdom goes off-course. I bristle as I feel his voice in my ear, feeling his body and his commanding presence right behind me.

“Sorry,” I mumble, shaking my head. “I zoned out.”

“You
zoned out?
” His voice is louder now, loud enough that the bustle of the kitchen around us slows a little bit, people furtively looking in our direction as if pausing to check out a car crash on the side of the highway.

“
Yes
, Oliver, I zoned out.” It’s my
first
fucking mistake all night. My
first
night here, I might add, not to mention the fact I’m still jet-lagged. And after a night like tonight under those conditions, I am
fresh out
of giving a shit about playing any of Oliver’s little power trip games.

I turn to him, meeting his glare with my own, “Look, it was an accident, okay?”

Oliver is utterly silent, and other people start glancing up in the kitchen; the sound of a few hushed whispers and smirks the only noise in the now dramatically quieter kitchen.

“
WHAT
did you just say?” His voice is edged, like he’s really about to yell at me. I
know
from the little smirk in his eyes that he can’t quite hide, that he’s trying to get under my skin here. He’s trying to get me to cow to him and “obey his authority” or whatever ridiculousness.

And I’m not going to give him that. I think of his crude little pantomime of the girls he brings home, the ones saying “yes, chef” to him. Well, this is one girl that cocky, arrogant prick is
not
going to have wrapped around his little finger. Under no circumstances am I going to be “yes, chef”-ing him.

“I said I made a mistake,
Oliver
,” I say his name loudly, pointedly
not
referring to him as chef.

He crosses his arms over his chest, the ink of his forearm tattoos rippling across his muscles as he flexes, “You made
a mistake?
”

“Yes, Jesus.” This is freaking ridiculous. I am not going to play into his stupid little power play. I mean I share a wall and a bathroom with this man at home, I’m just not saying it.

“Yes?” He arches an eyebrow, and I know exactly what he wants, but I’m not saying it. Not this time.

“Whatever,” I say, rolling my eyes. “
Yes
,” I say, pointedly dropping the second word he wants to hear.
Screw you, prick
.

“Get the fuck out of my kitchen.”

My eyes dart up to his, “Excuse me?”

His eyes are
smirking
at me, but when he says it again, his voice is booming across the silent kitchen. “I said get the
FUCK
out of my
FUCKING KITCHEN.
”

I can feel the heat flushing my cheeks, the embarrassment that he’s actually following up on his threat with this. “Are you fucking kid-”

“OUT!”

The kitchen is pin-drop silent, and I feel every eye on me as I tear off my apron and toss it at Oliver’s feet. “

Whatever,” I hiss, pushing past him and out the door.

* * *

I
n the locker room
, I finally let the breath I’ve been holding inside out in a rush. The emotional charge of having a man with that sort of power - asshole stepbrother or not - yelling in my face catches up with me as the door slams shut behind me, and I’m blinking back tears and fanning my heated face with my hands as I pace the length of the room back and forth.

My thoughts are a tangled jumble inside my head as I suck in breaths of air, trying to center myself. On the one hand,
yes
, whether I like it or not, Oliver
is
my boss, and defying him like that in the
way
that I did was never going to end well.

But on the other hand,
what an asshole!
He made an example of me instead of just telling me to fuck off like he could’ve. He decided to cut me down to size as some sort of power-game in full view of the entire kitchen staff, just to make a point.

I’m bent over at the sink, splashing cold water on my face when I hear the voice behind me, “It can get a little hot in there.”

I jerk my head up and then narrow my eyes as I see Oliver grinning at me in the mirror behind me. “Oh
fuck off
.”

“Hey,” he shrugs, “I told you I wasn’t going to go easy on you.”

“Yeah, well, thanks for the heads up,
ass
.”

I turn and move to push past him, but he grabs my wrist, pulling me back. I bite my lip and I stop short in my tracks, turning to look up into his eyes; his icy, dark brown eyes. I can feel a buzz run through me from the point where his hand touches my wrists, the power in those hands searing my skin.

“You know,” he says, his lips parting in a smug grin, “All you had to do was say ‘yes, chef’.”

We’re talking about it like he means work, but I can tell just by that look in his eyes that we’re really talking about the subtext here. We’re talking about him being frustrated by the girl that won’t say yes to the man who never hears no. I shake my arm loose of his grasp.

“Well maybe I’m not that easy.”

“It wouldn’t be fun if you were, luv,” he says, winking at me.

I blush and bite my lip, swallowing the dirty daydreams of what could be and sizzling memories of what was as I meet his stare eye-to-eye, our faces inches apart.

“I’m not going to play this game with you, you know,” I say quietly, willing myself to not blink; willing myself not to yield an inch in this little tit-for-tat we’re doing here alone in the locker room.

“Oh and what game is that, sweetheart?” he murmurs, that thick accent caressing over my skin and teasing my ears.

“You know what I’m talking about, Oliver.”

“Enlighten me.”

“You playing this little power-trip of yours because I wouldn’t do certain things before,” I say quietly. “You know,
before
before.”

He smirks, “
Things?
”

“Things like sleep with you.”

He drops his jaw in overly-dramatic shock and shakes his head, grinning at me, “
Wow!”

I roll my eyes with a huff and whirl to walk away from him. He stops me with a firm hand on the locker room door, “Look, let’s go get a pint and I can make it up to you.”

My brow wrinkles, “
Just
like that.”

“I don’t follow.”

“You’re a raging dick to me and then you want to ‘grab a pint’?”

“Chloe.” He rolls his eyes at me, making my blood boil a little, “It’s the
kitchen
, it’s not fucking personal.”

I tighten my lips, saying nothing in return, and he arches a brow at me.

“Look, you want this life?
This
is it.
This
is the game.”

I’m silent, just pursing my lips and glaring at him as he holds my gaze. Finally, he rolls his eyes, “Alright, you know what, fuck it. Forget about it.” He turns and starts to open the locker room door.

Just before he steps out, I finally crack. “
Okay,
okay,” I sigh loudly, “So how far away is this pint?”

He turns, grinning broadly at me as he brings a hand up to rub his chin, “So that’s a yes?”

“To the drink? Obviously, it’s what I just-”

“No, sweetheart, I mean is that a yes to you sticking around and learning to thicken that skin when it comes to this craziness we call professional kitchens?”

I roll my eyes, “Does it get me a drink? Fine, yes.”

Oliver grins as he slings an arm over my shoulder and walks me out the door, “Then hold on tight, luv, the ride’s just getting started.”