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I’ve always loved cooking, but my home has a tiny kitchen and what little money I have for food budgeting does not include the best cuts of meat or name brand items. Our meal plan for the next two days cost more than what I usually spend on myself in two weeks. This is definitely an unconventional vacation, but who am I to turn down the opportunity to eat healthy, delicious meals, even if I’m the one who’s cooking?
“Something smells good.” Kodiche pops into the kitchen and looks into the pan. “I thought I said steak?”
“You did, sir.” I chance a quick glance as I call him that. The way his nostrils flare tells me I've got a reaction from him; I like knowing that. “You didn’t say how you wanted it served, so I opted to make my mother’s Swiss steak. Sir.” I add the honorific a little late but squeak it out before he can respond.
“I normally put it on the grill.”
“Well, you told me to cook dinner, and I’ve made Swiss steak. It’s good. I promise. Do you want to taste the sauce?” I offer him the spoon, cupping my hand beneath it to avoid spilling tomato sauce onto the white tile flooring.
I didn’t know a man licking a spoon could be so erotic, but it is. The way his tongue drags across it . . . I clench my legs together to stop my pussy from begging to be touched, to have his mouth on me down there. Kodiche takes his time tasting, winking at me as he closes his lips over the spoon’s bowl and tugging. “If all your dishes are this good, maybe I’ll keep you here longer than seven days.”
I clear my throat and look around the kitchen. “Could you please show me where you keep the plates, silverware, and glasses for dinner?”
“I think they’re in the dining room. I’ll go check.” Vulnerability steals across his face, shutting down the teasing passion in his eyes. “I know there are serving dishes in the cabinet to your right.”
He doesn’t return from his search, but he is waiting for me in the dining room when I enter with the serving platter of our meal with a bottle of red wine held out in offering. “I found where the dishes are stored.” He shifts from foot to foot. “I don’t cook,” he says in some sort of explanation. “When I do, not here.”
“At your girlfriend’s house?” I ask pointedly while ladling the sauce and pasta onto his plate.
“No. I don’t think I’ve had one of those since high school. Wait. There was a girl in college, but that was just like two nights and a lot of tequila.” Noticing my shock at his admission, Kodiche shrugs one shoulder. “I don’t have time for serious dating. There’s been a long string of women, but nothing real before I send them on their way. I’m too busy to settle down.
“When my dad was ready to hand over the company, I had to prove myself to the shareholders. If I ever have time to really date someone, she would have to be someone they approve of or they’d throw a royal fit. They do that enough. Our profits last quarter netted them each two hundred and fifty grand, and they still sit on their thumbs and bitch at me.” The sarcasm is a new sound to my ears. In my time as his employee, I’ve never heard anything but professionalism pass his lips.
“Sir?” I question. I don’t know exactly how he wants me to respond, and while I want to make him feel better, overstepping our delicate bounds won’t help.
“To answer what you’re really trying to get at, I don’t have a girlfriend nor any wife or ex-wife who will come waltzing into LaManse and question you as to why you’re here.”
That wasn’t exactly what I wanted to know, but it is reassuring that it’s less likely someone will stumble in on me with my mouth around his shaft. “What about your parents?” I ask.
“Mother is bed-ridden. She has been ill for a number of years. Father dotes on her but he’s mostly enamored with whichever nurse he’s hired. Mother doesn’t mind; she’s barely awake long enough to notice who is in the room with her. I went to visit her this morning while you were running my errands. She thought I was my brother.” Kodiche takes a large bite and chews it thoughtfully, sometimes running a finger around the rim of his wineglass to make it resonate.
“He’s out in Maine with his wife and their unruly mob of children. He handles our international accounts, but that’s mostly so he can stay on the payroll with minimal effort.”
“I didn’t know you had a brother.” The small talk, despite it’s odd turn, does not seem forced. It feels like he’s unburdening himself to me. “Is he anything like you?”
Kodiche’s laugh is so loud and long that I can’t help but smile. “Oh, God! No. Origen is nothing like me. At least, that’s what my sister always said.”
I file all this away into my memory. “I didn't know you had a sister, either.” How many siblings does he have?
