Chef's Delight (Stories of Serendipity) (10 page)

“And now, we’re doing too much talking.”  He stood, and walked over to Jessie.  Standing in front of her, he looked down, holding out his hand.  She looked up into his cerulean eyes, seeing a heat there that would melt glaciers.  Swallowing past the lump in her throat, she slipped her hand into his.

Connor yanked Jessie out of her chair and hauled her body against him.  His mouth came crashing against hers in a searing kiss.  Tongues entwining, at war with each other for dominance, their lips were sucking, hungrily.  Breaking away from the kiss for air, Jessie’s breathing was ragged.

“Connor.”  She gasped.

“Yeah…”  His hands hadn’t stopped moving.  They were caressing her back, while his mouth moved down her jaw, to the place where her neck and shoulders met.

“What song have you been listening to?”  She was curious, if it was the reason for this sudden change of heart.

“S.E.X.”  His mouth kept moving across her neck, as he spouted some of the lyrics into her heated skin.

The lyrics themselves made something ache in Jessie’s groin, but hearing them in Connor’s husky, desire-laden voice was what tipped her over the edge.  She groaned and leaned into him, slipping her hands under his coat, then his shirt to feel his skin.

Connor started in on his buttons, shrugging off his coat, lips never leaving Jessie’s throat. He looked at her, as he pulled his tee shirt over his head, then their lips were on each other’s again, as he lifted her shirt over her breasts, hands fondling them through her bra. 

She pulled away to see what she’d been lusting after for these last few weeks.  Connor stood there, looking at her with hooded eyes, his breaths making his chest heave.  And what a chest it was.  Chiseled, taut muscles, a light dusting of golden hair across the chest, and a sweet little trail traveling down, where his jeans hung low over his tapered hips.  Jessie grabbed his hips and pulled him against her, feeling the erection that she had seen straining against his zipper.  She tasted his chest, running sloppy kisses across from nipple to nipple, teasing and licking with her tongue.

Connor groaned, as his hand went around to her rear, squeezing it before grasping it and picking her up to set Jessie on top of the table.  He yanked her shirt over her head and unclasped her bra, letting her breasts fall loose into his hands.  Then he stood back to look at her.

Jessie could see desire in his eyes.  They had darkened to an almost navy color, and his lids were heavy.  She could hardly breathe with anticipation.  She had fantasized about this man for so long, it seemed, and now, here he was.  He was a perfect specimen of a man, and the way he looked at her right now made her toes curl.  He dropped to his knees and buried his face in her stomach, while his hands went to work on the button and zipper of her jeans.  His mouth was making love to her navel, and she had never experienced the sensuality his tongue evoked, working its way around her belly button, before encircling it completely with his warm, wet, mouth.  She felt the sensation in her toes.

She gasped, as his mouth went lower.  Jessie leaned back on one elbow to give him better access, while one hand stretched to his hair.  He pulled her jeans to her ankles, and raised her legs over his head, so her knees were on his shoulders. 

Then Connor’s mouth took Jessie’s breath away.

His tongue lightly flicked over her pearl of pleasure, as his hands kneaded the insides of her thighs, spreading them wider.  Connor’s tongue flicked faster and harder, then he would stop and suck on the nub, sending Jessie into convulsions.  She felt the heat travel through her body, as waves of pleasure rippled through her core.  Bringing Jessie to the edge several times, he never led her completely over.  Jessie was gasping with bliss, not wanting the sensations to end, yet feeling as if she couldn’t take any more of the torture he was inducing.

“Connor…Please…”

She could see his face rise up over the apex of her thighs, a satisfied smirk on his face.  “What, Jessie?”

“Please…Just do it.”

“Do what?”  His hands, which had been rubbing her thighs, slowly moved up higher.  Finding her folds, one hand slipped a finger inside her, while the other hand teased the spot his tongue had tasted.

Connor’s eyes were on Jessie the entire time.

She couldn’t speak.  As soon as his skilled fingers discovered her moistness, they went to work, and Jessie was incoherent.

A sharp pain in Jessie’s arm managed to break through the haze of wantonness. When she looked at her bicep, she shrieked, sitting up rapidly on the table, causing Connor to fall to the floor.

A shard of mirrored glass was embedded in Jessie’s arm, and blood oozed from the wound.

“What the hell?”  She asked, mystified, through the sudden pain.  She looked at Connor, who jumped up from the floor, and stared at her arm, mouth agape.

