Cant Stand the Heat - Part 1
Harry is the Head Chef of the kitchen you work in, but the two of you share a big secret.
A/N: Lordy, this might be my most depraved piece yet... I would like to start by saying that this version of Harry is a complete departure from the real one and I do not believe he acts even remotely like this in his day-to-day life. I shouldn't really have to say it, but I will - Harry is just a face for a character I made up. Please don't take his behaviour in this as gospel. Anyway, I hope you likey.
Word Count: 7,722
Trigger Warnings: Weaponised cream and champagne, language to make your grandma blush, super sexy sex (I hope).
~~~
There is something about bread dough that centres me. Especially kneading it. The monotonous, repetitive motion of pushing my hands through the bloated, tacky mass of it is a catharsis I have never quite managed to replicate anywhere else, with anything else.
Not even beating the shit out of cake batter on a bad day—because, let’s face it, I’m not going to give a machine all the credit all the time—compares.
The dough moulds under my palms and sticks to my skin between my fingers as I knead and knead and knead, until all the air pockets burst. I stretch it out and roll it into a long cylinder, then separate it into 16 even pieces.
I’m dusting a tray with flour when I feel a prickling sensation on my neck, spreading down my spine. My chest gets hot but goosebumps litter my arms.
I clench my jaw. I know he won’t say anything. He never does. He just appears like a wraith and expects me to acknowledge him because he’s in charge.
I wonder how long he’d stand there without speaking before cracking. I’ve never tried it before, but I’m tempted today.
I’m annoyed he’s interrupted my flow. Part of me thinks he might have done it on purpose.
Resolving myself to be petty, I carry on with what I’m doing and pretend he’s not there. I dust the tray and then line the dough buns on top in four rows of four. I move to put the tray in the oven, catching a glimpse of the head chef standing at the entrance to my pastry section, arms folded across his chest.
Harry cranes his neck and clears his throat in an attempt to get my attention, which I purposefully ignore.
When I pull the next proving dough to my station, dump the entire thing on the counter, and start kneading, the chef lets out an almighty sigh. I have to squeeze my mouth closed to stop laughing.
I knead, roll, cut, and line a whole other tray without him saying a word. This cannot be a productive use of his time, but the man is bull-headed at the best of times, and it’s clear he’s in a mood. I can’t help but find it entertaining.
A chef-de-rang bothers him with a question, and the response is not polite. If I weren’t ignoring him, I’d snap at him and remind him a chef can still have manners.
Unfortunately, by the time I slide the next tray of buns in the oven, the novelty has worn off.
“Can I help you, Chef?” I ask, matching his closed posture.
“You just spent nearly ten minutes ignoring me,” is all he says.
“I did.”
“Do you think that’s productive?”
“Productive? I was actually doing something, unlike someone I know.”
I swear I see his right eye twitch. “If I come to you, I expect you to acknowledge me.”
“I’m sorry. I thought you were being obstinate.”
Those green eyes narrow sharply. “What have I told you about using big words in my kitchen?”
A laugh bubbles out of me, but his demeanour doesn’t change. I exhaust the man. “It means st—,”
“For the love of my sanity, woman, do not finish that sentence.”
I push my lips together and bite on the lower one. I don’t know why I find his ire so absurdly funny, but the flaring of his nostrils isn’t helping.
“I need a favour from you.”
I hold my tongue from commenting on the fact that he asked rather than told me to do something, and simply nod.
“You need to be sous chef tonight.”
Never mind, I take it back. “You have a sous chef. His name is Dimas—he’s very nice. And very good at his job.”
Harry runs his tongue along the inside of his mouth in the general sign that I’m starting to push my luck. “I don’t think the fact that he’s vomiting right now will make him very good at his job, nice as he is.”
I purse my lips. “Hm, no, probably not. Even still, you have an entire brigade to play sous chef with. Pick one of them.”
“You are in my brigade and I pick you.”
Now I can feel my right eye twitching. “It’s the busiest day of the week, and I have too much to do today.”
“It’s just for service. Just to get the rush out of the way.”
I take a deep, centering breath. I could argue with him about this until I’m blue in the face but I’ll end up giving in, because he is the boss and, general ribbing aside, I do respect him.
“I’ll owe you,” Harry adds, knowing it’ll butter me up.
“What about all the other times you said you’ll owe me?”
His nostrils flare again and his eyes take a slow blink. That look says many, many things, none of which I have time to pick apart here and now. If ever. “Add it to my tab.”
If I had the ability to growl, I would. “That tab is never getting paid. But fine.”
I know he wants to argue again, and I know exactly what he would say. But he thinks better of it and settles on, “Thank you. I will leave you alone until then.”
