Prep work (3 page)

He looked confused, but went with the words, not the sense. “Oh, I’m sure there’s a hole on you somewhere.” He leaned his shoulder against me.

My rate of washing dropped to zero. “It’s even been licked once or twice.” I leaned back. “I’m not at all cherry-flavored.”

“Wouldn’t mind checking that out for myself, if you fancied staying the night. Unless”
—
his eyes flickered to the cookbook, set aside from the prep surface
—
“he’s still tasting?”

“He” being my former lover, mentioned in the author bio on the dust jacket. I hadn’t thought how much of myself I was exposing in those few lines. “Lives in New York City with his partner, Paul” had gotten me some critical brickbats, but this time I was grateful for the “out and proud” comment. “Not for a couple of years.” Not since he’d found out about the waiter in section three. “No one else regular.”

“That’s the anti-social hours for you. Makes it hard to meet anyone.” One last bit of pressure against me, and then he went to drag the wheeled bucket and mop from a closet. “Harder to keep them unless they know what it’s like already.”

One thing I did not understand yet, and needed to. “I’m saying ‘yes’ either way, but are you asking Jude Marshall the chef, or are you asking Jude, the man?” How much of myself could I bring to his bed?

He didn’t answer that right away, running water into the bucket for a few minutes first, and giving me hope for an honest answer
.
“I asked the chef to sign my cookbook, and it was probably the chef I asked to stay once I came back to the kitchen.” He dipped the mop into the bucket, but yielded it when I reached to fulfill my promise about washing the floor. “And you must have a thousand begging for it. But it’s the man I’m asking upstairs. I can’t get to know you better if you leave.”

Not a thousand like him. Not even one like him. I’d bring all of myself upstairs.

At the top of two flights of stairs, once we’d climbed them, lay his apartment, taking up the back end of the floor past the door marked 2B. He carefully reshelved the cookbook in the bookcase next to a brown loveseat that might have been in the family as long as the pub had, then led me to the bathroom, which looked as if it had been carved out of the larger space. “Would you like to wash the kitchen out of your hair?” Tommy offered, stripping the double-breasted, spattered jacket off. He threw it at the hamper, though one stubborn sleeve dangled out.

Now that we were out of danger of Imogen popping in on us, I couldn’t wait to get my clothes off and peeled myself more efficiently than any shallot I’d ever touched. The ancient clawfoot tub had a thin, white curtain on a floating ring and a handheld shower sprayer, but before Tommy could turn on the water, I had to give myself a little appetizer, taking him in my arms for the first kiss of the night.

Stiff at first, he relaxed against me, melting like butter too close to the stove, and he was the first to part his lips. Tasting, savoring, we explored, and I wouldn’t have known he’d kept his eyes open if I hadn’t too. I wanted to see him react to me as well as to feel him. I wanted to examine this man with every sense I possessed. Slipping a hand down his bare back brought me a little moan, and a deep sniff against Tommy’s cheek plunged me back into the kitchen. I wouldn’t let that scent go until he made me.

“Not yet. You smell too good.” I stroked my cheek against his on the way to his neck; it was late enough that our almost-stubble rasped together, and then I could breathe deeply of warm Tommy and his craft. The butter and herbs that had glazed the filet clung to his hair, faint traces of the spicy tomato-based sauce for the eggplant wafted from his skin, and I tried to devour them all. With tongue and lips I explored him; food scents mixed with his own at his neck gave way to salt and sweat on his shoulder, his forearms again bearing hints of what he’d handled and washed away from his hands. That didn’t keep me from sliding his fingers into my mouth.

Somewhere on him, there would be clues to everything he’d touched tonight. I would find out what he’d made before I arrived. I had to lick into the hollow above his clavicle and found my way back to his lips. “You taste so good just like this.”

I had tasted like that once, and did again tonight, with the time we’d spent together cooking. Tommy was doing his own best to lave the traces from my skin. His tongue and lips against my neck made me hard, and I couldn’t help pushing against his groin, scratching against the baggy pants that I hadn’t managed to shove off his hips. Kneading the big muscles of his butt with one hand inside the pants and one out, I wasn’t going to get those pants off unless I was willing to let go, and I wasn’t, not before I was completely drunk on the taste of him.

