Cooking up a Storm (21 page)

‘I’m not going to take you to some crab shack,’ he’d huffed.

She laughed the way women do when they think men are acting like, well, men. This made him so grumpy he ordered for both of them, which he knew was not something an enlightened modern male should do, no matter how superior his taste.

She didn’t complain, though, just draped her sweater over the back of the chair and gazed out of the huge picture window. The bill he’d slipped into the
maitre d
’s palm had ensured them a table with a view. ‘Look, there’s another pod of whales,’ she said, pointing towards the sweep of the bay. ‘See that big fellow breaching? Oh, what a splash!’

Storm tugged his earlobe. She looked happy. Her cheeks were glowing. Her eyes sparkled. Could she be enjoying herself? He felt so stupid, as though his normally infallible instincts had abandoned him. Apparently, making a woman fall in love was a lot easier when you weren’t actually trying to do it.

She spoke of her childhood over the entrée. Her father liked to take them beachcombing at sunrise, she said, and her sister Sandra always overslept, then swore they let her just to be mean. ‘Francine was the family tease, after Dad, that is. One morning, she made a tape of Sandra snoring through our wake-up call just to prove we’d tried.’ Abby’s eyes danced at the memory. ‘Sandra hated being proved wrong worse than anything. I thought she’d never speak to Frannie again. Of course, if anyone pestered either of us, Frannie was the first to punch the offender in the nose. Dad called her “his little scrapper”.’

‘What did he call you?’ Storm asked, happy to listen to the stories. He knew such things were the coin of friendship. If Jack Weston was her friend, by God, Storm would be, too.

Abby rolled her eyes. ‘Dad called me “his little princess”, which annoyed Sandra so much she started calling me Princess Butterball.’ Abby chuckled and covered her mouth. ‘I was a little chubby. Of course, nowadays, Sandra is so weight-conscious she’ll hardly let herself eat a whole stalk of celery.’

‘Food was meant to be enjoyed,’ Storm said seriously.

‘Exactly,’ Abby agreed, carving herself another bite of filet mignon. ‘Otherwise, what’s the point of eating?’

They spent the remainder of dinner discussing their favourite meals and where they’d eaten them, films they’d seen and books they’d read. He discovered they both had a secret passion for hard-boiled detective novels. Surely that was a good omen? Buoyed by the ease of the conversation, he had almost forgotten his earlier missteps by the time they settled in over coffee.

Normally, he listened to women because he knew it pleased them, but he wouldn’t have minded listening to Abby all night. She was funnier than he expected, and had a broader range of interests. In fact, there seemed to be a whole other woman hiding beneath the woman he’d fallen in love with — which made him wonder at himself. How could he have fallen in love with someone he barely knew? What kind of crazy emotion was that? But the stupidity of it didn’t matter. He was here with her, the woman he loved, and she was sharing the little events that had made her who she was. Life was good.

Until she unwittingly stepped into his forbidden zone.

‘What about your family?’ she asked. ‘I know you said your parents are dead, but do you have any brothers or sisters?’ He shook his head and set his cup in the saucer. He stared at his hands. His fingertips whitened as he pressed them into the starched red tablecloth. Abby reached across the table and stroked his wrist. ‘Were you young when they died?’

He shook his head again, feeling the silence lengthen and wondering how long it could go on before the moment was irretrievable. Be a man, he told himself. She gave you a piece of her history. The least you can do is offer up a piece of your own. He cleared his throat.

‘It was just my mother and me,’ he said, his voice so rough he found it impossible to meet her eyes. ‘She was a waitress. We lived in Montreal, in Quebec. I guess you’d call where we lived a project — low-income housing, run-down, kind of dangerous.’

He straightened his silverware, all too aware of Abby’s hush. His palms were clammy. He dried them on his trousers and returned them to the table. He strove for an even tone.

‘My mother was a weekend drunk. She always made it to work but on her days off, well, let’s say she drank most of her tips. I honestly don’t know who my father was. She had a lot of boyfriends, most of whom weren’t a pleasure to be around. When I got tired of dealing with them, I’d run around the city with my friends. Montreal is a beautiful place, lots of history, lots of water. The Fleuve Saint Laurent, the St Lawrence Seaway, runs right through it.’