Yeah right.
~~~
The afternoon goes by in a blur of bread, cake, tiffin, and tart. I shout “Service!” no less than 80 times, if only because the front-of-house staff either don’t hear me or simply pretend not to. At one point I’m so sick of yelling and waiting, I pick the afternoon tea stand up and force it into the hands of the restaurant manager, just so it’s no longer in my way.
I have a bit of rant, loud and clear for every chef and waiter to listen to, which shocks most people into silence, and has Harry’s shoulders shaking with silent laughter. I do not rant, and I do not lose my temper, so I can understand the shock. Of all the chefs in the kitchen, I’m the patient one. But my rant is effective, because my pass is never full for more than a handful of seconds at a time for the rest of the day.
Once the afternoon service concludes, I spend an hour with the pastry team making sure they’re set up and ready for a dinner service without me. I mean, yes, they do this weekly when I take my days off, but I have never left them in the lurch on one of our busiest Saturdays ever.
When I’m satisfied they’ll be able to handle it, I grab a plate of food and go and hide somewhere for thirty minutes to mentally prepare myself and eat.
This is not the done thing as a chef. We eat while we cook. There are not enough minutes in the day to take a whole thirty minute break. Ten at most, maybe, on a good day. But not half an hour.
That being said, I don’t work in the main kitchen, and I haven’t been behind the big pass during service for a few years. I’m scared of failing.
Ten minutes before the start of service, Harry and I join the front-of-house team for the daily briefing. The restaurant manager reads out all the guests that have booked, with any special occasions, dietary requirements, and allergies we should know about. Harry reminds the team that they need to note who has allergies on each check and which dish they’re having. I say nothing, as usual.
Back in the kitchen, we finish preparing the pass for service and wait for the first order to come in. The anticipation feels like waiting for the main act at a concert.
The metallic chugging of the Micros machine alerts the room to the first check of the night, which Harry snatches up, quickly assesses, and then calls out to the team.
“Check on! Two covers, one salmon and one soup to start, followed by one lamb and one sea bass.”
A chorus of “Yes, Chef!” replies, and we all get to work.
My main role is plating, taking different elements from the chef de parties and commis chefs—meat, fish, garnish, etc.—and assembling them on the plate the way Chef likes it. Then I present it to him for inspection. I try to do quality control where I can, but the man is eagle-eyed at the worst of times.
“Stop,” Harry barks when the commis working on garnish leaves a tray of char-grilled greens in front of me. “Remake that, now. People aren’t going to eat a tenderstem broccoli when it looks like it could turn to ash at the slightest touch. Don’t insult me by bringing shit like that to the bench again.”
“Yes, Chef,” the commis mutters, and scurries away with his burnt broccoli in tow.
I keep my eyes averted and carry on plating the other dish while I wait.
Harry’s face appears in my periphery. “Something to say?”
I give him my dirtiest side eye. “Wouldn’t dream of it.”
He scoffs. “Now we both know that’s not true. Out with it.”
“I have nothing to say.”
“Bullshit.”
Now I do turn to face him, keeping my voice low. “Do not try to embarrass me, Chef. I am here doing you a favour, as asked, and respecting your authority. Please don’t make me regret it.”
Fire burns in his green eyes. “Indeed. And I asked you because I don’t trust anyone else. Which means I rely on you to catch stupid fuck-ups like eviscerated vegetables.”
“He hadn’t even put the fucking tray down. I can’t catch fuck-ups if I haven’t even seen them yet.”
“You should be more vigilant.”
“And you shouldn’t claim I’m the only one you trust and then spend the entire service looking over my shoulder. Because now I know you’re lying.”
I know I’ve got him by the tightening of his jaw. “Fine.”
I roll my eyes once he’s turned away.
The commis comes back with a fresh tray. “Much better,” I tell him, not just because they are better, but because I want to piss Harry off.
I refuse to be a pawn in a man’s quest for power.
~~~
The dinner rush comes and goes, and by the time the last ticket is completed, I am dead on my feet. I help finish service in the pastry section as well, and then slip out the door with a quick goodbye.
Sometimes, working 13 hour days on my feet feels like being lobotomised. My head buzzes like it’s full of TV static.
At home, I shower and change then flop down on the sofa. Sometimes I fall asleep here if I can’t find the energy to get up again. It’s not always comfortable and it’s no doubt fucking with my body, but exhaustion weighs heavy.
I pick up my book and try to read a few chapters.
I can’t have been reading for more than twenty minutes when my front door bursts open.
My neck barely has time to prickle before the door slams shut again, and I’m yanked off the sofa and thrown over a strong shoulder.
