Bringing Home a Bachelor Read online

And then, finally, it was.

  That’s when he took control of things. As soon as Melinda turned off the mixer, he unplugged it and took it away from her, ejecting the beaters into the sink. He turned her around, grabbed the bowl and a spoon and drew her down with him onto the kitchen rug.

  “What about the melted chocolate?” she asked, laughing as he pushed her down flat.

  “It goes by the wayside. I can’t wait any longer, Mel. I really can’t.” He dipped the spoon into the whipped cream and slathered it all over her breasts.

  “That’s cold!” she protested.

  He dropped a small gob onto her nose, for good measure.

  “Hey!”

  Pete ignored her, popped the spoon into her mouth to silence her, and then flipped up her little 1950s housewife apron. He spread her knees and went to town with the whipped cream while she squirmed and laughed helplessly.

  “Be still and behave,” he ordered, “or I’ll have to give you the spatula treatment.”

  “Promises, promises.” Her eyes held amusement, desire and a sweet kind of trust that tugged at his heart. She could never, ever know about her mother’s trip to Playa Bella to see him. He pushed that inappropriate, ill-timed thought away and got seriously down to having dessert.

  * * *

  MELINDA LAY SPRAWLED lazily on her kitchen rug, but all the lassitude left her body as Pete took one of her breasts into his mouth, getting a face-full of whipped cream as he did so. His teeth abraded her nipple, his tongue gently tortured it, and hot streaks of pleasure shot down to her core.

  He laved every ounce of the cream from one breast before turning to the other, sucking and pulling on it, too. She stirred restlessly under him, her hips moving unconsciously, her body fully awakened and every nerve ending singing.

  Her grandmother’s apron was bunched up, wadded at her waist. She felt another flash of shame about wearing it in these circumstances, but that tinge of shame just made her feel hotter, naughtier, more free.

  He worked his way down her stomach, kissing and licking. She forgot to suck in, simply because it felt so good. And then…

  Oh, and then.

  He eased her thighs further apart, slipped his hands under her backside, and brought her bliss. Just the sight of his dark head bent over her there was erotic. But the sensations he elicited as he went down were indescribably good.

  She lifted herself to his mouth, writhing like a cat in heat, and couldn’t have cared less. Embarrassment fell away, forgotten, and all that mattered was the rainbow he painted right at her center, the delicious tension ratcheting up and up until she burst into the chaotic color of her orgasm. She clutched at his shoulders, his head, while sounds she didn’t recognize came from her own throat until she collapsed into a spent puddle of woman.

  Pete lifted his head and grinned. “Much better than Insta-Wip,” he said. “You sure as hell can’t get that out of a can.”

  “Come here,” she said weakly.

  “Why, certainly, Mistress Mel.”

  “I want you inside me, right now.”

  “Thought you’d never ask.” He was hard, his cock jutting out aggressively from his body, as if ready to go to war. He ditched his boxers and slid on top of her, levering himself up on his arms and looking down at her. “God, you’re b—” he caught himself just in time, and she smiled “—hot.”

  He gave her an answering smile, kissed her, and eased into her body, igniting her all over again. He filled her, not only with his cock but with affection and laughter and confidence, and she couldn’t help but respond on a level that went far beyond the physical.

  He wanted her, despite the numbers on the scale. He wanted her, in violation of everything she’d been brought up to believe. He wanted her for who she was.

  Melinda felt something far bigger than an orgasm building within her…it was a bubble of pure joy. She wanted to dance on a rooftop, to sing and shout her happiness—and yet, bizarrely, she also wanted to cry.

  As her body built to yet another peak under his, a lump rose in her throat and tears pricked at her eyes. She and Pete came at the same time, something that had never happened for her before, rocking and shuddering.

  Then she began to sob in his arms.

  “What?” Pete was clearly alarmed. “Oh my God, did I hurt you?”

  She shook her head.

  “Honey, what is it? Tell me.” He rolled them onto their sides, bodies still joined. “What’s the matter? Hmm?”