Storm sighed and turned his knife upside down. ‘I had plenty of freedom. Sometimes I’d stay away as long as a week, sleeping with friends or on the street if it was warm. I missed a lot of school, but I was smart enough to catch up when I dropped back in.

‘Anyway, one time when I was sixteen, I went on a two-week walkabout. When I got home, my mother had moved. No forwarding address, no note, just packed up and left. I guess she reckoned I was old enough to take care of myself.’ Which I was, he reminded himself, trying to forget the hollow echo as he pounded on the door, the clenching in his stomach as he thought: Incredible. The bitch has finally sunk lower than even I thought she could. And Mr Kozlakis pressing the money he knew they couldn’t spare into his hand, the money that had saved him from starving until he could hitchhike to LA. He clenched his jaw to keep it steady.

‘Oh, Storm.’ Abby covered both his hands with her own. ‘That must have been awful.’

He didn’t need to see her to mark her sympathy. Angry for saying more than he’d intended, he fisted his hands beneath her hold. ‘I don’t need pity,’ he said.

Abby’s laughter startled him into looking at her. A trail of silver marked one soft pink cheek. His throat tightened.

‘You may not need pity,’ she said, smiling through the remnants of her tears. ‘But, after a story like that, it’s pretty hard to hold it back.’

He lowered his head again. ‘I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have told you all that.’

‘Of course you should have.’ She squeezed his fists until he forced them to relax. ‘How else do people get to be friends?’

But he couldn’t help thinking he had done the wrong thing. He should have told her about Mrs Kozlakis, about the little Greek restaurant where she’d taught him how to cook — the happy times, the love. He should have told her about the way the snow frosted the city in the winter like a wedding cake, about hitching to LA and gaping at the palm trees, about finding a job frying burgers the day he arrived and never looking back. He’d made the success of himself only Mrs K had believed he’d make. For that, he needed no pity.

Abby was quiet on the boat trip home. The night was dark and the lanterns were lit. They stood at the rail and she held his hand, but lightly, as if she didn’t want to encourage more intimacy. When he walked her to the cottage, she didn’t invite him in.

‘Friends,’ he muttered under his breath as he stomped back to the inn.

Damn her for thinking that’s all he wanted, and damn him for letting her. God in heaven, why couldn’t he do the right thing the one time the right thing meant the world?

*   *   *

Abby sat at her dressing table, feeling as if she’d been hit by a train. Her fingers trembled as she pulled the tiny pearl teardrops from her ears. She hadn’t dared ask Storm in. The emotions that roiled inside her were so strong she was sure she’d give herself away. What she’d feared from the start had happened.

She’d lost her heart to him.

That awful, wonderful story had been the final straw. Knowing that she’d always had a soft spot for a hard-luck tale didn’t change her feelings in the least. She understood so much she hadn’t understood before– why he feared commitment, why he didn’t trust love, even why he’d devoted himself to the art of pleasing women.

He didn’t believe they’d love him for himself.

She set the earrings in their box and stared at her dazed reflection. He was horribly lovable, devastatingly lovable, so lovable the thought of him spending his life drifting from one meaningless relationship to the next made her sick to her stomach. None of which meant she could change him; none of which meant he was any less dangerous to her than he’d been before.

Stripping naked for Storm was one thing, Abby thought. Stripping naked for Jack while Storm watched was quite another.

They’d all gathered in Jack’s glassed-in studio where he planned to take tonight’s photographs. He’d pushed back the furniture and tossed a soft red blanket across the carpeted floor. The shades were lowered. Constructed of thin brown and gold reeds, they’d make an interesting backdrop — or so she thought as she tried to distract herself from her anxiety.

She snuck a look at Storm. Jack told him he wouldn’t be incorporated into the pictures until later. Relegated to observer, he leant against one wall with both arms crossed, as though he expected Jack to drag out a mud-wrestling pit. In his snug white T-shirt and jeans, he reminded Abby of a long-haired James Dean. ‘Show me,’ said his face. ‘Prove that I can trust you.’

To see him, you’d never guess he practically twisted her arm to get her here on time.