“What the fuck!” I scream, forgetting about my neighbours and the late hour.
All I can see is my living room floor and the long, jogger-clad legs of my assailant. My book is still in my hand but tumbles to the floor when I get a hard slap on my backside.
“Hey!”
I’m unceremoniously tossed onto my bed with a bounce, and I scowl up at the man trying to overpower me. “What the fuck are you doing?”
My demand doesn’t bother him. A pair of green eyes glare back at me, dark brown hair recently cut short and but still managing a rakish, tousled quality. “Teaching you a lesson.”
“Excuse me?!”
He straddles me and grips my cheeks in one hand, using the other to trap my wrists. “You were a brat today.”
I huff a laugh. “And you were extra dickish,” I retort, and try to buck him off me.
His eyes flare and he lowers himself so our faces are mere centimetres apart. “You usually like it.”
“Fuck off, Harry,” I say with a bite.
But I can’t ignore the way the bulge in his joggers has come to life.
“You don’t mean that.”
“I do,” I lie, and attempt to wriggle free of him.
I know he finds my attempts funny given the look on his face, filled with quiet amusement. “I know that’s not true. You want me all over you.”
This fucker.
I never wanted to be in this position—intimately beholden to the man who employs me. But here I am, weak and defenseless against his pretty face and capable body.
I do want him all over me. Because it takes my mind off everything, and I don’t have to think for a while. I can switch off and let him take charge.
But I can’t let him know that.
“Does the size of your head match the size of your ego?”
He rears back, visibly shocked. “Woah, now.”
“I’m being serious. Does every dick stroke you receive make your head get bigger? Like, literally and figuratively?”
Harry’s mouth drops open, and a single baffled laugh comes out of him. But he quickly recovers. “Do you want to test that theory?”
I narrow my eyes at him, and that perfect, beautiful, dimpled smile appears on his face. He doesn’t smile like this at work. He keeps this smile for me when he wants something.
And it works every time.
I roll my eyes, which he takes as acquiescence, and moulds his mouth to mine. Our kiss is at once hot and desperate. Harry feels familiar but also like a complete stranger. I know nothing about him except that he is a bastard at work and exceptional in bed. And this kiss only amplifies that.
His tongue is in my mouth and his hips grind into my pelvis—a prelude and an indication of what he wants from me. He finally releases his grip on my wrists so he can start touching me as he pleases, hands stroking my neck and collar, down to my breasts.
Harry is not gentle. He squeezes and pinches my boobs over my top like they’ve personally offended him and need reprimanding. Maybe they have offended him, I don’t know. Men get upset over the strangest things.
On the other hand, I’m a simple woman. My fingers thrust into his soft hair and stay there.
He grunts when I tug on his short strands and bites down on my lower lip.
“Ow,” I grumble.
“I’m gonna fuck the brat right out of you,” he promises.
I laugh into his kiss, and he grins right back.
He kisses my cheek and my neck, and then moves lower to my breasts. He sucks harshly and it makes me gasp, but he doesn’t linger. He keeps going until he’s between my legs.
Harry rids me of my PJ shorts and gets comfortable, sucking another kiss into the fleshy part of my inner thigh.
“I can smell you,” he says, moving closer to the apex of my legs.
“Shut up.”
He gives my thigh a teasing squeeze but doesn’t waste any more time. When he licks up my slit, he meets my gaze, knowing I can never take my eyes off him when he does this.
It fascinates me, seeing his face nestled in my most intimate part. You can’t really get much closer than that.
There’s a wolfish gleam in his eyes as he starts eating me out with gusto. I moan, gripping his hair tighter at the wet feel of his tongue on my clit and in my hole. It’s a heady sensation—not unfamiliar at this point but always a pleasant surprise. Hard not to appreciate a man who knows how to give good oral.
He licks and sucks and licks and sucks, his nose rubbing against my clit with each and every tiny movement. He reaches for my breast with one hand again, always fixated by them. I cover his hand with mine.
I let my head fall back, my entire body writhing. I push my pussy into his face and squeeze my legs around his head.
He groans into me and it sends liquid fire through my veins.
“Fuck, Harry,” I moan, on the cusp of coming. “Fuck, fuck, fuck, that feels good.”
He hums, pleased with himself. I feel his tongue pushing into my cunt, and then he sucks the life out of me. My orgasm detonates and I cry out, using his hair once again as some kind of lifeline.
Harry keeps on eating me until I’m clean and sensitive. He kisses down my thigh and my leg twitches. “I could live here,” he tells me.
That’s oddly…sentimental.
