Hot Under Pressure (11 page)

Feeling each tick of the second hand like a gong ringing in her ears, Skye hustled across the kitchen to the corner with the walk-in and the dry goods pantry, dodging chefs with hot pans spitting bacon grease and sharp knives flashing as they diced and chopped for all they were worth.

Mind finally full of nothing but the next task, the next ingredient, the next step on her mental checklist for this parmesan chive meringue recipe, Skye planted both palms flat on the cold metal door to the walk-in cooler and shoved it open. Immediately scanning the shelves in the dim lighting of the overhead fluorescent bulb, she heard a quiet
snick
from behind her.

There was a strange rush; the noise from the busy kitchen cut out abruptly, and the air in the cooler went still as even the lone light bulb went black.

Chapter 10

Oh no. I let the door close.

Claire Durand’s words of caution came back to Skye in a blazing instant of pure self-derision—how could she have been so careless? So stupid? So forgetful?—while she groped for the door, her fingers finding the smooth seam and scrabbling frantically, pointlessly, for a handle that didn’t exist.

“This isn’t happening.”

The disembodied growl came from the back corner of the cooler, and Skye whirled to face the voice, heart slamming hard enough to jar her body against the door.

Not hard enough to budge the door open, though.

“I’m sorry,” Skye blurted. “I feel like an idiot, after Claire warned us and everything, but I just wasn’t thinking.”

There was a huff, almost a snort, and Skye narrowed her eyes as if squinting would somehow give her night vision. “Who’s there?”

“You don’t recognize my voice. I think I’m hurt.”

The deadpan delivery combined with the shock of awareness that skittered up her spine had Skye gasping in disbelief.

It was Beck.

When she thought she could speak without giving anything away, she said, “The universe certainly has an odd sense of humor today. Of all people…”

“Out of all the walk-in coolers in all the countries in the world, you had to come walking into mine. And lock us in.”

There was something going on with Beck’s voice, a certain strain and tightness that was part of why she hadn’t immediately identified him as her fellow prisoner. Skye put a tentative hand out in front of her and took one shaky step away from the safety of the door at her back.

“Hey. Are you okay?”

She sensed movement a few paces away, the shift of air against her skin and the whisper of cloth. “Fine” was Beck’s terse answer, but Skye wasn’t buying what he was selling.

“No, you’re not,” she said, more certain than ever when he didn’t immediately jump to contradict her. “Where are you? M-maybe we should stick together.”

There was that huff of breath again, closer this time as she moved deeper into the darkness of the fridge. “Why? Someone will be along any second now, needing cream or eggs or something. Any second, we’ll be out of here…”

“You sound like you’re trying to convince yourself of something you don’t really believe,” Skye observed quietly. “But it’s true. I’m sure we won’t be in here for longer than a few minutes. Still, better to keep warm and calm than to freeze our butts off.”

“Can’t fool me,” Beck said, the words sounding bitten off and odd. “You just want to get close to this hot bod.”

A wave of amusement briefly overwhelmed the concern rising in her chest. “You caught me,” she said, proving he wasn’t the only one who could do deadpan. “Let’s throw our clothes off and get down, oh baby, oh baby. Because what could be sexier than pretending we’ve both been buried alive in a cozy two-person coffin with no view?”

There was a long pause, long enough get her heart pumping faster with a combination of nerves and worry, before Beck choked out, “Okay, nix on the coffin stuff. Shit.”

Swiping a careful hand through the darkness, Skye frowned when she still didn’t encounter him. Beck was a huge guy, and this wasn’t a very big cooler. Where the hell was he?

“You really have a problem with being in here,” she said, keeping her left hand on the wire shelving lining the wall of the cooler as she inched her way toward the back. She couldn’t move too quickly, because she remembered that the floor of the fridge was crammed with crates of produce, seafood and T-bones and heads of cabbage, sitting there waiting to trip her up.

She couldn’t afford a broken ankle right now. Shoot, she couldn’t afford to be stuck in this cooler, either—but whatever was eating at Beck seemed more serious than completely understandable frustration at their prep time ticking away.