‘Mustn’t be late,’ he’d said with a too-tight smile.

She suspected he was jealous. Now that she’d admitted to her own feelings, behaving as if she shouldn’t take his into account was a lot harder. Jealousy was not a sign of commitment, however, or the desire to extract one. Besides which, their immediate professional future might depend on this influx of cash.

But I’m not doing it for the money, she told herself, turning her eyes back towards Jack. He was certain to create something beautiful. Why shouldn’t she and Storm be a part of that? At the very least, she’d have a memento once he moved on to his next conquest.

She fought a sigh. Jack was busying himself with mysterious equipment realignments: light meters, giant lamps and screens. He was lucky. His face gave nothing away. He squinted into a viewfinder. ‘Any time you’re ready,’ he said with a brief glance in her direction.

Any time I’m ready, what? Abby thought, and twisted her hands together at her waist.

At least Marissa looked as nervous as she felt. Dressed only in a white silk robe, she grabbed Abby’s hand and pulled her through the house to Jack’s bedroom.

‘Those idiots,’ she said, pushing her to sit at the foot of his bed. ‘Expecting you to rip off your clothes at the drop of a hat.’

What a mother-bear she could be. Abby grinned as Marissa knelt before her and began untying her trainers. Her touch, though impersonal, sent a funny shiver up Abby’s legs. Abby noticed the spikes of her short black and henna hair were more unruly than usual. She must have been raking her fingers through it all evening.

‘I bet he didn’t tell you why you’re really here,’ she said in that same scornful tone.

Abby opened her mouth to say: ‘Of course he did. We’re here to pose for his next book.’ Then she remembered Storm’s suspicions. ‘Do you know something I don’t, Marissa?’

Marissa pulled one unlaced shoe from Abby’s heel, shoved it under the bed, then put both hands on the floor to steady her balance. She looked like a runner about to burst into motion at the starter’s gun, head down, body tense. ‘I’m pretty sure you’re here for me,’ she said. ‘Jack knows I have a thing for you. He thinks, if he throws us together in an erotic situation and it doesn’t work out, I’ll have to get over my crush.’

‘Oh,’ Abby said, unable to think of a single intelligent response.

Marissa pulled off her second shoe and shoved it under the bed with its partner. Beyond that, she seemed unable to move.

Abby studied the top of the other woman’s head. From the way Marissa occasionally stared at her, she’d thought she might be bi. But Abby had assumed Marissa didn’t want to face the kink in her sexual orientation. She’d never mentioned liking women and, when Gemma called to recommend her for the waitressing job, she hadn’t mentioned it, either. Not that she had to; Abby was an equal-opportunity employer and all that.

Aware that she was babbling to herself, she squeezed her knees. ‘You mean, you and Gemma–’

‘Yes,’ Marissa said. ‘We were lovers.’

So. Marissa and Gemma had slept together: her old college flatmate and her best waitress. She thought of all the times Gemma had tried and failed to seduce her, how Abby had been ignorant at first, then embarrassed, and finally grateful they could still be friends. Had Gemma told Marissa about those ill-fated attempts? Had the two of them discussed her the way men discuss a woman they want: what a pair of cantaloupes she’s got, eh? Abby shook her head. This was so weird.

Without warning, Marissa clasped Abby’s calves and pressed her head to her knee. ‘Just let me show you,’ she said, kissing her skin through a rip in the denim. ‘You wouldn’t have to do anything. Just let me show you how it can be.’

Abby wasn’t sure what made her let Marissa push her gently back on to the bed. Curiosity, maybe, or sympathy, or maybe even annoyance at the men for wanting to turn something that meant so much to Marissa into a show.

Jack’s bed didn’t have a proper spread. A thick blue- and black-striped Hudson Bay blanket covered the sheets, half soft, half scratchy. It felt strange against her bare skin as Marissa eased off her oldest pair of jeans. Her panties followed. When they were gone, Marissa slipped on to the bed with her. Oh, God, Abby thought. What now?

‘You’re shaking!’ Marissa exclaimed, and proceeded to stroke her face as if she were a fretful child. ‘Don’t be afraid. I won’t hurt you, Abby. Not ever.’

