Hot and Cold (6 page)

The words sounded solid. I’d presented before Sean one last time, and he’d had me knock out all the technical stuff.

“We have two breads,” the head judge said. “Why?”

He tried to look serious, but he had a big, red face, and a body to match under his chef’s smock. Of all the three, he was the one I most wanted to win over. He ran his own three star restaurant in Detroit. If I impressed him, maybe I could get into his kitchen next summer.

“I wanted a place to store all the heat I’d removed from the soup, so I put it in the cornbread,” I said. “The biscuits work as a palette cleanser. They present two different textures that both work well with the soup.”

“Hmph,” he said and dashed out a quick note. He glanced at the other judges. “Alright, shall we?”

“I think you’ll enjoy it.” I almost sounded confident.

The three dipped into the gumbo. The reactions were predictable. The instructor scrunched his face up and peered deeply into the bowl before reaching for another bite. The TV reporter made exaggerated slurping sounds and shoved a biscuit into her mouth.

The chef simply looked thoughtful. He took a few more bites, then started scratching out notes.

I couldn’t bear to watch. I just wanted to go huddle in a corner and wait to be called in, but there were cameras on me. Local news only, but still.

“Hey.”

I turned toward the whisper. Sean had gotten up by the front table and stood there arms folded. He had on his suit, which I’d told him was being overdressed, but he looked confident and that made me feel it, too.

“You’re going to need an agent after tonight,” he’d said as we drove to the show.

“Chefs don’t have agents.”

“Then you’ll be way ahead with me.”

“I don’t see how hiring a MMA fighter as my agent is gonna help me, whether he’s a champion or not.”

“You think they’re going to argue with a guy with a body like this?”

I chanced a look from the wheel to see him flex in the suit. It broke through my tension and I laughed. “I think I’d still take Troy if I ever needed an agent.”

He shrugged. “Your loss.”

“Besides, even if I win, I’m not going to drop out of school this semester. I still need to head back in two weeks.”

His voice sank a bit. “No, I didn’t think you would.”

The conversation had tapered off after that. I looked at him now and just wanted to run into his arms. Why was I even wasting time on this competition? Soon we would only have the weekends together. I should be spending all the time I could with him.

He must have seen it in my eyes, cause he winked and tipped his head at the door. I took a step, but he held up a hand.

Soon,
he mouthed.
Soon.

A couple minutes passed. The judges said some nice things and asked questions, and I answered quickly and cleanly. They murmured among each other.

Finally, one by one, they sat back.

“Mark,” the head judge said. “You want to start?”

“I don’t think there’s much to say,” the instructor said. “It was interesting, and it did not offend me.”

The crowd tittered, but my pulse sped up. That was practically a perfect mark from him.

“Shaunda?” the head judge asked next. “What about you?”

“You know how I feel, Harold,” she said. “This is the best damn soup I’ve ever eaten. And this cornbread, mmm mmm. I need another stomach just to fill up on it.”

The crowd split between applause and laughter this time. My heart pounded in my ear. I waited for Harold.

“As for me,” he shook his head at the soup. “I’m left at a loss.”

He paused for an excruciating moment, then glanced up.

“How’d you do it?”

“What?” I said meekly.

“It’s wonderful,” he said. “This mix that you used. Fiery and mild. Sour and sweet. New and old. It’s just a fantastic set of flavors and textures.”

The crowd hollered behind me as much as any cooking show crowd could, but my mind wasn’t even here. It was back at the moment I got my first reaction - the most important one, from the man I cared most about.

And he’d given it without saying a word.

“I just got lucky,” I said, beaming at Sean. He looked like it was taking him every ounce of strength not to run over.

“Well, it seems we did, too,” the head judge said. “Now I can run the numbers, but cooking’s not about that, and they’re certainly not needed in this case. Gabrielle, you
are
the winner of this year’s Cordon Competition.”

The world blew into a happy haze of applause and camera flashes and trophies and handshakes. It wasn’t until Sean finally strode up and hugged me up into the air that the joy finally hit me. He kissed me right there in front of the audience.

The head judge handed me a business card and extracted a promise for me to call. We took the check and the trophy and carried it out into the sunny lot.

“I told you not to sweat it,” Sean said, rubbing my shoulders.

“I recall I told you the same thing,” I said. “Neither of us listens.”

“Just another thing we have in common.”

My dark sedan was parked off in the employee lot of the studio, which lay barren now that it was the weekend.

I opened a rear door and beamed as my statue glinted in the sun. It was a small thing. It wouldn’t give me a ranking of nine in the Midwest like Sean’s win did. But it was a start. That’s all I could ask for.

As I placed it gingerly in the rear seat, a hand landed firmly on my butt and shoved me in after it.

“Hey, what the-“

I squirmed to turn around. Sean climbed in after me and shut the door.

“These things are roomy,” he said, looking around.

“Sean, what the hell?”

“I didn’t want to wait to give you your victory present,” he said. “Especially considering I’ve got it right here with me.”

