Scrumptious (19 page)

She jumped at a sound behind her.

“Hungry?” Joe asked.

She snatched her hand away from her belly.

“Don’t glare at me, sugar. I’m not the one starving you out of spite.” He handed her a plate. “Here, I made you a sandwich.”

“What is it?” she asked reluctantly. Just the sight of the bread made her mouth water. She peeked under the grilled baguette. Salmon. Mmmmm.

“Eat it.”

She took a firm grip of the baguette and raised it to her mouth. The filling threatened to slide out of the bread. Marlene squeezed tighter and sank her teeth into the crusty bread.

The flavors exploded in her mouth
—
buttery bread with plenty of lemon basil aioli, acidic tomatoes, smoky bacon, and grilled salmon. It was a salmon BLT. Genius.

Not that she’d tell him. An eavesdropping smarty-pants with too many opinions wasn’t getting back in her good graces that easily.

“Well?”

“It’s all right.” Marlene wanted Joe to leave so she could enjoy the sandwich properly. Something this good deserved her full attention. She didn’t want him to watch her licking her fingers and wriggling with delight. He didn’t deserve it.

“Go away. I’m busy.” She sat down on her stool and inched the plate closer. Mmmm, pasta salad and a pickle too.

Forget it, she was going to start eating.

Marlene wrapped her hands around the sandwich, cradling it to keep the filling from dropping out of the sides. She took an enormous bite. Joe couldn’t possibly expect her to talk with her mouth full.

Oh, heaven. Everything is better with bacon.

“That’s a girl.” Joe leaned against her counter and crossed his arms. His crotch was on level with her head, and Marlene glanced pointedly at the bulge in his checks. She looked up at his face.

He was watching her eat, making no effort to hide his interest. His blue eyes were hot, and his cheekbones were slashed with red. An answering thrill shot through Marlene, starting in her middle and sending warmth through her belly and breasts. She put the sandwich down and, with an effort, swallowed.

Her appetite was gone.

Oh, that was so not fair.

Joe pulled her to her feet and leaned forward, giving her plenty of time to reject him. He licked a bit of aioli from the corner of her mouth. “Missed you last night.” The heat in his eyes sparked memories of all kinds of things. “Where were you?” he asked.

“With Danny.”

“Oh yeah?” He caressed his way up her arms and down her ribs, slipping his hands under the sides of her apron to thumb her hard nipples with a circular motion. His eyes never left hers. “How’d that go for you?”

“Great.”

“Liar.” He smiled into her eyes.

“How do you know?” she asked. She wasn’t going to admit to anything. Marlene tried to channel inner teenager’s defiance. Inner teenager refused to leave her room.

“Danny boy gets on my nerves. We had a talk.”

Marlene blinked.

“Don’t worry. It’s all good. I won’t be turning my back on him when he’s got a knife in his hand, but I’d say we’re cool. Did you have a good time at the casino, sugar?” Joe’s hand slid over her breast, and his familiar touch sent heat all the way to her toes.

“Not really,” she mumbled.

Joe pulled her into his hips, and she lost her train of thought. His semi had become a full on, raging erection, and God help her, she wanted him. “I’m still pissed at you,” she said against his mouth.

“Uh-huh.” Joe nibbled on her upper lip, gently flicking the sensitive inner membrane with the tip of his tongue. His slow kisses contradicted the urgency she could feel in his hard body.

“You should really mind your own business,” she sighed.

“You’re right.” He leaned down to brush his lips against her ear. “I’ve got two pints of Godiva chocolate raspberry truffle ice cream and a beautiful apology just waiting for your invitation.”

His whisper made her shiver. Was she really that easy?

His tongue slid into her ear and she shivered. “My place, after service,” she said.

Joe gave her a gentle push down onto her stool and dropped a kiss on the nape of her neck before he headed back to the line. “Enjoy your lunch,” he said.

“Go to hell,” she called after him, but he was already swinging through the doors. She scooted on her stool, fruitlessly trying to ease the ache in her center. At least she had a consolation sandwich.

Shit.

Marlene shoved the sandwich across her table and jumped up to chase after Joe. She hadn’t given him his prep list.

Joe whistled as he prepped the tenderloins for the wedding. Marlene was on the other side of her baker’s rack, pretending to ignore him. The look on her face when she had told him to meet her at her place? Priceless.