The slam of his fist on the table silences me, ending the question in the middle. “She was the most important person to me in all the world, and that’s all you need to know about her.” We’re back to the angry whispering it seems.
We eat quietly for five minutes or so, until Kodiche cleans his plate. “Can I get you more, sir?”
He nods, giving me a tense smile as his thanks when I sit down again. “I normally stay at my apartment near the office. It’s easier for me to get in when things inevitably get fucked up on the production floor. I never have guests unless it’s for a work event, and those I get catered. Entertaining is a waste of time. More wine?” he asks.
“Just a little. I don’t drink much.” I wait until he pours for both of us, then ask what has been bugging me all day. “With how busy you are, how busy we both are at the office, how could you manage to swing seven days of not being there?”
The smirk that I’ve grown to love over the years comes back with a playful wink. “I’m the boss. I can do anything.”
“Unless I fuck it up by spilling coffee,” I whisper.
“There is that. Vivian, I need you to get your shit together. If you fail at this, I’m going to fail, too. I need you at one hundred percent.” His words are heavy, not with the sense of trying to make me feel guilty over my mistakes, but more to let me know why he has me here—even if I don’t quite understand it.
Standing, he says, “I’ll see you at six-thirty for breakfast.” Then he sweeps out of the room, wine glass in one hand and the nearly empty bottle in the other. I long to cry out in frustration. We were actually talking; I was learning about him, and then he just shut down as if I pushed the wrong button. Being closed out like that makes me want to leave these dirty dishes here and walk out, but I can’t. I promised him I’d do anything it takes to prove I can listen and obey his commands.
Pouting over being abandoned to clean up the kitchen by myself, I can admit to slamming drawers and cabinets a bit roughly as I put things away. There would be no bringing to life a fantasy I had when I first got the job of him coming up behind me as I washed the dishes at my apartment and having him fuck me on the counter. At least he has a huge dishwasher and all the cleaning supplies it needs to work. I let it do the actual washing while I go get ready for bed. Given his mercurial moods, I know he could wake me at any time.
If he can get me to wake up.
I’ve always been a heavy sleeper and have a hard time getting going in the mornings. Exhaustion will do that to a person. My plan is to set my phone alarm to go off a few times to make sure I hear at least one of them so I can get up, shower, and be ready for the day before Kodiche is even awake. Maybe he’ll surprise me in the shower?
I slip into the negligee he left on my bed, admiring the way the red silk drifts over my curves. Sleeping alone in something like this is a true waste.
This whole house is beyond my wildest dreams, and having it just be Kodiche here is depressing. Even sadder is the lingering arousal making me fantasize going into his room and asking him if he likes how the silk looks on me. I cannot remember the last time I felt something so soft, so decadent, and I fall asleep stroking my stomach through the fabric, thoughts still on my gorgeous boss in the next room.
I awake to pounding, and I pull my pillow over my head. The ne
ighbors must have started the work on their new garage a few weeks early. “Go the fuck to sleep,” I mutter before the sound registers in my waking brain. I don't have to be at the hospital until later, so all I want to do is sleep in and—the noise comes again, harder than before.
It’s not construction, it’s someone pounding on a door!
In a burst of terror I remember where I am. I must have overslept; I struggle to make my muscles obey my panicked demands to get out of bed, and I am barely out from under the covers and on my feet when the door opens with a slam against the wall.
“Kneel!” He’s furious, lips thin with disappointment and anger. Black pajama pants ride low on his hips, showing his muscled and taut abdomen with all the veins begging to be licked where they disappear into the waistband . . . “This,” Kodiche snaps while waving his hand at me, “is exactly what I was afraid of. This is pointless, a waste of my time. You just won’t learn.”
6
The bedroom floor is cold beneath my bare legs, making me tremble while he circles around me—marking me as his prey. Adrenaline courses through me, and maybe it’s the naughty dream he woke me from, but a new shiver awakens in me. I’m not ready to let go of my job—or Kodiche—without a fight. The way he felt beneath my hands and mouth when I sucked him is worth this when I think about how we talked at dinner. There’s so much more to him, and I want to find out who he really is. I think part of that is what I saw in the book in his private library, the one about a dom and sub.