As if he didn’t just blurt out words that I’ll ruminate over for days to come, he crawls back up the length of my body, kissing my skin as he goes. Tugging at the hem of my top, he instructs, “Take this off.”
I sit up and do as he says while he flops down on his back and starts shucking his joggers off. Then he yanks me down over him, my thighs cushioning his hips.
His dick is already hard as I sit atop it, rubbing my soaked pussy along its shaft.
“Shit, that’s good,” he groans, and grips my hips in encouragement. “Keep doing that.”
So I do. I roll my hips and grind my pussy up and down the length of him. My hands smooth along his forearms where he holds me, and then up to my breasts where I play with them a bit, just to tease him.
The feeling is…sensational. I’m still sensitive and I’m working myself up all over again just by doing this.
He mutters praises and profanity, mixing the two together like a prophetic poem. And then he says things like, “Fuck, I’m gonna come.”
I pause. “Already?”
“Yes, already. Quick, get a condom.”
I lean over to my bedside table and pull out a foil packet, tossing it at him. Before he puts it on, though, he manoeuvres me into an entirely different position. I’m suddenly on all fours, and Harry issues a well-placed slap to my backside.
“Ow!”
I hear him snicker and glare at him over my shoulder. His face is concentrated, fixing the condom on his cock rather than looking at me. Annoyingly, I find that I don’t like it when his gaze is elsewhere.
“I said I was gonna fuck the brat out of you,” he says conversationally, as if we’re discussing the viscosity of various creams and not our clandestine practices. “But I obviously haven’t been trying hard enough.”
With that, Harry enters me on a single, smooth puncture of his hips, and fills me up. I’m wet enough that it’s not a chore. And I like it so much that a long, breathy moan is my only reaction.
I bury my face into my sheets and stick my ass up higher, adjusting the angle slightly, feeling him in a totally different way. He chokes, and starts fucking me with abandon.
He doesn’t hold back. His pace is punishing and his thrusts are hard. I find myself grappling to hold onto something, but all I can get my hands on is the bed sheets and they are not sturdy enough to keep me upright.
Harry slides in and out of me, grunting every time his hips meet my ass. He slaps it again and I let out a broken cry. Sweat covers me—I can feel it in my hairline and along my spine, in the space between my legs and on my chest, between my tits.
I feel his weight on me, one of his hands squeezing my breast as he places a single open-mouthed kiss to my shoulder blade.
“You’ve gone quiet,” he accuses.
Unable to help myself, I clap back with, “Hard to speak when you’re fucking me so hard I can feel your dick in my throat.”
He rumbles a pleased noise. “I can put my dick in your throat if you’d like?”
I am assaulted with the image of me on his bed, head dangling over the edge and mouth open while he face-fucks me from above. We did that last time and it was…I felt ruined afterwards. It was the first time I’d been nervous to go to work the next day.
I clench my core and his pace falters. “No, thank you.”
Harry chuckles, biting my shoulder now, and carries on. He smacks me again, and again, on my ass, no doubt leaving raw red marks.
I start playing with my clit, needing a little something to push me to the edge.
Harry groans again when he realises what I’m doing. “You’re so,”—thrust—“fucking,”—thrust—“hot.”
Well. That’s new.
I’m not sure, in all the months we’ve been doing this, that he’s ever complimented me like that. He tells me I take him well and I’m such a good girl and my pussy was made for his cock. You know. Things he could be saying to literally anyone with a vagina and a pulse.
I clench again, squeezing my eyes closed, and I can feel my orgasm cresting. “Harry,” I gasp.
“Yeah, baby?”
Baby? So many firsts tonight. “I’m gonna come.”
“Do it. Come all over my cock.”
That’s more like it.
I let my orgasm tear through me, crying out into my pillows. My body is on fire, and Harry is back to fucking me as if he was put on this planet for that reason alone, until he comes with a roar, too.
I feel the warmth of his seed filling the condom inside me, and then his weight collapses on me, covering me entirely.
“Fucking hell,” he pants, then buries his face in my neck.
I can’t move—not with his big frame atop me—so I concentrate on my breathing, trying to settle my heart rate while he sucks a mark into my neck. Usually I would complain about him doing such a thing, but I’m too knackered to speak, and I think he knows it, too.
We lay like this for an undetermined amount of time, and I hate how nice it feels, having his weight on me. I think he might’ve fallen asleep, but when I start tracing idle patterns between his patchwork of tattoos, he lets out a satisfied sigh that tickles the back of my neck.
“I need to go,” he says, unmoving, voice muffled by my skin.
“Okay,” I whisper.
There’s a long pause. “I don’t want to.”
This is a dangerous game to be playing, but I don’t think the butterflies in my stomach are aware of that. “You don’t have to.”