Good thing he was feeling so cheerful. She had given him a monster prep list. Nothing he couldn’t knock out, but who the hell did she think he was? Gordon freaking Ramsay?

Something jogged loose in his brain when Beth walked in to grab a salad
—
the salt in the salad station. The boys at the casino, dressed to kill. Keith. The crème brûlée sabotage. Why hadn’t he thought to ask this before?

“Hey, Beth, did anyone help you plate desserts last weekend?” he asked.

She thought for a moment. “Yeah, I was in the weeds and Anthony offered to give me a hand. Why do you ask?”

“Just curious. We’re going to need some help burning the brûlées for the wedding Saturday night, and I wanted to know who to ask. Thanks, darlin’.” The kid must have gotten inspired after service, because they hadn’t had any complaints until the next night. He smiled at Beth.

She flipped her hair back and gave him a look he’d seen a thousand times. He looked down at the steaks so she wouldn’t think he was hitting on her, and she headed for the dining room with her salads. He shook his head and grinned again, thinking that he had indeed changed if he had just avoided hitting on a cute server.

***

Marlene caught a drip of chocolate just before it hit the bedsheets. The tart, syrupy, raspberry ribbon was a lovely counterpoint to the rich, dark chocolate, and the chewy bits of truffle kept everything interesting. “You forgot the apology,” she reminded him.

“That was the apology.” Joe dipped his spoon into the half-empty pint.

“That little thing?” She waved her spoon at the sheet covering Joe’s waist.

“Thanks, you flatter me.” Joe’s free hand stroked her breast.

“Mmm-hmmm. You know, the first time I had this ice cream, Olivia and I were shopping at the mall. I can’t remember who dropped it, but we were carrying our spoons, rushing to a bench, then we were running after the ice cream as it rolled down the walkway, picking up speed. We were laughing so hard, we almost couldn’t catch it.”

“Your pillow talk is fascinating. Really,” Joe deadpanned.

“I guess you had to be there,” she said. “Fine, you pick a topic.”

Joe pulled her into a headlock. “Let’s talk about your father.”

“Let’s not,” she said pleasantly, throwing a leg over him. She didn’t want anything to ruin her sexed-up ice cream buzz.

“Maybe if we share a few secrets, we won’t have to spend so much time eavesdropping on each other.” His eyes flashed her a sideways challenge.

“You really want to do this?” she asked.

Joe nodded.

Marlene shrugged. “He walked when I was fourteen. Gave my mother custody and just left. He came back a few times, did the ‘My how you’ve grown bit,’ and left again. After him, my mother married three other guys, all assholes, and is currently considering bachelor number five. Her optimism is unparalleled. That’s why I really don’t feel like I have to be part of my father’s pathetic, post-midlife attempt at relationship recovery. Satisfied?”

“Four more husbands, huh? Is bachelor number five the winner?”

“Probably not,” Marlene said dourly.

She squirmed out of Joe’s arms and climbed on top of him. “Your turn.” She balanced the pint of ice cream on his broad chest. “What’s your beef with Frank?”

She watched his eyes gray out and go still, but he held her gaze and didn’t look away.

“He cheated on my mother. More than once, I think. It broke her heart. My mother used to cry and hug me all the time while he was gone. She’d tell me it was going to be all right. That he would always come back. Like I cared.”

She leaned over to erase the shadows from Joe’s eyes with her lips, her body, whatever it took, but he wasn’t finished. “My father made a promise he couldn’t keep, but it didn’t matter. Mom took him back, and I never understood why. I’ve heard, ‘You’re just like your father,’ so many times I’ve lost count, but it isn’t true. I don’t make promises I can’t keep. I’d never tell a woman I was going to stay unless it was true. Marlene, there’s something I need to
—
”

“Shhhhhh.” She covered Joe’s mouth with her own.

They really were perfect for each other, she thought. Pathetic, flawed, and perfect. She didn’t want to settle down because her mother’s marriages had proved beyond doubt that having a mate was not the key to happiness. Joe was afraid to break a promise, so he was never going to make one. Period. She couldn’t quite wrap her head around why those realizations made her feel sad.

She rolled to the side, casually breaking their connection, taking the ice cream with her. “You make your mother sound like a doormat. Why did she put up with Frank? Don’t you think that if it really bothered her, she would have left?”

“Mom said…it didn’t matter. She loved him.”