“It’s not a problem,” Beck said, but his voice sounded like he’d been gargling gravel. “At least, it won’t be once someone fucking notices we’re missing and comes to find us.”

“Someone will come,” Skye said, feeling like she was trying to soothe a savage beast. Should she sing? No, that wouldn’t help. “In the meantime, where are you?”

“I’m fine,” he said again, proving beyond a shadow of a doubt that he wasn’t, and everything inside Skye went on red alert.

“Okay, but maybe I’m not,” she said, letting a tremor into her voice. “I’m getting really cold, and a little freaked out, and it would help if I knew where you were so I don’t feel like I’m going crazy and talking to myself.”

That got another snort out of him, but this time it sounded like simple laughter, and Skye let herself grin. “Come on,” she coaxed. “I promise not to bite.”

“That’s not much of an incentive,” he commented, but in the next instant, she felt his large, strong-boned hand slide around her fingers in a solid grip.

Despite herself, a tension she hadn’t realized she was carrying melted from her shoulders, as if she’d been holding the sun salutation pose for long, deep-breathing moments and had finally relaxed out of it at his touch.

His palm was sweaty and chilled, which surprised her, even considering how weird he was acting. She’d seen Henry Beck face down a trio of switchblade-happy street kids, their mean, gouging landlord, and her own mother, and he’d never flinched. But somehow, being locked in this freezer with his soon-to-be-ex-wife was really getting to him.

Trying not to take it personally, Skye said, “So. You didn’t used to be claustrophobic.”

He stiffened and, predictably, tried to pull his hand away. But Skye had, in fact, anticipated that reaction, and she kept her grasp on his fingers snug and secure, and went on talking.

“I know, because if you’d been claustrophobic when we had that apartment on Stockton, you would’ve had to be on medication just to walk through the front door.”

Beck relaxed a little, some of the rigidity going out of his forearm, and Skye risked stepping a little closer to the radiant heat of his big body.

“That place was tiny,” he said in a gruff, remembering voice. “And the only window was in the bathroom, way up high over the shower.”

“You didn’t seem to notice the close quarters back then.”

“Maybe I was too busy thinking about other things.”

Skye swallowed hard. Now she was remembering, too, and it occurred to her, as Beck’s voice slid into that deep, caressing tone, that she hadn’t always felt so take-it-or-leave-it and unconcerned when it came to sex.

In fact, in those two years she and Beck were together, she remembered being vitally concerned with sex—at all hours of the day and night, in every position their fevered brains and youthfully flexible bodies could come up with.

Trying to stay on topic, she shot back, “I don’t think so. This is new. So what gives?”

“I don’t want to talk about that.”

Time for a different tactic. “Okay, then. What are you making for your signature dish?”

That got her a frustrated growl, the kind that vibrated through her ribcage as if someone had struck a tuning fork.

“Don’t want to talk about that, either, hmm?”

He shifted, his body too big to move without shifting air currents. “I just … I don’t know what they’re looking for. I can cook any kind of fish, any way they want. But I don’t have a signature. I’m not some celebrity chef with a catchphrase and a line of condiments for sale. I’m a glorified line cook, and damn proud of it.”

Feeling her way, Skye said carefully, “I don’t think ‘signature dish’ has to mean something that people associate with you, like a brand. I think it means … a dish that exemplifies what you love about cooking. Your style, your ability to use ingredients and showcase them … it’s more about what you’re trying to say with the dish than the dish itself.”

He was quiet for a long moment while Skye felt an embarrassed flush heat the tips of her ears. At least
they
were warm.

“That actually … that helps,” Beck said, sounding endearingly awkward. Skye fought down the urge to give him a squeeze. “Thanks.”

“No problem. Now what else should we discuss? I know … how about your sudden claustrophobia?”

Beck jolted, his leather boots squeaking against the floor of the cooler with his sudden movement. “I’m not talking about that.”

“Well, I think you should talk about it. How else are you going to get over it?”

She felt a tug on her hand that pulled her off balance, the darkness of the space around them robbing her of her center of gravity and tilting the world into instantaneous vertigo.