“But I should.”
Something fists around my heart, but I ignore it. I decide I hate this game. “I need to go to the toilet.”
He rolls off me, his soft dick slipping out of me as he goes, and I scramble my way off the bed and out of the room, all without looking at him.
I’ve lost track of how long it’s been since we started doing…this.
It all began at a staff Christmas party, so probably January (you know, because hotel staff can’t have a Christmas party at Christmas time). When I first started working for Harry we were both in a relationship, so I didn’t really think the fact that I found him attractive meant anything.
Then one day he was single. Some months later so was I, and hurting. Retrospectively, that first night we slept together was very much just to get over someone, get under someone else. It certainly helped that my someone else was six feet of Just My Type. Dark, messy hair, green eyes, voice like beef dripping. If I drew my dream man based on looks alone, Harry wouldn’t be a far off alternative.
But he’s my boss. Although there’s no rule in the hotel that staff can’t form attachments with one another, it didn’t look great. But, because I was the senior pastry chef, and mostly ran my own team in my own section, it didn’t much feel like a boss-employee relationship. It felt like a partnership.
Maybe that’s why we’ve got to where we are now: an open door policy and fucking pretty much every other night of the week whenever one of us feels that urge. Harry turns up here more than I do his, but I’ve never tried to take more out of it than I should.
It’s just sex.
Sometimes we’re so tired after fucking that we fall asleep but it’s never been intentional. And I’m not sure we’ve ever even spooned.
Tonight, though? It felt different. Like we evolved past just fucking. And I’m terrified.
When I come back from the bathroom, I try to relax, to be as normal as possible.
Harry is sitting on the edge of my bed, still naked but the condom disposed of, and staring at the floor.
“You okay?” I ask in the most nonchalant way I can manage.
He inhales sharply and nods. “Yeah. All good.”
Harry stands and starts collecting his clothes. He dresses in silence while I get ready for bed.
It’s the strangest feeling I get, because for the first time since we started doing this, I feel like a spare part.
“I’ll see you tomorrow,” he says with barely an ounce of feeling, and then he’s gone.
~~~
I don’t find myself in the GM’s office very often. In fact, I don’t find myself out of the kitchen very often, so it’s always unusual to wind up in a different part of the hotel. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a bedroom in the three years I’ve worked here. I only go to the reception when I need something printed, which is maybe once in every month or so.
Standing in the General Manager’s office with Chef by my side is a little unnerving. I don’t know why I’m here, just that I was summoned. I wonder if I’m in trouble, although I can’t think of why. Unless…
I glance at Harry, who is just as silent as I am. He doesn’t bother meeting my gaze.
Holy fuck, do people know? Did someone find out we’re fucking? I sincerely hope not. I think I might die if that’s the case.
Janice, the hotel’s senior manager, finally ends her phone conversation and grins up at the two of us. “Sorry about that. Thank you for coming over here.”
“It’s no problem,” Harry says for the both of us.
“I’ve actually got a bit of news,” she tells us, searching for something on her computer, and then turning to look at me. “You’ve been nominated for an award.”
I lift my brows. “Me?”
She chuckles. “Yes, you.”
Harry nudges me, and I look up at him. “Well done.”
“Thanks,” I turn back to Janice. “What award?”
“Pastry Talent of the Year at the La Liste awards.”
“Shut the f—,” I cover my hand over my mouth before I can swear at the lady who pays my wages. “Are you serious?”
“Absolutely. And it’s well deserved.” She ruffles through some papers. “You get to go to the awards ceremony. Harry will go with you and we’ll pay for your hotel rooms and your train to London. It’s in a month’s time. And it’s classed as a work trip, so technically a working day, which you’ll be paid for.”
“Wow. Thank you so much.”
“No, my dear, thank you. You’ve been a great asset to your kitchen and I’m pleased we finally get to show you some recognition for it.”
I leave the office feeling a little…floaty. I won awards years ago as a trainee chef, but never as an adult based on my own merit and my own ideas. This feels crazy.
“How do you feel?” Harry asks as we make our way back to the kitchen.
“Bewildered?” I say with a laugh.
“Why? Janice is right—you deserve it. You’re an excellent chef, a fantastic leader to your team. There’s a reason people prefer to come to you with questions than to me.”
“Yes, well, I am much kinder than you, and nicer to look at,” I joke.
He pinches my elbow and I hiss at him. Chuckling, he says, “I think we should celebrate.”
“I haven’t won yet.”
“Yet,” he emphasises. “But being nominated is still an achievement, and I want to celebrate it.”
“And how do you propose we do that?”