  “F-f-feel so good…” She buried her face in his shoulder.

  “But then why—?”

  “So used to f-feeling so bad around men…”

  “Oh, baby. Come here, Mel.” He held her tightly.

  “Don’t know what to d-do with this…”

  “Shhhhh. You don’t do anything with it, sweetheart. You just let it be. You just enjoy it. You feel good, okay? That’s all.”

  She hesitated, then nodded.

  He wiped her tears away with his thumbs, and she’d never felt so understood, so cherished.

  She’d also never felt so afraid of her own vulnerability.

  16

  “SO,” PETE SAID, still ignoring his conscience as he moved inside Melinda again later as they lay on her bed. “I think you should come and work for Playa Bella.”

  “Mmm,” was her immediate response, as she arched to meet his next thrust. Then, “What about your current pastry chef?”

  “He’s gone,” Pete assured her, knowing that Reynaldo would make that true as soon as they’d secured Mel’s services. He felt bad for the guy, but it wasn’t his decision and it couldn’t be helped in the face of Reynaldo’s resolve.

  “I thought you agreed not to do a sell job on me if I had a drink with you.”

  Pete grinned. “I didn’t mention it at all while we were at The Blue Martini, did I?”

  “You play dirty,” she complained.

  “I’m about to play dirtier,” he promised, pulling out and then sliding down her body.

  For the next few minutes, she had no more complaints—only accolades.

  Afterward, he levered himself over her, putting his weight on his elbows, and smoothed the dark hair back from her forehead. He kissed her, long and tenderly. “So will you think about it? About coming to work at Playa Bella?”

  She shook her head. “I like being independent, Pete. Having my own business. Calling the shots. I don’t want to answer to anyone.”

  “You’d have a great salary, benefits, 401k…”

  “Yeah, no. I just got out from under my overbearing parents four years ago. The last thing I need is an overbearing boss—especially one as chauvinist as that Reynaldo guy. Sorry.”

  Pete mulled over her answer. So she wanted independence. She didn’t want a boss. How could he meet her terms and still get her on board for Reynaldo? How could he make everyone happy?

  It was his area of expertise.

  He could find a way to do it.

  He knew he could. He always did.

  He lay back down beside Melinda and took her hand as they lay together in the dark, with just a shimmer of moonlight sliding in through a gap in her bedroom curtains.

  “What did you mean when you said the Green Machine was your escape chute?” she asked.

  The question took him by surprise. “Why?”

  “I don’t know—your voice got funny when you said it.”

  He stayed silent.

  “What did you want to escape from?”

  Pete shifted uncomfortably. “My brother,” he said after a pause. “My dad.”

  She waited expectantly.

  “They didn’t get along. My dad used to beat the crap out of my brother—he’d mouth off to him—and when it first started, I’d hide.”

  “Oh. That’s awful.”

  “I was a lot younger,” Pete said, hearing the defensiveness in his own voice. “I was scared.”

  Mel squeezed his hand.

  “It would usually start with my dad yelling at my mom. He ne
ver hit her. He would hit the wall next to her head, or the door. But my mom would start to cry, and that would make my brother mad and so he’d say something, and then my dad would yell at him, but then go right back to yelling at my mom.

  “So then my brother would get in his face and tell him to stop. And then my mom would scream at him to leave it alone, but it would be too late…my dad wouldn’t let himself hit a woman, but he’d unload on Brent.”

  “Oh, Pete,” Mel said. “I’m sorry. Everyone thought your dad was a nice guy. We had no idea.”

  He shrugged. “Of course you didn’t. Nobody did. Brent was years older than us. Brent would go get in fights at school, too, so that he didn’t get asked by teachers about the bruises. I thought he was just crazy, but he sort of knew what he was doing, in a sick way. He didn’t want child protective services on our doorstep.”

  Mel put a hand up to his cheek.

  “I used to crawl under the bed,” Pete continued. “Then came the day when my brother pulled me out by the ankle and started punching me, you know, afterward. He had a split lip and this nasty expression on his face and he told me to shut up and stop crying. That he wasn’t going to cry, and that I couldn’t, either.”