“How did that happen?”  He demanded, eyes traveling from her arm to her face.

“I don’t know.  Help me get it out.”  Jessie touched it tentatively, wincing at the surge of pain her touch inflicted.

An unexpected blast of frigid air hit Jessie’s body, as she sat on the table, naked except for the jeans around her ankles.  Goosebumps popped up over her body and she shivered.

They both tensed when they heard the laughter.

A woman was laughing near them.  It was an eerie sound, echoing in their ears.

Jessie looked at Connor, the look of fear on his face had to mirror her own.  “Is there somebody else here?”  He shook his head, mouth open with shock.

Jessie jumped off the table, grimacing when she reached down for her pants.  “Get this thing out of me.  Now.”  She said through gritted teeth.

Connor held her arm still with one massive hand encircling the bicep, while his other hand yanked the shard of glass out in one fluid movement.  Blood started pouring out of the wound.

“I think you should go to the emergency room.  This looks like it needs stitches.”

“Yeah.  I think you’re right.  Hand me my clothes, please.”  Connor reached to the floor and grabbed her clothes, then he leaned over to a nearby table and plucked a linen napkin off it, he held it against her arm.  Then he grabbed another napkin and tied it around the wound, creating a makeshift dressing.

“After you dress, I’ll take you.”

Jessie had put her bra on, but couldn’t fasten the clasp.  Her arm wasn’t moving.  “I’ve got to get out of here.  Now.”  Connor fastened it for her, and helped her into her shirt.

“Yeah.  I get that.  Let’s go.”

While they were on the way to the hospital, Connor looked over at Jessie, his hand on her leg.

“Do you know what happened?”

She shook her head.  “No.  I don’t.  Did you hear…laughing?”  She really needed some sort of reassurance she wasn’t going crazy.  Her mind kept picturing the woman in the mirror from her first night at the restaurant, how angry she looked, and Summer’s warnings.

“Yes…I did.  I’ve heard lots of weird things in that house, since I’ve moved here.  But nothing’s ever…hurt anybody before.”  As she looked at Connor, he visibly shuddered, and tightened his grip on her leg.

“Like what?  What weird things?”

He expelled a long breath.  “Like floor boards creaking, old music playing, that kind of stuff.  And the mirror…”

“The silver one?”

He looked at her.  “Yeah.  The one you were holding the other night.  I keep putting it away, throwing it away, even.  I’ve even broken it.”  His face paled, and his voice lowered to a whisper. “And it keeps coming back.”

She felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand up.  “I saw a woman in it…that night.  Standing behind me.  I thought it was my imagination, Summer had been saying stuff about a woman, and I thought I had let her get to me.”

His hand clenched her leg painfully at her declaration, but he relaxed it quickly.  He was looking at her intently.  “What did Summer say?”

“She kept saying she saw a woman standing in the corner by the stairs, and she was angry at me.  Summer…she’s sensitive to stuff like that.  Or at least she says she is…I’ve never put much stock in it.  But that’s why she left early that night.  She was spooked.”

“I’ve never seen anyone in the house.” Connor said quietly.  “One morning, the windows in my bedroom had fogged up, though.  Just my room, none of the others, and something had written on one of the windows.”

“What did they write?”

“Mine.”

“This is so weird.”

“Yeah.  I believe I’ll be staying with Luke in the carriage house for a while, until I can figure all this out.”

At the ER, Jessie told the nurses, she had accidentally stabbed her arm with a piece of broken glass, which was as close to the truth as she was willing to get.  They looked at her bruised face with raised eyebrows, then assessed Connor, who shrugged.  When they saw in her chart that this was the second night in a row she had visited, the nurses stifled more questions.  Eight stitches later, they were on their way back to Connor’s, where Jessie’s truck was.  They were quiet on the ride there, each lost in their own thoughts.

After pulling into the parking lot, Connor looked at Jessie, resting his hand on the back of her neck.  “Look, tomorrow I need to talk to Luke about…all this.  And some other stuff.  I’m going to talk to him about doing some stuff to your place, if that’s okay.”

“Sure.  Call me sometime tomorrow.  Okay?” 

He pulled her closer and kissed her.  “I really want to finish what we started.”  His voice was husky, and it sent a warm pool of melted tummy straight to her toes.

“Me too.”  She kissed him again, trying to convey her need for him, before releasing him and getting out of the truck.