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It had merit. I wasn’t sure I was capable of being sexy at work. I take my work in the kitchen seriously. But I did not want to lose my job because I lost my cool and snapped at Sean. Besides, Sean did not seem rattled by the kiss we had shared. Unlike me, who had given it way too much air time in my own head. My ego was dented just enough that I wanted to see if I could get a reaction from him.
Dakota handed me a pair of jeans that were at least one size too small for me. “Try these on.”
“I can’t work if I can’t move,” I grumbled, but I dutifully took them.
A few minutes later she was modeling her revised outfit with pants while I came out in the jeans. “You look so hot,” she said. “Isla, oh my God. Those jeans were made for you.”
They were surprisingly comfortable. They must have been made of something stretchy like Lycra. I wasn’t used to working in clothes that tight, but I didn’t wear baggy stuff normally either. This wouldn’t be a huge adjustment to make. I was willing to try it. I’d rather distract Sean with flirtation than do something shady like tossing salt in his dish.
I wanted to compete with him on a level playing field when it came to cuisine. I was convinced I was just as good of a chef as he was and someday Nico and Sid would recognize that. I didn’t want to win by ruining his food. Being cute wasn’t cheating, was it?
Nope.
He didn’t know how I normally dressed for work. Even if he did, so what? Maybe my style was evolving. There was just one kink in this plan. Actually, there were a lot of kinks in the plan starting with the fact that I was more a cynic than seductress and wouldn’t say that my flirting was super polished. I was more straightforward. When I liked a man, I told him.
The biggest issue was that what if he just quit? I would still get fired.
But not even that was my biggest concern. I had one fear that bothered me more than the others. Failure. What if I flirted and he was completely and totally disinterested?
“What if Sean doesn’t think I’m hot?” I asked, then immediately regretted that I’d said that out loud.
“Then Sean is a bigger jerk than we even gave him credit. No straight man will be unmoved by you in those jeans.”
She said it so vehemently I felt compelled to believe her.
“Fine. Here goes nothing, right? It’s just the rest of my career on the line. No pressure at all.”
“You’ve got this.” She gave me a double thumbs up and a wink at the same time.
My butt did look good. I gave it another glance. No more overalls. Time to bring all my assets to the kitchen.
Between my butt and my ability to irritate the hell out of Sean, he’d be losing his cool and screaming blood murder in the kitchen Gordon Ramsey-style in no time flat.
Five
“Hi there,” Isla said, breezing into the kitchen Monday at two.
I turned to greet her and almost dropped the knife I was holding. She was in the tightest jeans I had ever seen in my entire life, outlining every curve of her luscious body. With heels. Both times I had seen her prior to this, she’d been wearing flat boots. Biker boots. “Kick someone’s ass or ride a motorcycle” boot. Why the hell was she wearing heels now, to work?
“Hi,” I said. “How was your weekend?” Be polite. Do not flirt. I’d been reminding myself of that all afternoon. I needed to keep this position. I needed the experience running the kitchen as executive chef so that in a couple of years when I left to open my own restaurant, I would have the confidence and the connections I needed to be a success right out of the gate.
“Hmm,” she said, giving me a small smile. She peeled her scarf off and walked to the storage room, her hips rolling in those tight jeans, her tight ass taunting me.
That was all she said. She didn’t elaborate.
I slammed the side of my knife down onto a clove of garlic with my fist.
When she returned she was humming, looking relaxed.
I knew this mood on a woman. It was obvious to me that her weekend had included getting naked with some lucky bastard. Friday she had been grumpy and sarcastic. Now she had the ease and contentment of someone who had enjoyed multiple orgasms on the days in between. She reached up and pulled her hair up into a ponytail, exposing her belly button. I wanted to dip my tongue into that depression and trail a path with my lips down into her jeans and straight to her warm, wet sex. I wanted to taste her while she moaned my name.
I chopped like the garlic had offended the fuck out of me.
Why did the idea of her getting nailed by a mystery man irritate the hell out of me?
Because I hadn’t been nailing anyone. Nor did I really want to nail anyone else. I wanted to nail her. I’d been alone in my apartment wishing I was at the playground with Isla.
“Prep the rub, please,” I said, striving to sound efficient but not grumpy. I clearly didn’t succeed because she gave me a look.