Tommy solved my dilemma by twisting around, letting me grope and press my erection into his crack while he undid the fasteners, the skin of his back smooth against my chest. The sun never had a chance to brown him. He was pale and salty beneath my tongue, and yes, he was hard and smooth under my hand. I had hold of his cock almost before he had the zipper down, firm and hot, the skin slipping over the glans with my slow strokes.

“Let’s at least get to the bed, Jude,” Tommy mumbled into my ear. He’d let his head fall back onto my shoulder and had found my earlobe with his teeth. Fortified with kisses, I could let go long enough to follow him to the double bed before I dragged us down to the cold tile floor of the bathroom instead.

He lay warm and lithe under me on the cool cotton sheets, meeting me thrust for thrust with hips and tongue, his fair skin pale gold under the light of the small lamp. I did my best to touch every square inch of him, no longer hidden under layers of baggy fabric meant to protect him from the dangers of his trade.

He felt good, too—not thin, not fat, just warm and hard, and as eager to absorb me as I was for him. His hands traveled up and down my back, sliding to my ass now and again to pull me more tightly against him. With lips and tongue he explored me as thoroughly as I did him, licking, nibbling, and using the slightest edge of teeth against my neck. I wound my fingers into his hair, sliding along the slight dampness that was the inevitable kitchen sweat. I knew Tommy’s mouth would feel just that good on my cock.

I tasted him first, nuzzling my way across the little prickles of hair on his chest, down to his treasure trail. The scent changed along the way, the spices and oils giving way to the tang of a man who’d done honest work. He’d not just earned his bread, he’d baked it. If he’d fed me liquor, it couldn’t have intoxicated me more.

Tommy groaned for me when I sucked him in, swiping my tongue along his shaft on the ups and downs, feeling his foreskin bunch and straighten, teasing the edge of the head. No words now, nothing more than
good, oh good,
buzzed through my mind, and then it got better when Tommy urged me around and over him to take my cock in his mouth.

Wet, firm pressure, the slight yielding of lips, and the flicking undid me. The little spangles behind my tightly closed eyelids were a pale reflection of the fireworks below. I convulsed and shot my pleasure into a sudden chill. Forgetting to breathe, I fell forward, taking him deeper, and that was enough; Tommy came before I stopped pulsing, and I swallowed almost without tasting.

Collapsing was my only option. I did manage to turn around and get my ass out of his face before melting into the mattress. Tommy kissed me softly before turning to snuggle his back to my chest and wipe himself down with a handful of tissues. One last little brush of my lips against the tender skin behind his ear, and I tried to catch the curve of his lips, but he turned out the light, and I went with it.

Waking to dim light and movement in my arms, I opened one eye to see Tommy frowning up at what turned out to be a strip of condoms. “Who gets to wear that?” I murmured, hoping he’d unroll one over me.

“Neither of us.” He tossed the strip off the edge of the bed. “They expired five months ago.”

“I hope you rotate your kitchen stock better than that.” I was obscurely glad that they weren’t fresh. “How’s the lube supply?”

“Plentiful.” He waggled the bottle at me. I cupped a palm to catch the squirt of slipperiness. We kissed, carefully, and then I devoted my mouth to his shoulder and my hand to his morning wood. Tommy lay on his back, his cheek against my head, sighing under my ministrations and taking a moment to come back to reality enough to pour more lube into my hand. This I applied to myself, and I turned him to his side.

“Not bare!” He was right to be cautious, but that wasn’t what I planned.

“No, not bare.” I nestled my erection between his cheeks, wishing I could both thrust along the length of his crack and see myself do it, but I could imagine his ass like the two firm lobes of a peach or a cherry and still reach around to play with his cock. He put his hand back to grab my ass, pulling me to his rhythm while I trailed my tongue along his nape. Less frantic than last night, we thrust together until we had to speed up and then freeze, me a few beats behind him. Tommy’s spurts were a throbbing in my palm, and he clenched his buttocks, grabbing me tightly for the last few plunges before I spilled creamy wet heat between our bodies.

Tommy patted my ass, then squeezed, turning once again to lie on his back. “I’ll get some fresh wellies for tonight.” Those blue eyes made some sideways promises that I wouldn’t be around to help him keep.