But only for a second, because Beck was there to catch her against his chest, her clumsy feet tangling with his as her long skirt wound itself around his legs like an affectionate cat.

“You know what works better than talking?” Beck purred, the rumble of his voice vibrating against her breasts and all through her body. “A distraction.”

And before she could gather her scattered wits to protest, to argue, he’d brought his mouth down across hers and the urge to argue was swept away in the onslaught of pure, raw sensation.

So hot, so hungry, his tongue stroked between her teeth and ignited a fire that had been banked down deep inside her for years. In a flash of wet friction, clutching fingers, and a breathless moan from deep in someone’s chest, Skye remembered the one place she and Beck had always been able to communicate … in bed.

Or, in this case, in a walk-in freezer.

Right here and now, it didn’t matter that Beck had been out of her life for years. It didn’t matter that every moment they were together was shadowed with uncertainty and insecurity about where she stood with him.

Right here and now, she knew how he felt without being told in words, because as his iron grip curled around her waist and jerked her closer, their bodies spoke a language older than time.

He wanted her.

And goddess above, but she wanted him right back, with a soaring, surging passion that gripped her like a riptide and spun her dizzily into the dark.

She wrapped her arms around the solid thickness of his muscular shoulders and opened herself to him.

*   *   *

Beck was on fire.

Heat throbbed through him, where only moments before he’d been chilled to the bone, fighting the shakes with every ounce of his strength.

The desire for her burned through him, scorching away every thought and fear and feeling that wasn’t connected to the silkiness of her hair gripped in his fists or the satiny glide of her tongue as she welcomed him in.

Skye Gladwell’s kiss. There was nothing like it, anywhere in the world.

Without even meaning to, Beck had used the memory of this kiss—the sweet strawberry taste of her, that bitten-off moan in the back of her throat, the eager press of her lips—as the baseline against which all other kisses were measured. Every kiss he’d had in the years since he left Skye had been too wet, too dry, too reserved, too sloppy—just … not this.

And as her body molded against his as if they were two measuring spoons nestled in a drawer, Beck felt something deep inside himself slot into place.

Unwilling to examine just what that meant, he burrowed his hands deeper into the curly mass of her hair, fingers searching until he cupped her delicate skull in his big, rough hands, and deepened the kiss until they were both gasping for breath.

Beck was the one who broke away, sucking at air so cold it felt like a knife in his lungs after the heated passion of the past few minutes. A surge of fierce joy went through him when he felt her go up on tiptoe, swollen mouth puffing hot breaths against the sensitive side of his neck.

With everything he had, Beck wished he could see her face clearly, but even his killer night vision couldn’t pierce the complete darkness of a commercial-grade refrigerator.

But he could imagine how she looked. Hell, he’d imagined it so often over the years, he could probably sketch her expression from memory—the wide daze of her summer-blue eyes, the hectic flush of pink on her milky cheeks, the slick, plump softness of her ripe, just-kissed mouth.

Oh yeah, he knew exactly what Skye looked like after being kissed to within an inch of her life. And in that moment, he swore to himself that he’d see it again with his own eyes.

Because no one who kissed him like that was completely over what they’d had.

“Henry,” she breathed, a fine tremor shivering through her body, and Beck had to fight down a shiver of his own, because damn. That name he’d hated hearing for a decade suddenly didn’t sound half bad, when Skye moaned it in that soft, yearning way.

But the sound of her own voice seemed to snap Skye out of whatever haze their kiss had put her in, and she struggled a bit in his arms.

“Oh goddess,” she groaned, reason returning with a sharp edge to her voice, and Beck regretted it. Especially when she tried to jerk away from him.

“Stop that,” he ordered, pulling her closer and tucking her more firmly against him, because her shivers were getting worse. “We need to conserve body heat.”

It was cold in here, he knew, but it was a clinical sort of knowledge experienced at a distance, the way Beck had learned to process pain from a wound and keep going, keep moving, keep working.

The cold kept him alert, and as she subsided, dropping her arms to wrap around his waist and tucking her cold nose against his chest, Beck’s head finally cleared completely.