He pauses just outside the kitchen door and leans closer to me. “Leave your door unlocked for me tonight.”
The quiet depth of his voice has me wet in an instant. “Okay.”
~~~
I’m reading again when the knock comes on my front door. Well, it doesn’t really sound like a knock. More like two impatient kicks to the bottom.
Frowning, I abandon my book on the coffee table and go to answer the door.
Harry is on the other side, holding champagne in one hand, a bouquet of tulips in the other, and something else hooked under his arm.
“Wow. You suddenly remembered how to knock,” I deadpan.
He gives me a resigned look. “In case you haven’t noticed, I’ve got my hands full.”
Pleased with myself for getting under his skin, I open the door wider and move out the way for him. He charges in and heads straight for the kitchen, dumping his purchases on the side.
“Do you have a vase?” he demands, already rummaging through my cupboards.
I struggle to comprehend what’s happening for a moment, and then I remember the tulips he was carrying. “You bought me flowers?” I ask dumbly.
“Are we stating the obvious today? Yes I bought you flowers.”
I am…a bit speechless.
When I don’t say anything else, he turns to face me with raised eyebrows. “Vase?”
“Oh, right. Um, hang on a second.”
I shuffle through the flat to a cupboard I keep miscellaneous things in, pluck out one of the two vases I’ve somehow acquired but never actually bought, and take it to the kitchen. Harry takes it out of my hands, fills it up with water and then plonks the tulips inside, cellophane wrap and all.
I am horrified. “What are you doing?”
“What?”
I take the flowers back out and dig a pair of scissors out of the drawer. “You can’t put them in there like that! They need to be unbound and trimmed.”
“Darling,” he wraps his hand around my wrist and pulls me away from the counter, confiscating the scissors, “if I wanted a lecture on flower arranging, I’d speak to my mother.”
I glare at him, but he ignores me. Instead, he walks me backwards to the empty surface I use when I’m baking, and helps me up onto the counter.
“Now, lie on your back.”
“Why?”
He gives me another impatient look. “Please, for the sake of my very short tether, just do as I say.”
Feeling a little out of sorts but unable to deny him, I lay down on the hard surface, wincing at the way the unforgiving laminate bites into my back. I turn my head to watch him as he takes the champagne bottle, unwraps the foil and the cap, and eases the cork out with a satisfying pop.
“Glasses are in the small cupboard on the left,” I tell him, voice breathy.
He doesn’t acknowledge this in the slightest, instead prowling towards me, wielding the bottle like a weapon. “Open up, baby.”
My eyes widen. “What?”
“Open up. I want to feed you tonight.”
“Why?”
“So many questions.” He strokes his free thumb over my cheek. “I told you, we’re celebrating. Which means you get to lie there and look pretty, and I get to do whatever I want to you.”
“Isn’t that counter-intuitive since I’m the one being rewarded?”
“You’ve really gotta stop using big words around me.”
“But you like me most because I’m smarter than you,” I argue.
He grins, all boyish charm and big dimples. “True. I promise everything I do will feel like a reward in the end.”
I sigh, but settle as best I can against the counter and open my mouth.
He cups my chin, fingers and thumb digging into my cheeks, and pours the gold liquid into my waiting mouth. It bubbles and fizzes, dribbling over the corner of my mouth and down my neck. I feel it in my nose, tingling and sparkly. But I manage to swallow without choking.
Harry watches in fascination the whole time, especially my chest with every breath I take, and then when I’m done, he turns my face away and licks a path up my neck to my mouth, following the trail of alcohol.
It is strangely, inherently sexy, and I can’t help but moan when he kisses me, slow and deep.
He pulls back, and I watch with a measured infatuation as he takes a pull straight from the bottle this time and swallows it down. His Adam’s apple bobs and the lines of his throat stretch. I feel a need to bite him there, like a leech in need of a fix.
When he glances my way I feel my heartbeat thunder, and his eyes stay on mine as he takes in another mouthful, but this time he doesn’t swallow. Instead, he leans over me, presses his lips to mine, and lets the champagne flow from his mouth to mine.
I fist his shirt as I swallow and keep him there for another bruising kiss. He doesn’t try to pull away. He matches every stroke of my tongue, every nip of his lips.
Harry’s hand travels to the valley between my legs and presses against my core. “You love this, don’t you?”
I do. I don’t know why I find it such a turn on. Perhaps it’s the uninhibited filthiness of it. The sheer taboo-ness of it all.
His question is apparently rhetorical anyway since he keeps on kissing me without waiting for an answer, and starts rubbing my clit over my clothes. We do this for a while, just kissing and touching each other. I’m still on my back on the counter while he crowds over me with his feet firmly on the ground. I’m groping his cock through his joggers, loving the way he tents against the fabric.