There was no good way to break this news, and I hadn’t been exactly clear last night. “My plane leaves Heathrow at noon.”

The way he folded against the mattress wasn’t satiety this time. “I knew this was too good to last. No—” He squeezed my arm when I started to protest. “You didn’t make any promises. I’m the one who just assumed you’d be in London for a while.”

How could I change this? The whirl of thoughts kept me silent. He took it for agreement and tried to get up. “It’s all right. I know you’ve got a life and obligations back in America.”

“That isn’t it at all!” I scrambled to my knees and found myself talking to his back. “I could get sex anywhere in the world, that isn’t—” Wrong thing to say. I knew it the minute it came out of my mouth, and even without that, he’d bolted to the one closable door in the studio. I caught the door full in the face and sacrificed a couple of toes to keeping it from closing. “Ow! Damn it! Give me a minute to think here!”

“Don’t worry about the pretty words.” His voice was flat, his face expressionless. “You can have first wash.” Tommy leaned into the tub to start the water. “It’s all right, Jude, you’ve fucked the ‘fanboy’, and now he’ll be the perfect one-night stand. No whinging or anything awkward.” The sincerity quotient of Tommy’s smile was in the negative range, and he wouldn’t meet my eyes. “I’ll even make you a cup of tea before you go.”

If I knew what I needed to say, I might have gotten something intelligible out, but I was still standing there, the rushing of the water making more sense than the rushing in my brain when he flipped a towel through the door. “Don’t waste the hot water, Jude; I’d like some,” he said, and closed the door between us.

I did get in the tub, thinking the water would help me form the right words, but all that happened was that I scrubbed his scent and our fluids off with no plan for getting more on me. My phone shrilled from my pants pocket, lying on the floor where they’d been abandoned in such a hurry last night. Marcie or Sam, no doubt, wanting to know where the hell I was, what the hell I thought I was doing, and telling me to get back to the hotel now, damn it. The phone stopped ringing before I got out of the tub.

Tommy had slid in and left a toothbrush for me, making him less perfect one-night-stand material and more just perfect. Breezing into the bathroom as I came out, he passed me a cup of tea and disappeared behind the shower curtain without a word. If I pulled the curtain aside to talk, assuming I could get the foot out of my mouth or speak around it, he’d probably turn the spray on me. Besides, I didn’t deserve another look until I made this right.

“Tommy?” I tried from the doorway.

“Can’t hear you over the water!” he called back, and that was my cue to pat my pockets, because anything I left here, I couldn’t return for.

He appeared moments later, his face utterly shut off, his words brittle. “I’m off to the market, Jude. Have a nice flight.” He locked the door behind us, and without lifting his face for a kiss or any other clue that we might have been intimate in any way, Tommy gave me that “So long,
amigo
” tip of the head and was gone.

The stairs were steeper coming down. Maybe it was me walking with one foot so far in my mouth it was kicking tonsils.

Once on the street, I took a good long look around. It had been dark when I’d arrived, and only the lights and motion inside had lured me into the pub. Now I looked up at the sign to see where I’d been. “The Good Man” stood in gold script against a black signboard, but no cheerful bit of folk art or heraldry went with it. No swans, oaks, elephants, castles, harts, gryphons, or tradesmen, as might have swung before any other pub, just “The Good Man.” And he was. And I’d hurt him. If anyone painted me a pub sign, it would have an ass on it.

The hotel was only a few blocks over, and when I let myself in, it was to see Sam and Marcie clattering around, packing.

“For someone who’s been out catting around all night, you certainly have a long face,” Sam observed. “Or did you just drink yourself into a stupor and spend the night in the gutter? You look too tidy for that, but still….”

Okay, that had happened once, and I did manage to wake up with everything but my watch. In no mood to hear about other mistakes I’d made, I sat heavily on the edge of the bed that wasn’t tumbled, and barely avoided rolling backward into the dip. The flailing spoiled the intended dramatic gesture of putting my head into my hands.

“We had that problem, too,” Marcie chirped. “Good thing you didn’t come home. We ended up using your pillows to fill in the sag.”

“Great, like I’d want to rest my head on the same thing you’d propped up your ass with and probably—” I stopped, not liking where that was going. “I feel sorry for whoever gets this room tonight.”