‘I’m all right,’ Abby insisted. Oddly enough, she was. She’d shaken just as hard the first time she made love to a man, mostly because she hadn’t the faintest idea how she’d react or what she ought to do. But that wasn’t the case today. Though she wasn’t sure how she’d react, she had a fair idea of what she ought to do: the same as she would for any lover.

She reached up and stroked Marissa’s hair, spearing her fingers into the softness that lurked beneath the styling gel. Marissa stilled. Her face tightened and darkened with an intensity that frightened Abby.

‘I want to kiss you,’ she whispered.

Abby nodded and pulled her closer, feeling as if she were sinking into a strange dream. Marissa’s kiss was soft as a feather, much softer than she’d expected, given her sometimes abrasive personality. The tip of her tongue flirted with Abby’s lips, tracing the seam and tickling the soft inner margins until Abby relaxed and opened for a deeper entry.

Marissa moaned when their tongues met in the middle.

The low, hungry sound sent a shiver of heat down Abby’s spine. Slowly, as though she feared Abby’s reaction, Marissa lowered her body. Abby still wore a soft cotton tank top, but Marissa’s nipples pressed sharply through her white silk robe. Behind the pebbled nubs, her breasts were firm and soft.

So this is what men feel, Abby mused. She put her arms around the other woman’s back. She was so slender. Her muscles, though, were as hard and wiry as a man’s. Abby stroked the bumpy line of her spine and thought: how fragile she is, and then, how delicious. To have this power over her own kind was an unexpected thrill. Something opened inside her, a deeply scented flower, both heavy and delicate. Her sex began to pulse. She slid her hands lower and cupped Marissa’s rock-hard buttocks. She had no fat here, just lean, hard muscle. Abby squeezed her a little just to be sure. Marissa’s cheeks clenched. She squirmed and kissed her harder.

A second later, she lifted her body far enough to yank her robe open. ‘I’m sorry. I’ve got to–’ and with a groan of pleasure, she ground her bare pussy over Abby’s thigh.

She was wet and hot. Her curls were coarser than either Abby or Storm’s and her clit was large enough to feel between her mashing lips. Abby wouldn’t have minded touching it, seeing it, but Marissa seemed determined to take the lead. Her hand skimmed down Abby’s side, grabbed one cheek and squeezed hard, then cruised around her hip to comb through her pubic curls. She tugged on the lower fringe. ‘You’re wet,’ she marvelled. ‘Oh, Abby.’

Her gratitude embarrassed her. She knew if she didn’t sidetrack her, Marissa would be crawling down her body and kissing her there. Abby didn’t want that; didn’t want Marissa to do anything with such worshipful overtones. When she thought back on this later, Abby wanted her to remember they came together as equals.

‘Touch me,’ she said, calling Marissa’s dark, shining gaze back to hers. ‘Touch me the way you’d touch yourself.’

Marissa watched her eyes as she slid her fingers between her lips. One knuckle grazed a sweet spot on the side of her clitoris. Abby shivered. Marissa smiled. Burying her other hand in Abby’s hair, she began to pinch the swollen bundle of nerves, pinch and release, pinch and release, until Abby lost her fear that she wouldn’t be able to come for her.

Relaxing into her rising arousal, she closed her eyes and raked slow circles around Marissa’s buttocks. The other woman’s breath came faster. Her hips jerked closer, then drew away as if she’d done something she shouldn’t.

‘You, too,’ Abby said, coaxing her to roll against her thigh. ‘You, too.’

Hesitantly, she complied. Her motions were tentative, jerky. Abby suspected she didn’t want to reveal the full extent of her excitement. She must have thought it would put Abby off.

But that was no way to make love. Like her big sister Francine always said: ‘If it’s worth doing, it’s worth doing right.’ With a squirm and a push, Abby turned them both on their sides and took the other woman’s nipple into her mouth.

Marissa cried out and clutched her head. The position felt awkward, but, oh, the sensations that surged through her as she sucked that turgid peak. She could see why men liked this. The appeal was so primitive, especially for Abby, who had never felt the like, not even as a baby. Marissa’s skin was smooth as butter here. She rolled the nipple against the roof of her mouth, sucking a little, licking a little, trying to draw it out even further. Marissa’s hips worked harder against her thigh, so hard that Abby’s muscles began to ache.