We just kiss and grope and kiss and grope until I’m nearly there, hanging on the edge of a precipice and ready to let my orgasm take hold of me.
And because he’s an absolute bastard, he steps completely out of my reach just before I come.
“No!” I squeal, petulantly, like a child denied a new toy.
He smirks at me, hands in his pockets, thoroughly entertained. “Don’t be upset, darling. I don’t want you to come yet.”
“Why?” I whine, covering my face from the shame of being so outraged.
“Because there’s so much more I want to do with you before you do.”
“Fuck you, Harry.”
“You will. Eventually.”
He grabs the mysterious third item I couldn’t work out when he arrived—a can of whipped squirty cream. I track his every move as he gives it a vigorous shake, yanks the lid off, and squirts some into his mouth. He hums, all suggestive and dirty, and then approaches me again.
I taste the lingering sweetness of cream when he kisses me, not hurried but not slow either. Then, back to concentrating, he pushes my top up from the hem, and it bunches around my chest, exposing my tits and stomach.
Harry uses the cream to draw a single, infuriatingly straight line from my cleavage, down my abdomen and over my navel, before stopping at my lower stomach, right above the waistband of my PJ shorts. And without any preamble, he lowers his head and slowly licks up that same line, tongue on my flushed skin, cleaning it right back up.
I squirm when he reaches my bellybutton and shove my hands in his hair, fisting it tight.
He grunts around a chuckle. He wraps a hand around my bicep, the other gripping my waist. As if I’m going anywhere.
When he’s done, he immediately takes my nipple into his mouth. The combination of cream and his tongue is like silk. I am a whimpering mess.
He snatches the can from where he left it, and squirts more cream on me, this time a big blob on each of my breasts over my nipples. And then he sucks them clean again.
This carries on—him strategically placing blobs of cream onto my body and then licking it or sucking it up. Sometimes he lingers, doing his best to leave a mark.
All of these things make me mindless with want, but he’s stopped touching me with his hands, and I’m close to losing my temper.
“Stick your tongue out, baby,” he instructs, and I do. I stick it out as far as it’ll go, eyes glued to him as he squirts a blob onto my tongue, and then sucks it away. But I cling onto him, demanding a kiss of my own, and he thankfully doesn’t deny me.
In fact, this time, he abandons the cream entirely and just keeps on kissing me. And his hand? It’s back to giving attention to my pussy, but now it’s beneath my waistband and he’s got two fingers inside me.
Harry fucks me with his fingers until I’m about to come, and then he stops. Again.
“Harry,” I groan, exasperated by him.
“I know, I’m such a bastard,” he mocks, pouting at me.
I want to punch him in the dick. “I do not enjoy being edged.”
“That’s a shame,” he coos, then tugs me to the edge of the table by my hips, “because I enjoy edging you very much.”
He carries me bridal style to the sofa and drops me on the cushions, crowding over me. He studies my scowling face like it’s utterly fascinating, a tiny smirk pulling at the corners of his lips. He strokes his thumb over the crease in my brow, pinches my chin and kisses me once, chaste.
Then he stands, making me watch in suffering silence as he strips naked, discarding his clothes in the middle of my living room floor. When he’s done, he starts ridding me of mine, too.
Once we’re both completely naked, he rolls a condom on and covers my body with his, lining himself up at my entrance.
“I don’t know if you’re aware of this, darling,” he says this while making sure my eyes are on his, “but fucking you has become one of my favourite hobbies.”
He then proceeds to fuck me so hard, I come twice.
~~~
My favourite colleague is a 20-year-old part-timer who has no filter and makes the best chocolate cake I’ve ever tasted.
Faith comes in three days a week—Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays—to help with service and bake any celebration cake orders we get. I don’t know where Harry found her, but she is a breath of fresh air. I’ve been trying to get her to move to us full time, but she likes her freedom, and I honestly can’t blame her for that.
“I don’t know why she thinks I’d be up for that,” Faith says as she pipes buttercream between layers of lemon sponge. “Not once have I ever even remotely insinuated that I would be interested in a threesome. Let alone with a man.”
The commis waiter coming to collect a portion of ice cream looks scandalised. I give them an urgent look to go before Faith can rope the poor sod into giving his opinion.
“So how did this meeting conclude?” I ask, starting on the next check.
“Well, I’m not going to sleep with her boyfriend. She was misleading in her profile and I didn't appreciate it. If I wanted to sleep with a man,”—she shudders at the notion—“then I’d be on Plenty of Fish. Or one of those other boring ones.”
“Is Plenty of Fish still a thing?”