  “My parents heard us fighting and then my dad came in and it was even worse for Brent. They were crashing around the room. The window was open, so I pushed out the screen and dropped to the ground outside and ran.

  “The pattern was kind of set that day. It went on like that for years, but I was home as little as possible. I went to friends’ houses, I worked my paper route, I played sports, I worked on my car. I wasn’t your typical rebel second child. I was the good kid. Brent smoked pot, called me a pussy, dropped out of high school and worked in a restaurant. He ended up joining the army at age nineteen. I kept my mouth shut, avoided conflict, got good grades and went to college.”

  “I’m sorry,” Mel said again.

  “If my parents got into a fight,” Pete mused, “I just told myself that he never actually hit her, and so it was okay. I ignored it. I didn’t want to be his stand-in punching bag, you know?

  “He grabbed me once and shook me like a terrier shakes a rat. He was screaming, ‘Take a shot at me! Take a punch! Go ahead, you little shit! I know you want to!’” And I couldn’t. I just closed my eyes and basically played dead until he dropped me to the ground. I was a pussy—to him, anyway. But not on the football field.”

  “You were not,” Melinda said. “And that’s an ugly word, anyway. You were smart, Pete. You refused to engage with a crazy person, an abusive jerk.”

  He rolled away from her to face the wall. “Smart? I don’t know about that. I just followed old habit. I didn’t want my teeth on the floor in a pool of blood, like my brother’s.”

  “You did the right thing,” Mel said. After a pause, she asked, “What happened with your parents? I heard they moved to Birmingham, but…is your mom okay?”

  Pete nodded and rolled back to face her. “My mom is great. You know what happened? Brent was gone and I was in college when my dad finally really hurt himself—he punched a stud, broke his hand, and she had to take him to the hospital. She left his ass in the waiting room and told him to get counseling for his temper. That the marriage was over.”

  “So did he?”

  “Yep. When he got home with his hand in a cast there was a cold casserole waiting with a note that said she’d gone to her mother’s. She’d be back home again when he’d gone to see a therapist for six months and had the bills to prove it. So I guess after a couple of months of relying on ESPN and sit-coms for company and being utterly domestically challenged, he did. Then he went through an anger management class and now he waits patiently while she yells at him on occasion.”

  Mel laughed. “You’re kidding.”

  Pete shook his head. “Nope. I’m not. I almost fell over in shock the day I saw it for myself.”

  “Well, good for her!”

  “She tried to make him apologize to my brother, too. But that didn’t fly—my brother can antagonize the old man with a glance.”

  “I didn’t know Brent well,” Melinda said thoughtfully, “but he always seemed angry about something. He always had an attitude.”

  “Born that way,” Pete said. “Chipped his shoulder coming out of the womb, had colic as a baby and never got over the bellyaching. Then again, I don’t think either of my parents was ready to have kids when they did. They were too young. My dad didn’t want to share my mom with ‘the brat.’ Nice, huh?”

  “Then it’s actually amazing that they’re still together.”

  “That’s one word for it.”

  “Do you wish they weren’t?”

  Pete didn’t know how to answer that. “I used to wish my mom would leave him,” he said. “I was terrified of him. Now he just seems like a fat, middle-aged grocery sack that I don’t relate to, much. But I guess she’d be lonely without him.”

  * * *

  IT WAS LATER, after they’d been asleep for hours, that Pete woke up feeling horribly guilty. He’d accepted Jocelyn Edgeworth’s business, asked out her daughter as required, had made love to her and was even now plotting to manipulate her into his boss’s web at Playa Bella. He was the shit in a Machiavellian sandwich.

  Unfortunately, he’d also woken up with the perfect idea: the one that would make everyone, including himself, happy.

  Reynaldo had told him to find a solution for the boutique’s retail space. Reynaldo had told him to hire Mel. But Mel wanted independence; her own shop.

