Burn (Heat #1)(11)

"Brendon and I are done." I rest my hand on the edge of the bar as I slide from the stool to my feet. "He's part of my past. I don't think about him. I sure as hell don't want to talk about him, Chef. If he pissed you off, take it up with him. I'm going home."

"You're leaving?"

He can't be surprised that I'm not hanging around for more of the non-stop Brendon verbal beatings, can he? "Thank you for the drink. It was delicious. I'm going to find my roommate and call it a night."

"Your roommate didn't look like she was ready to leave yet." He pulls a few bills from the front pocket of his jeans and tosses them on the bar. "Let me take you home, Cadence. I was thinking of going home myself."

I turn toward the rumbling energy of the club, knowing that I'm likely going to have to listen to him berate my ex for at least another twenty minutes until I finally find peace in the solace of my apartment.

***

"So you worked at Axel Boston and then moved to New York when you opened Nova?" I close my eyes as the rush from a cool breeze sweeps over us.

We're standing on the sidewalk outside my building. We rode here together in a taxi, Tyler's leg brushing against mine with each corner the driver took. I didn't move, even though I knew I should have. I liked the contact, as innocent as it was.

Surprisingly, as soon as we exited the club, Brendon's name never came up again. Tyler talked about his career, and the time he'd spent nurturing his craft back in Boston. He was born and raised there and after he had worked his way to the position of executive chef at Axel Boston, he made the decision to invest with Hunter Reynolds and another man to launch Nova in New York.

I sat quietly, soaking in all the details of how we went from sous chef to restaurateur. It's a path I want to follow too. My journey to get my own restaurant may not mimic his, but I'll make it happen. I'm determined and I have talent to back up my drive.

"I worked briefly at Axel NY before Nova opened." He glances down at the sidewalk. "My sister lives here with her family. It made the decision to move to New York that much easier."

"We must have just missed each other at Axel." I smile brightly. "I was there for more than a year."

"I wish I would have worked with you there, Cadence." He reaches up to brush a piece of windblown hair from my forehead. "I would have stolen you away to work with me sooner."





CHAPTER 11


I had ached for him to kiss me on the sidewalk in front of my apartment. He might have if the woman, who lives above me, hadn't brushed past us with her hands holding tightly to a large cardboard box. As she struggled to unlock the door to our building, Tyler had taken the box from her. He followed her inside, with me falling in step behind both of them.

We rode the elevator up to her floor together. I stood in the lift, pressing the button to hold the doors as he helped her lug the box inside her place. I didn’t ask if he wanted to come in when I stepped off the elevator on my floor and walked to my door to unlock it. He stepped over the threshold, closing the door behind him.

"It felt like that box was filled with bricks," he finally says with a grin. "Is your neighbor a bricklayer, Cadence?"

I shrug my shoulders as I take a step toward him. "She might be. I don't talk much to my neighbors."

"You know why it slays me that he touched you, don't you?"

I would be startled by the abrupt shift in conversation if I didn't know who he's talking about. "I know why, yes."

There's a brief moment of hesitation before he steps toward me. "You deserve better than that. A woman like you deserves someone…"

"Like you?" I interrupt as my hands clench together in front of me.

"Like me," he repeats with an arch of his brow. "You've felt the same thing I have since that first day in the restaurant."

"What have I felt?" My hands skim over the fabric covering my stomach. "The draw toward you? The wonder about what it would be like?"

His eyes follow the path of my hands. "What it will be like between us. What it will feel like when I kiss you, when I…"

"When you touch me," I say brazenly as my right hand inches up my body, over my breast to my neck.

He's on me before another word falls from my lips. One hand curves around the back of my neck, the other grips my waist. He nudges his nose along my jawline, pulling in my scent, moaning as he trails his lips along my skin.

"You've been torturing me," he whispers into my skin. "The way you smell, the sound of your voice."

"You don't touch the women you work with," I say softly. "I know the rule."

His lips press into mine, soft and warm. The kiss is as tender as the low groan that spills out of him. "I've never worked with a woman like you."

I give in then, fisting the fabric of his black sweater as I open my mouth and let his tongue glide over mine.

***

"Don't move, Cadence." His breath rushes over my ass. "I'll eat your cunt again if you move."

Is that a threat? If it is, I'm about to wiggle my ass uncontrollably just so I can get that talented tongue of his back onto my heated flesh.

The man is as good in the bedroom as he is in the kitchen. He licked my cleft slowly, excruciatingly slowly, until I practically begged him to get me off. He did with his tongue flicking my clit, and his finger inside me, honed in on the spot that drives me wild. If they gave out Michelin stars for what he just did to me, he would have a dozen.