Thief: A Bad Boy Romance (59 page)

I
t’s
the constant back and forth with him that has me tripped up, and it feels like neither of us can win. We’re friendly and then we’re not; we’re hanging out and having a great time and then he’s cold and back to iron Chef Oliver, barking orders and ignoring me.

And I know some - okay, a lot - of that is my fault, but c’mon, I’m not leading him on or anything. This isn’t something that “can” happen by any standard. Beyond the fact that we work together, there’s our history, however small. And, I mean hello, stepbrother? No way.

Work is
tough
the next night. A food blog with a huge following just put a grand review of
Jolie
up, and so even the normal 2 hour wait is practically
double
that from the moment we open for service.

Everyone’s on edge anyways, but Oliver’s extra quick to jump down people’s throats; barking orders left and right and roaring like a mad-man for most of service. On that though, I’ll give him a pass. Working at his dad’s restaurant might not be his end goal, but cooking certainly is, and if Oliver is nothing else, he’s passionate about what he does.

I blush slightly at the thought of some other “passions” from the night before, but I quickly push that aside as the general chaos of the kitchen swallows me back up.

It’s the giggling that gets my attention finally,
just
as we’re starting to wind down. I look up, and my eyes instantly narrow on
Delia
, the bouncy little blonde waitress who
somehow
has managed not to get fired yet.

She’s also somehow managed to get Oliver wrapped around her fucking pinky, and
that
gets to me a whole lot more than the fact that she’s still a waitress here.

If he’s yelling at everyone else all night and generally acting like a drill sergeant, he’s
all
smiles with her; all charm, all little jokes and winks. Actually come to think of it, I’m not sure who’s wrapped around
whose
finger there. Either way, it’s got me quietly seething in the corner, much more than it should, given my whole diatribe earlier to him about this ‘not being a thing’.

But there I am, skulking in the corner and glaring at him as he leans against the service window and cracks jokes with Delia; Delia who’s got one button too many undone to be remotely appropriate in this sort of restaurant, I might add.

“Oh, him?” I turn to see Marco grinning at me from his spot by the grill. He smirks and nods at Oliver. “Oy, he’s the
master
, isn’t he.”

“What,
chef
?”

Marco laughs, his dark, brooding eyes sparkling and that strong jaw cracking into a wide, white smile. “Well, sure, but I’m talking about being master of a different kind of dish.” He gestures with his chin at Delia. “Oh he
does
go through them,” he says with a dark chuckle.

I scowl, feeling the anger rising up inside, and again, that damned confusion about
why
I’m even angry about a man
I don’t even want
flirting with another girl. I mean what do I care?

Why
do I care?

Marco glances at me and laughs, “Oy, sorry, you probably don’t want to hear about his conquest do you? I mean your two families being so close and all, a bit too familiar, yeah?”

“Yeah, not really,” I say icily, trying to shrug as nonchalantly as possible.

The ticket printer spits out a quick ticket, followed quickly by Ian, the Maître d’, bustling into the kitchen to announce that it’s the very last table.

Thank
God.

Pasta, too, which means the rest of us besides poor Julie on steam line can start wiping down and stocking before getting the hell out of here.

Which of course, also means getting the hell away from Oliver flirting with that fucking girl.

Marco swears a relief under his breath and suddenly elbows me. I turn to see him grinning as he pulls a little flask out of his apron pocket and winks at me.

I can’t help but giggle as he wags his eyebrows at me.

“Little nip to speed things along?” I shoot a quick glance at Oliver, who I’m sure would have something to say about his cooks drinking before they’re done, but he’s too busy sticking his fucking eyes down Delia’s cleavage to notice.

I turn back to dark, dangerous, handsome Marco and shrug. “Sure,” I say. “Why not?”

“Atta girl!” He grins, “Listen, we’re going to the pub after for a few, you should come with.”

I know what an invitation for drinks means from a man who looks like Marco; from a man who looks at me the hungry way he’s looking at me right now. And part of me wants to jump at the idea of getting Oliver out of my head. Part of me says “why the hell not”, when he’s made it so perfectly clear that his only interest in me is to wind me up so that he can shit all over me. And of course, on top of that, it’s not like there’s anything that
can
or
could
ever happen with him. I mean our parents are getting married for crying out loud. He’s my boss, and a total man-whore, and probably has a rap-sheet from when he was younger that’s longer than his-

I shake my head to quickly get the thought of Oliver’s, well,
anything
out of it.

But at the same time, I’ve got a feeling I know
just
how he’d react to me and Marco, even if it
is
just “going out for some drinks.” An alpha caveman like Oliver? I roll my eyes; I can’t even
imagine
the macho bullshit that would come out of that.

I turn to Marco and try and smile as I shake my head, “Thanks, Marco, but I don’t think I-”

The sound of Delia’s high-pitched little giggle rolls across the kitchen, and I whirl around to see Oliver on the other side of the line now, his arm draped over her shoulder and that cocky, smoldering, panty-melting grin on his face. He looks up for
just
a second and catches my dagger-look before he just turns back to her and winks.

