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She had, perhaps, an hour before Carter would be back from the evening meeting he had been obliged to attend. She rifled through his kitchen until she found a baking pan, still wrapped in plastic. She removed it and placed it in the bin. The rest of the kitchen was in a similar state of disuse. Most of the implements she required were still in their manufacturer’s packaging.
As she had done a thousand times before, she prepared dinner, but this time felt different. She realised she’d cooked out of necessity for Anita and Jenna. Out of gratitude and a need to keep the home running. That night, she was cooking out of something else. Anticipation and excitement. The pleasure she took in preparing a meal for Carter was wholly unexpected.
She set the timer on the oven and padded towards his bedroom.
Everything was as she would expect it to be. Bed made (she knew a cleaner came and did that each day, once he’d left). The air had a slight, lingering hint of his aftershave and she breathed it in deeply.
She had no desire to think about a time when she would no longer smell that. When she would no longer be free to touch him. That day would come, but for the moment, he was as much hers as he would ever be anyone’s.
She changed quickly; out of the utilitarian jeans and shirt she tended to run around in each day, and into a far more sophisticated cream dress. It was scooped at the front and clung to her body, down to her knees on one side and mid-thigh on the other. The asymmetrical hemline was one of her favourite things about it.
The music in the kitchen stopped playing for a second, then resumed. With a frown, she moved towards her phone and lifted it out of the mug.
A text message blinked on the front.
I can’t wait to see you.
Her pulse began to simmer. Before she could reply, he messaged again. Where are you?
She lifted the phone and snapped a photo of herself, with the unmistakable background of his kitchen tiles behind her. She sent it to him with the caption, Waiting for you, like a good employee. It was a joke, but also, a reminder. To both of them. Her feelings for him were rapidly becoming very real, but he didn’t need to know that.
My kitchen’s never looked so good.
She put the phone down, and held a hand to her heart. It was thundering against her breast.
What I want to do to you on that big, cold island bench will have to wait, unfortunately.
Unconsciously, she ran a hand over the slab of marble while she waited for him to elaborate. He was a rapid-fire texter. She’d come to realise that he shot a message, then followed up almost instantly with another. This time, though, her phone didn’t bleep again.
Impatiently, she sent him a question mark.
It crossed over with his next message – a picture in response to hers.
Two heads – his and Karina’s, smiling at the screen. It looked like it was taken in the back of his powerful limousine.
Worse for her heart rate than the idea of being ravaged by him on the bench, this was so sweet, and so normal, that she had to put her phone down again. She didn’t want to think of him in that way. As just a regular Joe. He wasn’t. He was an incredibly wealthy and influential guy, who had offered her money because he found her attractive. Who had wanted to own her, as much as any one person could own another. She was, in some ways, his slave. Not his girlfriend.
But she was also under his skin. That much had been proven by his reaction the night before. His protectiveness was a sign that he wanted to keep her from being hurt. And she trusted him. He would probably end up hurting her anyway, because, in their dynamic, he had all the power. But it would be an inevitable result of her caring for him more than he did her. And she knew, somehow, that he would do everything he could to protect her.
For a girl who’d spent the last six years caring for everyone else, and being strong, it was very nice to let someone else fuss over her for a while.
She was sitting on a stool in the kitchen making some notes in her notepad when the apartment door opened inwards a short while later.
Karina and Carter were in mid-conversation, but Carter stood still when he saw her. His eyes flashed from her, to the bench, and she knew what he was thinking. His desire communicated itself to her easily, and it found purchase in the blood of her veins. They simmered with barely contained need.
“God, Carter, it smells like home in here!” Karina enthused.
Carter nodded. “Why do I suspect you’ve gone against my express wishes
and not ordered take-out?”
Jane stood with an unconscious elegance, unfolding her tanned legs and placing her bare feet on the tiled floor. Her dress was pure sexy glamour, but the bare feet with unpainted nails were what made Carter harden in his pants.
“It’s nothing. No trouble.”
He furrowed his brow, his handsome face wearing a perfect expression of consternation. “I don’t think my kitchen’s ever been used to make more than toast.”
“I can well believe it,” Jane said with a smile. “I had to unwrap most everything I cooked with.”