‘Oh, God,’ Marissa gasped and shuddered in orgasm.

The climax seemed to destroy her restraint. She was all over Abby then, pushing her on to her back and kissing her, touching every inch of skin she could reach. This time, Abby could not prevent her from licking her way to her pussy, but now she was too aroused to care.

Her hips jerked off the bed as soon as Marissa lapped at her straining clit. Marissa had to press her elbows over her inner thighs to hold her down. She used her fingers, too, all over the squirming territory between her legs. They slid up and down her inner lips, probed her sheath, crawled down between her cheeks and pinched the pucker of her anus. None of her lovers had created this sense of total invasion. It wasn’t that Marissa knew what a woman liked and they didn’t. It was that Marissa had no fear of Abby’s body. Abby’s pussy might as well have been her own for all the hesitation she showed in exploring it.

Marissa’s tongue worried through her slippery folds to find the bare, swollen button. She fluttered the tip against that nerve-laden point, as rapid as hummingbird wings. The sensation was too much, too raw. Abby bit her lip until she tasted blood, straining, straining. Her hands fumbled for Marissa’s head, half wanting to push her away, half wanting to drag her closer.

‘Oh!’ she gasped, abruptly teetering over the edge.

Marissa nursed her orgasm to the very last, sweet spasm, then began to push her towards climax again.

‘No,’ Abby said, gently lifting her away. ‘That’s enough.’

Marissa sat up, her eyes worried, her mouth shining with Abby’s juices. ‘If I did something wrong, I could–’

‘You didn’t do anything wrong,’ she assured her. ‘That was wonderful.’

And it had been wonderful. It just hadn’t been quite…right.

She smiled and touched Marissa’s cheek with the back of her fingers. She looked beautiful, an exotic, obsidian-eyed goddess in a rumpled silk robe. She deserved to devastate her lovers, not merely please them. ‘We should probably get back to the others,’ she said.

Marissa grimaced and wiped her face on a corner of her robe. Her eyes searched Abby’s again, then slid to the window where ivory lace curtains swayed in a salty breeze. ‘They’ll be expecting a show, you know,’ she warned.

A delightful spark of wickedness supplanted Abby’s concern. ‘So we’ll give them a show.’ She laughed at Marissa’s double take. ‘And then we’ll make them give us one.’

‘Jack and Storm?’ Marissa’s eyes widened skeptically. ‘No way.’

Abby pursed her lips and shrugged in rebuttal. If nothing else, the last fifteen minutes were proof that stranger things could happen.

*   *   *

Storm ran his finger around the collar of his T-shirt. They’d only been shooting five minutes and already he was sweating like a pig.

‘How does this look?’ Abby asked, for what had to be the twelfth time.

She and Marissa were tangled together on the soft red throw, white limbs and tan, black hair and gold. Abby lay behind Marissa. One of her hands was spread like a spider around Marissa’s pointy breast. The other was draped over her mound. Marissa’s face was flushed, her nipples so dramatically erect they had to be half an inch long. Every so often she’d squirm higher on the thigh Abby had pressed between her legs. Storm could see her juices shining on his lover’s smooth white skin. Worse, he could see that Abby was not the least bit shocked.

He knew something had happened between the women when Abby went to change. She’d come back flushed and confident, with a twinkle in her eye and not a stitch on her back. Even Jack had paused at her brazen entrance. The thought of what Marissa must have done to cause the change made him crazy: crazy jealous and crazy aroused. Ridiculous, to be jealous of a woman. Abby was as heterosexual as they came. Or so he thought till he spotted the kiss-marks on Marissa’s breast.

She was impossible, insatiable, and this flirtatious little game she was playing didn’t calm him in the least. He’d long since shoved his hands into his pockets to camouflage his massive erection. Jack and Abby, however, both behaved as if they were arranging fruit.

‘Would you rather see her curls?’ Abby asked, demonstrating with a slight shift of her hand. ‘Or should I cover them completely?’

‘It doesn’t matter,’ Jack said. ‘I’ll shoot when I see something I like.’