I can feel my hands clenching at my sides as I turn back towards Marco, suddenly forcing a smile to my face. “You know what, I’d
love
to.”

T
he bar is pounding
some shitty techno-pop song that’s making my head hurt. One of those whiny little tween-twat blokes who can’t grow facial hair but cries about some girl leaving him as if he even knows what that means.  

It’s a little hard to take the little shit’s whining seriously when he can’t grow a proper fuckin mustache yet.

The song grates at my ears, making my head hurt as I sit there peeling the labels off my beers. I
should
be paying attention to Delia, the little blonde waitress currently curled in my lap trying to keep my attention with her tits practically falling out of her shirt. Except I’m distracted.

I’m distracted by
Chloe
.

Chloe giggling and laughing at every bloody thing fuckin’
Marco
says, nonetheless. Touching his arm. Batting her fuckin’ eyes.

You should’ve just gone home,
I growl inside my head.
You fucking twat.

And I was all set to, too. I was all set to get the fuck out of that restaurant and head home for a pint and maybe some football highlights when I saw the two of them all fuckin’ chummy.

There’s the first alarm bells; Marco being “chummy” with a chick. Of course, then I heard about my cooks going out for beers after that nightmare of a shift, and there’s no way I
wasn’t
chaperoning that shit.

So here we are. The rest of the crew probably thinks it’s “cool” that I’m out with them; probably thinks it’s so wicked that they get to hang with the rock star “Chef Ollie” while he slums it at the pub with the line-guys.

Yeah, right.
And here I am peeling labels from beer bottles, ignoring the hot little dish on my lap, and murdering Marco with my eyes while I try and get my stepsister out of my head.

Real fucking glamourous life I’ve got here.

Chloe’s laughing at every damn word he says, which is one thing on its own, but then she’s also shooting me quick looks as if I somehow
don’t
see them. And that tells me she wants to make sure I see it, and
that
gets under my skin.

Marco says something
hilarious
that he probably fucking stole from me anyways, and as I watch Chloe playfully slap his arm and bat her eyes at him like some sort of fucking ditz like Delia over here. I feel my temper start to get the better of me.

Delia turns to giggle with another waitress that’s out with us, and I take the moment to take my phone out and fire a text Chloe’s way:

She glances at the phone as it lights in her hand before shrugging and putting it face down on her lap as she turns back to Marco. I grit my teeth. This is
not
the kind of bullshit game I want to play; with
anyone
come to think of it, but least of all Chloe. I text her again, furious that I’m fucking
texting
her like the same sort of pussy as the one whining over the sound system:

She glances at her phone when it buzzes on her thigh, and she smirks this time.
Smirks
. Delia’s hands is on my leg, squeezing my thigh, but I grab my phone and shoot off one more text:

I follow it with one of those retarded winky faces, just to keep her guessing.

It works. This time when she looks at the phone across the table from me and gets ready to smirk again, her eyes dart immediately to mine.

Yeah, just try
and play the cool card, darlin
, I grin to myself.
Just try and call that bluff and see what happens.

She smiles and says something to Marco before she gets up, shooting me another venomous look. I grin, pleased with myself, and give it a second before telling Delia I have to go smoke as I push her off my lap.

She looks at me with this stupid little pout that I’m sure looks cute in her mind. “Ollie are you playing? You don’t even smoke?”

“Yeah, wow. Strange, eh?” I shrug, ignoring her and her friend’s dumb looks as I walk away and into the crowd of the pub.

Chloe’s waiting in the back, in the dark hallway by the bathrooms.

“Okay,
what
is it that couldn’t wait, Oliver,” she spits at me, her eyes wild and glaring, her arms crossed over her chest.

“I know what you’re doing.”

She narrows her eyes at me, flashing that defiant look that somehow gets right under my skin and lights a fire there.

“Oh, and I don’t know what
you’re
doing?”

“I don’t
do
games, you know,” I say, arching my brow at her and letting my eyes catch, for just a second, at the subtle rise and fall of her chest with her breathing.

“Who’s playing games?” She spits.

I take a step closer, smirking at her as my eyes dart across her face in the dim shadows of the hallway, “Trying to make me jealous?”

“Oh,
please
, like you aren’t pulling the same shit with that little blonde thing that’s been crawling all over your lap all night. I’m not
trying
to make you jealous, I’m just out having a lovely time with a nice man.”

She gasps as I suddenly grab her wrists and pin her back against the wall behind her. She doesn’t say a damn thing, but her eyes dart across mine and her cheeks flush a deep red that I can see even in the dim light back here.

I move against her and she gasps as I lean my mouth right into the crook of her neck, “Let’s get something straight right now, luv,” I say into her ear, my voice low and deep, “I don’t want you out having ‘a lovely time’ with anyone like Marco.”

I can see her throat move with a swallow as she opens her mouth, “You can’t just
decide
who I talk to, you know.”

She trembles as I run my hand up her side; sliding higher until my hand brushes against her breast through her shirt. She moans softly and quietly, and it’s just enough of a sound to get my cock rock hard in my jeans.