“You should know the answer to that—you’re more their target demographic than I am.”
“How’d you work that out?”
“No offence, but you’re old. Old people are on Plenty of Fish.”
My mouth falls open. “Offence taken. People my age use Tinder. I think.”
“Tinder is full of reprobates and men with no hair. It’s no wonder you’re still single.”
“I’m not on Tinder,” I remind her.
“Maybe you should be. It might clear the cobwebs between your legs.”
“Rude. There are no cobwebs there, I am perfectly sexually satisfied.”
“I hate to be the one to tell you this, Boss, but your vibrators don’t count.”
I ignore the jibe. Granted, my vibrator has seen a lot more use this week than in recent months on account of Harry being out of the country on holiday with his family. It doesn’t really bother me, however I don’t have much imagination when it comes to masturbating, which means I can spend anywhere up to half an hour per session trawling porn sites for something that floats my boat. It’s been a while since I’ve had to, and the amount of AI porn that’s cropped up is frankly disturbing.
I don’t know where Harry has gone given we don’t really text unless it’s about work, and our conversation when we’re together is contained to the parameters of whatever sexual activity we’re partaking in.
I’ve been reduced to the breadcrumbs he’s posted on his Instagram stories, which have amounted to a bistro table with a croissant and a coffee, the half profile of an infant I can only assume is his ‘nibling’, a duck and her ducklings swimming in a neat line through an unknown breadth of water, and a still shot of a train in motion.
The man’s need for ambiguity is infuriating as hell.
He did, however, tell Dimas that he would be home this afternoon, which means I’m going to surprise him at home. Well. I’m going to turn up at his door unannounced and demand he fuck me into next week. There’s only so many times a girl can tolerate a subpar orgasm from the effort of an insentient object.
So when we’re done for the day, I change into my ‘civilian clothes’—or ‘civvies’, as my cadet friend calls them—and drive out to Harry’s place.
Because he is paid considerably more than me, his flat is bigger—two bedrooms not one, an entirely separate kitchen with an island, and a bathroom with an actual bath—and in a nicer part of town.
I park up on the street outside and quickly check my phone. There’s an email there sent from a very well-known patisserie. And it’s not a sales email.
Congratulations on your recent nomination. We wish you the best of luck at the La Liste awards and will be rooting for you to win! Separately, an opportunity has become available and we are looking to hire a senior baker. We are getting in touch as we think you would be perfect. I have attached the job description for your perusal. If this is something you might be interested in, please do let me know and we can arrange an interview. I hope to hear from you soon.
I gape at the email.
Am I being headhunted? Is that what this means?
I take a moment to let that settle in.
Obviously I’m not going to make a decision right now, at 11 o’clock at night. But it’s a really cool opportunity. And I don’t see the harm in interviewing.
I shake my head and vow to deal with it tomorrow.
Inside, I head up to Harry’s floor in the lift. I watch the numbers tick up and up until it pings and the doors slide open.
There’s a lot of noise on this level and I wonder if someone’s having a party. I mooch down the corridor to Harry’s flat. On the other side of the door I can hear voices, but just assume it’s something on the TV.
Unlike my counterpart, I have a much politer temperament, so I knock rather than just let myself in.
I wait, hearing shuffling inside, then the snick of the Yale lock.
I’m smiling when the door opens, but the expression quickly slips from my face.
A woman stands over the threshold, a patient, open look on her face. “Hi.”
“Er,” I stutter, double checking the number on the door, “hi.”
“Can I help you?” It’s not rude, but rather curiously intoned, like she is just as surprised to see me as I am her.
I’m still not sure I have the right door.
The woman is pretty. Short dark hair half pulled off her face. Pixie-like bone structure and waifish in her figure. I feel at once jealous and unworthy.
“Sorry, I…” I check the door again just to be absolutely certain, “I must have the wrong flat.”
“Oh, no problem.” She smiles and I turn away, all but sprinting back to the lift.
I’m pushing the button for the ground floor when Harry’s head appears out of his apartment, a concerned look on his face. When he realises it’s me, he starts pacing his way down the corridor, calling my name. I press the button to close the doors faster.
I manage to get downstairs and into my car without him catching up, so I peel out of my space and head home, trying my best to ignore the way my throat has closed up. I don’t know why I’m so upset. Harry and I have never labelled anything. He’s not my boyfriend and I have no claim on him.
By the time I park up at home, I have multiple missed calls and texts from him. I decide to turn my phone off without reading any of them.
I despise this feeling of jealousy that curdles inside me. Still, I get up to my flat, lock the door and leave the key in, and then crawl into bed.
I barely sleep all night.
~~~
Part 2