“Hmmm. Codependency is a bitch.” She kept her voice light.

Joe made a grab for the ice cream, but Marlene held on to it. “I get the rest of the ice cream because you never said you were sorry.”

“In that case
—
” He tossed her to the head of the bed and pressed her knees apart. Marlene ignored him and fished the last big chunk of truffle out of the pint.

Joe lifted his head. “What time do you have to be at work tomorrow?” he asked.

“Early. I still have to ganache the wedding cake. Did you get all the prep done?”

“Most of it. I had to finish service with you, remember?”

Olivia’s lawyer had shown up and taken her out for a late dinner after the second turn. No matter what Olivia said, Sean was hot for her. She could tell. Marlene’s next-guy theory might be tanking for her, but Olivia should batter up. Sean was a good man, a little straight, but perfect for Olivia.

“Right. I forgot about that. Busy day,” she said.

“Even busier tomorrow.”

“What do you mean?” she asked. “I thought you got everything done.”

“Almost everything,” Joe agreed. “But I think I know who’s been sabotaging Chameleon, and it’s time to lay a little trap.”

Marlene shot up straight in the bed. “Tell me,” she demanded.

“Not until I’m sure,” he said, forcing her back underneath him and throwing the covers off the bed. Marlene resisted, but Joe gave her his wicked smile and she went boneless, breathless, and brainless at the same time.

“Just eat your ice cream, sugar. Tomorrow is another day.” He laughed, obviously remembering, like she was, the last time he’d said that to her.

Marlene was torn. There were only a few bites of ice cream left, but curiosity won out over gluttony and her lust reflex, and she shifted to toss him off. Just then, his cold tongue slid against a particularly sensitive bit of flesh, and she froze, exquisitely.

She tapped him on the top of his head with her spoon.

“Yes?”

She gave him a demure smile
—
at least as demure as she could manage while sprawled on her back with her legs over his shoulders
—
then spooned a big glob of ice cream into his mouth.

“You should see what I can do with ice cubes.” Joe opened his mouth for the last bite and bent his head to his task.

Marly sighed and raised her hips. She hadn’t thought about ice cubes since she was a horny teenager watching
9
½
Weeks
. If this was Joe’s form of apology, then he was going to be sorry for a long time, maybe all night. Maybe right up until he headed to California.

Eventually, she would force him to tell her who he thought was causing all the trouble at Chameleon. However, the restaurant was closed now, so she might as well let horny teenager out of her room for the rest of the night. She had some catching up to do.

On Saturday morning, Marlene watched Joe wipe sweat from his forehead and replace his baseball cap. “Feeling in the weeds, cheffie boy?” she asked, giving him an encouraging swat on the ass.

“Never. I was just thinking you might need some help caramelizing the brûlées this afternoon.”

Anthony looked up from the salad dressing he was making with the immersion blender. “I could help,” he said tentatively.

“Sure, that would be great,” she agreed.

“Did you set up the wedding cake yet?” Joe asked.

“What time is it?” Marlene glanced up at the clock. “Shit, no. The wedding party will be here in two hours, and I need to get the flowers on the cake. Have you got things under control in here?”

“Piece of cake,” Joe said.

Marlene walked off the line and into the back room to pull the stacked wedding cake out of the walk-in. Friday had passed in a blur of wedding prep, line prep, lunch service, dinner service, and cleanup. Marlene would have thought that after all that work and a hot, shared shower, she and Joe would have both passed out in bed, comatose. Definitely not the case. When her alarm had gone off early this morning, Joe had pulled her back into bed again.

Her good karma had continued through the day. The wedding cake was a freaking masterpiece of glossy dark chocolate fabulousness. The ganache gods were smiling today. Outright beaming, in fact.

“Hey, Shane, grab the doors,” Marlene called as she came out of the bakeshop. She carefully maneuvered the heavy cake through the swinging doors and into the dining room to set it in the center of the skirted cake table, then returned to the walk-in for the roses and berries. Marlene paused to grab a pair of scissors from her station and roll the one hundred and thirty crème brûlées, lined up on a rolling rack like creamy little soldiers, into the cooler where the cake had been. Most of them were already brûléed. They’d have to finish the rest later.

She carried her tools into the dining room and went to work. Twenty minutes later, she gathered stems, leaves, and empty plastic pints of blackberries and raspberries from the table and chucked them into the bucket from the florist. She stepped back from the table.