  So why not open a boutique bakery, right there in Playa Bella’s retail space? The more he thought about the idea, the more he liked it. Mel would get increased traffic from the hotel, and could raise her prices because of the elegant surroundings. The hotel made money from leasing the space, and could benefit even more from Mel being there if they somehow showcased her.

  “A holiday baking open house,” he said aloud, not even realizing it. “A gingerbread house competition, with the elaborate entries auctioned off for charity at a big ball. Better yet, she offers baking and cake-decorating classes. Or…she has her own televised show!”

  “Whah?” Mel murmured sleepily.

  “Yes!” Pete shouted, smacking his hand down on the mattress and forgetting all about guilt and Machiavelli.

  “Aaaaagh!” Melinda bolted upright, her hair wildly askew and her naked breasts bouncing. “What? What’s wrong?”

  Unable to help himself, Pete tweaked a nipple. “Playa Bella will have our very own Ace of Cakes!”

  Mel yelped, smacking his hand in the dark. “What are you talking about? Why would your hotel feature a TV show about baking?” She almost knocked her bedside lamp over as she reached for the switch.

  “I’m brilliant,” Pete announced, as the room became illuminated.

  “That’s nice. Why aren’t you asleep and brilliant?” she asked, a little acidly.

  “No, really! We showcase you, feature you, make you a star!”

  “Pete, do you have a fever? Have you been drinking?”

  “Listen,” he ordered, and told her of his vision. “We have to do something different with that retail space anyway—it can’t stay in business trying to sell three-hundred dollar ties the color of a flamingo’s butt—”

  “You’re crazy,” Mel said.

  “No! This can work, I promise you.”

  “I have an existing lease,” she protested. “I built out the space. I bought commercial ovens and equipment—”

  “All of which can be moved,” he pointed out. “And I bet I can sweet-talk you out of the lease or offer the owner something in return…I’m really good at that.”

  “I’m sure you are, but what makes you think I want to move onto the premises of Playa Bella? It will change the whole nature of my business.”

  “Your business will explode,” Pete told her. “Just think about it.”

  “I am thinking about it,” Mel said in dubious tones. “And I’m not sure I want to teach classes
—”

  “Why not, if it will bring you more customers?”

  “—not to mention that there’s no way you can guarantee me a TV show, Pete. You’re not God!”

  “No, that’s true, but Reynaldo just happens to be a big stockholder in the WMIA affiliate’s parent corporation, and it would only be a good thing for him and Playa Bella if we wrote a pilot and pitched it. Or we can start with a small local cable show. You don’t understand, sweetheart—this could be a huge moneymaker for everyone involved, and bring an enormous customer base right to our doorstep. Then you could come out with a line of cookie cutters and bake pans in the shapes you mentioned at Mark’s wedding—starfish, sand dollars, boats, fish, suns…”

  Mel muttered something that sounded like “that’d show Gutierrez.” She began to look thoughtful, and Pete knew he had her.

  Then her expression changed. “But I’d have to work for that creep, Reynaldo.”

  “No, no, no. You’d be your own boss.”

  “But within his hotel, which means that he ultimately calls the shots,” she said, balking.

  “Nope. You’d just be leasing the space, like you do right now at your current shop. You build it out the way you want to and bring in the equipment. Easy. You don’t answer to Reynaldo. You’d barely see the man. And,” Pete added, unable to resist, “you could still get those free massages at the Playa Bella spa.” He grinned.

  She squinted at him in the lamplight, chewing on her bottom lip.

  “Hey, stop that. You’ll eat it right off. Only I’m allowed to chew on your lip,” he teased.

  “Getting awfully bossy and proprietary, aren’t you?”

  “Why? Are there other men you allow to chew it?” Pete asked, getting unexpectedly cranky about the idea.

  “Maybe not exactly…”

  He rolled onto her naked body and mock glowered down at her. “Not exactly? What do you let other men do to you?”

  “I don’t know. Things I like them to do,” she bluffed.

  “Things like this?” He took one of her breasts into his mouth and pleasured it.

  Mel moaned. “Huh-uh.”

  “Then how about this?” He did similar things to her other breast.