“Oh?” I chuckle deeply into her ear, pressing her hard against the wall with my body molded against hers and feeling her pulse jump in her wrists beneath my fingers. “
Watch me,
” I whisper, and before she can say a word, and before I can even let one more second pass by
without
doing it, I nip at her earlobe with my teeth before running my tongue over the skin there.

She moans then; fuckin’
moans
, and if I wasn’t hard before, I’m practically tearing a hole in my pants now.

She rocks her hips against me, and I know she can feel how fucking hard my cock is for her. Part of me wants to push that skirt up around her hips, tear her panties to the side and fuck her right there in the fucking hallways. But maybe it’s the cocky prick in me, or maybe there’s something so fucking sexy in that defiant fire inside of her that makes me pause and grin wickedly. Maybe it’s that being in charge of a whole kitchen’s gone right to my head, or maybe it’s just that I can’t ever just give in without a fight.

Whatever the fuck it is, I decided right there that I’m not ready to let her off the hook yet. The girl that left me high and dry all those years ago and who I’ve been playing this little tease game back and forth with ever since she got to London? Yeah, I’m not giving in
that
easy.

Because first I wanna hear her
beg
me for it.

“Besides, luv,” I husk in her ear, nipping at the skin there, “I bet you
love
when I tell you what you can and can’t do.”

“Keep thinking that, you arrogant-
ooh.
” The fire in her words trails off into this sexy fucking moan as I suck her earlobe between my teeth and rock my hips against her.

My hand slides between us, and she whimpers as it finds her bare leg and starts to slide up under her skirt. I boldly move it higher, and she gasps as she looks deeply into my eyes.

“I don’t have to ‘think’ anything, sweetheart,” I growl into her ear. “Because I
know
you’re soaking wet
right now
.”

Her eyes flutter shut as my hand trails higher, “I am not,” she says quietly and utterly unconvincingly with the way her breath hitches and the way that flush spreads across her cheeks.

Her lips part and quiver as my fingers slide over the front of her panties, feeling the heat of her cleft there; feeling the wetness as I press my fingers against her opening through them.

“
Liar
,” I growl into her ear, and she gasps quietly. I slip my hand into the top of her panties, pushing it down until my fingers stop
just
shy of her wetness.

Her eyes fly open as I stop, anxiously searching my face as I just grin at her.

“Oh, did you want me to keep going?” I smirk at her, “Admit it, sweetheart,” I take her hand and place it over the bulge in my trousers as I lean back into her ear, “You’d
love it
if I just took this big cock and fucked you right here in the hallway, wouldn’t you?”

I know I’m being crass, and crude, and all sorts of dirty right now. And I know that fuckin’
anyone
we work with could come strolling back and see me with my hand up her skirt and her hand on my cock right here in the hallways.

But this girl has me so on fire right now that  I couldn’t stop what I was doing right now even if the fucking roof caved in.

This is the moment when I need her to push me away. This is the tipping point where we’re balanced on that ledge, and I need her slap some sense into the both of us before we go toppling over that edge together.

Except in that moment, she doesn’t do that all. Instead, her eyes flutter closed, her pouty lips part just slightly, and a single word comes tumbling from that tongue:

“
Yes
.”

It’s more orgasmic moan than it is word, and it’s possibly the sexiest fucking thing I’ve ever heard in my life.

I growl into her ear. She whimpers, her hand stroking my cock slowly through my pants. I lean in, my lips brushing against her earlobe, “Then all you’ve gotta do is ask me nicely, luv,” I nip at her ear, my finger still lingering
just
shy of her clit. “Just say the words, sweetheart,” I growl, feeling her shudder against me, “‘yes chef’.”

Her breath catches, and her hand on my cock stops as she leans up, slides her lips up to my ear, and opens her mouth, “
Not a chance
.”

I pull back from her neck, my eyes locking on hers, and right there I see the same fierce hunger that’s been building inside me; I see the same roaring fire desperate for more fuel. My free hand moves to her jaw, cupping her face as our eyes sear into each other’s.

And this time, I’m not gonna deny this to either of us.

She whimpers as I kiss her, my lips pressed hotly and fiercely against hers, hard enough to bruise. I growl into her mouth as she opens her lips to mine, her body arching up to rock against mine as we melt into the dark shadows of the hallways.

I mash my lips to hers, and she sucks my tongue into her mouth as I slide a finger between her soaking wet lips and find her opening. She moans loudly as I push into her, curling my finger deep inside of her. She breaks the kiss with a caught breath, gasping as she moves her mouth to my neck, her teeth and her lips nipping at my ear.

“This is insane!” She gasps, moaning as I curl my finger against that spot just inside; “Oliver, someone- I mean,
anyone
could-”

I slip my hand out of her panties and spin her around, dragging her into the single-use women’s room behind us.

“Are you completely
crazy!
”

I silence her with my mouth against hers as I reach back to lock the door behind us. She’s moaning into my kiss as I push her back up onto the edge of the sink, my hand sliding right back under her teasingly short skirt. Her hands rake at my shirt, pushing it up over my chest and running her hands over my skin and my ink.

I hook my fingers into her panties, and with a little grin to myself, I’m ripping them right off her body as she gasps in shock against my lips.

“You arrogant
ass!
”