“Prickly?”
Tyler hefted a bag of flour onto his prep table. “Yeah. I met a guy just like that back in the army. Wouldn’t give me a spare bootlace when mine snapped because it was my fucking problem, not his. Then there was a fuckup with his pay and I offered to loan him fifty bucks. He almost tore my head off, trying to figure out what my angle was.”
“Your angle? What angle?”
“Exactly,” Tyler said. “Dude had a fucked-up life, it turned out. Great guy, but it took about two solid years and a whole lot of going through shit together for him to admit I was his friend.” He nodded toward the door to the front of the store. “I get the same vibe, you know?”
I thought on that while we worked, prepping everything we needed for tomorrow and then cleaning up. I thought there was something going on with Chase as well. His panic in the walk-in, his mistrust of everything decent I tried to do for him, and hell, even his peanut butter sandwich. I couldn’t quite tell what kind of picture those things all painted, but it wasn’t going to be a pretty one.
We finished cleaning up and once Tyler had headed out, I stuck my head through the door and said, “Chase, when you lock up, come to the back for a minute.”
He rolled his eyes but went and flipped the sign. Then he came into the kitchen, his feet dragging.
“Okay,” I said, leaning against a prep table. “So, the deal is this. Bobby wants everything made fresh, so any leftovers at the end of the day that we don’t manage to sell for pennies in the last hour, we split up. Otherwise they just end up feeding rats in the nearest dumpster. If you get hungry on shift or you didn’t bring lunch, just come back and grab something. Don’t ring it up. That shit’s already covered in the books, okay? Like, don’t eat an entire fucking tray of brownies or anything. Just be reasonable about it, is what I’m saying.”
He narrowed his eyes. “Why are you telling me this?”
“Because I saw that you were gonna pay for your quiche at lunch. But you don’t need to. You don’t even need to bring peanut butter sandwiches.”
He looked outraged. “Ilikepeanut butter!”
“Then keep eating it! But for the record, nobody cares if you grab a cookie as well, okay?”
“Fine. I’ll eat your cookies,” he said and somehow made it sound like he was doing me a favor, the little shit.
“Fine,” I said.
He crossed his arms over his chest. “Fine.”
It was like talking to a brick wall.
I dragged my hand through my hair. “Okay, that’s all. I’ll see you tom?—”
And then, just like in the walk-in, Chase was all over me. I wasn’t expecting it any more than last time, but I rolled with it, because who wouldn’t? Chase was a prickly asshole, but he was cute when he was angry. To be fair, he might have been cute when he wasn’t angry too, but who knew? He was always angry.
He shoved me up against the table. I got my hands on his hips, spun us around, and shoved him back. He made a sound somewhere between a growl and a laugh and nipped at my bottom lip, his breath hot against my skin, and just that was enough to have my earlier erection come surging back. He stared at me, grinning and out of breath, and yeah, he was cute when he wasn’t angry too. Then he lifted himself up onto the table and hooked a leg around my ass, dragging me forward. I went willingly, sliding my hands under his shirt, then running them down his back and tracing his skinny frame. His skin was warm and soft, and my cock ached as I imagined folding him in half like a lawn chair and fucking him right here on the prep table. I leaned in and kissed him again, hard and desperate, and he responded by wrapping his arms around my back and pressing our bodies together, his erection a solid line in his khakis. Then he leaned back, taking his weight on his arms and spreading his knees wide in invitation. It was hot as fuck. He stared at me, chin tilted in a challenge.
And then he said, “Well?”
“Well what?” I asked.
He raised his eyebrows. “Well,boss. Are you gonna fuck me on this prep table like we both want, or are you gonna chicken out like a goddamn coward?”
Holy shit.
I stared at him as he waited for the answer, the usual voice of reason in the back of my head just white noise at this point, and I wondered exactly the same thing that Chase did.
Was I going to do it, or not?
CHAPTER 7
CHASE
It took about half a second for Lee’s dick to override his brain, just like I knew it would. He had such a stick up his ass about being my boss that it felt good to know I was calling the shots when it came to this. I didn’t like the guy—I especially didn’t like how he kept doing things that made mewantto like him—but he was hot. I’d always had a thing for beefy guys. Always had a thing for knocking stuck-up assholes down a peg or two as well, so Lee ticked that box too.
And I had such a thing forthisbeefy, stuck-up asshole that after I’d jerked off again last night to the mental image of him bending me over a prep table and railing me, I’d figuredwhat the hell. I’d seen him sneaking looks at my ass, and I was pretty sure he was into me, even if he pretended he wasn’t. And I hadn’t gotten laid in forever. I might as well try and make this happen—which was why there was a condom stashed in the front pocket of my khakis right now, and I was leaning back against the table and spreading myself out like a buffet in an effort to get him to fuck me.
And it looked like those efforts were about to pay off.