I was frustrated for the second it took me to figure out his meaning. Then I became keenly aware that I was already on my back, with my skirt half up my waist. He was looming over me like King Kong - a hard dark wall, blocking my path.

“The windows are tinted too,” I said softly.

“Frankly,” he said, clambering atop me. “I wouldn’t have a given a fuck either way.”

His body came down on mine, and his kiss found my neck. My lips moved uselessly in a sigh, my body coming alive all at once. This was how he had taken me the first time we met. Now, it was in my car.

This was a promise that we would go on.

I wrapped my arms around him and squeezed him harder on me. His muscles stamped themselves on my body.

I wanted as much of him in me as he could fit. I wanted to know his strength better than anyone in a cage ever would.

His hunger moved to my chest. He pulled my shirt up and off. My own voice rang in my ears as he pulled down my bra and descended on my tips in one by one. He went back and forth, licking hot and blowing cold, until I felt as hard a diamond.

I pawed his handsome face, but I couldn’t hold him back if I wanted. He had a hunger for me. I could only watch myself be consumed.

Sean’s attention moved down. He flipped open my skirt. His steam breath lapped at my center. His kisses moved closer.

I cried out as he finally pushed my panties aside and flicked across my entrance. He nuzzled in and sucked me between his lips.

My world exploded white hot. I bucked and writhed. I felt full of a pulsing electric beat that had nowhere to escape.

“Mmm,” his voice wound up my body. “I like this wet quality you’ve added to the flavor. Could you bring it out more for me?”

“Mmm hmm,” I said as his tongue bore in deeper.

“Oh yeah. Just like that.”

He ploughed my folds with his tongue, harder and deeper. My world felt like it might crack open.

The car vanished around me. I felt like I might fall. I flailed around looking for something to hold onto, but just knocked my little statue to the floor. I didn’t even give a damn.

Just when I thought I couldn’t bear it, he moved his mouth to lap my entrance whole. The end came crashing down.

“Oh, Jesus,” I cried out, gripping the bristling dome of his head, and pressing him in harder.

I shook over and over as the pleasure bloomed around me. His mouth stayed firm, doing one victory lap after another. Finally, I gasped and let him go.

He came up and kissed me. My own wetness dripped to my face from his. It smelled like both of us together.

“You good, baby?” he asked.

“So good.”

“You ready for the second course?”

“Second course?”

“Well, you’re not going to have time to space it out once we’re seeing each other just a day or two each week.”

He shifted and zipped down his pants. His hardness pressed at my entrance.

“Oh god, Sean,” I said. “I’ll make time. Show me how much you want me.”

His eyes narrowed into thin green slits. “I want
all
of you
all
the time.”

He slid into me as sleek as the finish to his fight. I cried out at the fullness of him, throbbing deep within me.

He kissed me deep into the leather seats. “I want to see you make that face and pour out that voice every single day.”

Sean started to shift, rocking us softly, his hands laced behind my head. I felt like I was being cradled, but all he was doing was making me hornier and more alive and awake than ever.

“I want to watch you as I fuck you,” he said. “I want to move in all the ways that make you feel good.”

I pressed back against him. His eyes flew wide.

“I want that, too,” I cooed.

“You’ll get it baby,” he growled. “Tell me what you want, and I’ll bring you the goddamn fucking world.”

He sped up. I watched his gorgeous body move, still cased in the suit. It was damp and wrinkled and barely able to contain the motions of his muscles as they ran in me deeper and deeper.

His eyes were dim with pleasure. Just the simple pleasure of moving in my body, of being with me, even in this tiny little space.

All we needed was this.

The ache and satisfaction of him in me built so high, I couldn’t see anymore. I grabbed him and clutched him down but he just went faster and faster.

It was like holding a machine. This was the man in the cage, and I had just found his source of power.

It came each time he dipped deeper in me.

I moaned out, but he wouldn’t even grant me that. He smothered me in a kiss. His own voice started to crack, though. Then we were both out of control, both lost in each other’s pleasure, just convulsing the car off its axles.

With one final thrust, he brought us over. I muffled my cries against his mouth. I could feel him all over me, giving me his energy to come again and again. Then, he broke and poured himself deep inside, going until we rattled to a stop against each other.

Sean pecked me on the lips and got up.

“This is the sort of thing they use dry cleaning for, I assume,” he said, pinching his suit.

I leaned up next to him and sniffed lazily. “It smells great to me.”

“Ok, then it’ll just be my fucking suit.”

“I like the sound of that. You can afford another one now anyways.”

“You’re going to give me the money you won, today? Baby, that’s so sweet of you.”

I slapped his cheek. “
That
is going directly into cleaning this car.”

“Can’t this just be our fucking car?”

“Every car seems to turn into our fucking car.”

He chuckled and kissed me on the forehead. “Then the world better watch out for us.”

“Oh they better,” I smiled, looking at his weary, gorgeous face. It was all mine, and he was all mine. “Cause we’re not going anywhere.”

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Black and Blue