With buttercream, no matter how seamlessly she iced the cake, no matter how many times she stroked the palette knife over the icing, she could still see air bubbles and lines. No avoiding it.

But ganache was the great equalizer. All it took was a nice base coat of buttercream and viola! A beautiful blanket of warm chocolate covered all imperfections. The wedding cake had been sublime before she added the flowers. Now that it was sporting a cascade of pink roses, blackberries and raspberries, it was sheer heaven. Marlene was overjoyed. The cake was simple, elegant, and absolutely what it was supposed to be. Her work was done.

Well, not quite. She still had to pinch hit in the kitchen, burn the brûlées, and then cut the cake. Oh, yeah
—
and box it. It was unfair that she should have to assemble it and then completely disassemble it a few hours later, but that was the beauty of weddings. She’d have to sneak a glass of champagne before the cake-cutting ceremony. Cutting the four-tier, messy, chocolate cake and packing it into little tiny white dream boxes might push her over the edge on four hours sleep.

Joe poked his head into the dining room.

“Martha Stewart, eat your heart out,” he said.

“I had the same thought,” she said with satisfaction.

“Gonna save me a piece of that for quality control?”

“I’ll put yours in the freezer.” Marlene slipped a tart raspberry into his mouth. Joe’s even, white teeth gleamed.

“Everything good in the kitchen?” she asked.

“Hell no. Somebody jacked up the heat on my beef demi-glace. It’s pretty toasty, right on the edge of burned. Taste it for me?”

“That’s funny. Somebody cranked the deck ovens too. My brûlées almost roasted. I meant to yell at you guys to watch your damn shoulders when you walk by my ovens.”

“That wasn’t my shoulder, sugar.”

She rolled her eyes.

“Our saboteur is not very original, but that will work to our advantage,” Joe said.

“Are you finally going to clue me in, Chef Sherlock?”

“Nope. You just do your thing. I don’t want you to give it away.”

“My little poker demo at the cabin didn’t convince you I can bluff? You’re starting to annoy me.”

“You’ll live. Just in case our little devil has an original thought, do you have a dowel in that cake?”

“Duh.”

Marlene had doweled the cake before she put it in the walk-in. She’d had to stand on a stool to hammer the stick through the layers of cardboard and cake to create the central support for her confection. Each tier had several wooden dowels for internal support, of course, but for real security, nothing could beat a long, sharp stick.

“Good,” Joe said. “Keep an eye on it anyway.”

“Sure thing, Sherlock. You want some chocolate for your sauce?” she asked.

“Chocolate isn’t going to help my sauce, sugar. Now, if you’re trying to cheer me up, you could bring me a piece of your chocolate cheesecake. That might help.”

She led Joe back to the bakeshop. “Didn’t they teach you anything in culinary school?” Marlene pierced the wrap on the Callebaut bittersweet that her father had brought her the other day. At least he was good for something.

“Here,” she said, handing Joe a chunk of chocolate. “Change out your stockpot and stir that in. See if it gets rid of the bite.”

Olivia paused on her way to the walk-in and noticed the chocolate in Joe’s hand. “Burn your sauce, cowboy?” she asked.

“Does everyone know this trick but me?” Joe scowled as he left the bakeshop.

“Apparently,” Olivia called after him. Joe flipped her the bird.

Marlene giggled. “Hey, how come you always call him cowboy?” she asked.

“You’ve watched him work sauté, right?” Olivia raised an eyebrow.

Marlene nodded.

“I’ve seen him run the board with ten tables fired and a pan on every burner. He’s a sauté cowboy, all right, never loses a dish.”

Marlene groaned. “God, that turns me on.”

Olivia shook her head and tucked her bangs under her hat. “Admit it: you’re a goner.”

“Keep it up, Olivia. I’m sure I’ve got your parents’ cell phone number around here somewhere.”

“Don’t you dare. Nonna Lucia is bad enough.” Olivia bit her lip. She was going to wear a groove in that thing before her grandmother’s plane landed tonight. “You really think we can pull this off?”

“We have to. But I want to know what Joe has going on. I’m not cooking in the dark anymore.”

She’d been too busy prepping yesterday to force the truth out of him, but now that the cake was done and everything else was ready to roll, Marlene wanted answers. No more Chef Sherlock.

“Come on.” She dragged Olivia toward the line.