Prep work (5 page)

Imogen’s expression, when she came to take my order, did not bode well for me. “Should I warn you about today’s garnishes?” Had her glare been a knife, I would have been fine dice
.

“No. Imogen, please, just hand him this.” Any soup she served was likely to end up in my lap, but whether hunger would return was an open question. Her loyalty to Tommy said a lot for him, and her anger about his state of mind.

She took my ticket, lips pursed thin. “It’s not been going well with him today. Will this make things better or worse?”

“Better, I hope.” A smile wasn’t happening, not with the roiling in my gut worse than anything caused by something I’d eaten for the show, except maybe the Szechuan hot pot. Pleading eyes would have to do. I’d swallowed my first snappy comment; he wouldn’t want to hear that there was an unhappy customer at table five.

“We’ll see.”

I watched her march back to the kitchen, wishing I dared follow, but I wasn’t going to invade Tommy’s sanctum unasked. If he didn’t ask, I might be reduced to lying in wait all day, downing the periodic pint as rent for the space until he closed the kitchen. I crossed my fingers against that possibility; if I couldn’t make any kind of case sober, I certainly wouldn’t manage if I were shit-faced.

Imogen returned without the active hostility. “You can bring your duffel to the storeroom if you want.” I followed her with my cases, hoping this meant I’d be around a while, and at last, I was alone in the heat with Tommy.

He turned the ticket over, looking at front and back, then at me. “Why?”

“Because—”
Because I love the way you smell, I want to feel every inch of you, I want to be in the kitchen with someone who loves food as much as you do, because I want about a hundred things, all with you.
“Because I want to find out about our possibilities together.” I didn’t take the last few steps to him, still not sure if I was welcome to come closer. “The flight wasn’t my way of making a fast exit.”

“It did sound like an excuse to leave.” Tommy stopped to check the sizzling contents of a pan. “I was trying to make it easy for you.”

“That’s just it—I don’t
want
to go!” Spinning him around, I forced him to face me, my hands on his upper arms. “I didn’t want to go this morning, but you shut down on me so fast.”

“Why not? I’m just a lay in London.” Tommy’s voice was flat, his face expressionless. “You must have turned your back on the blokes in Bangkok and Adelaide without a second thought.”

I had, but that was different. “You are
not
just a lay. You are—” Trying to think before I spoke this time, I paused but didn’t let him go. “You are Tommy, you are wonderful, you are a chance for me to matter, to make a difference, to—” This took a deep breath to get out. “You are someone who sees me as more than the foodie jerk who will eat anything for a rating. I was me again last night, don’t you see? I was Jude the chef for myself, and I was Jude the man—for you.”

“You don’t know me.” His arms stayed tense under my hands.

“How will that change if I go?” Tommy’s own argument was the best one I could make.

And, oh Lord, it was the right one. His smile spread up from his mouth and down from his eyes, and then he was in my arms, his mouth to mine. I would have been content to stay like that until every pan on the stove belched black smoke. Tommy had just that much more awareness of his cooking, though, and broke away enough to use his right hand to shift things around with a spoon, though he didn’t let go of me. Taking his cue, I became his left hand, and together we were enough of one cook to get one meal plated. Imogen rolled her eyes at the two of us cuddling tight with one arm each and cooking with the other, bringing us back to reality enough to let go.

“What are your plans? Have you thought past changing your flight?” Tommy set up the other two plates using both his own hands, the better to get his waitress out of the way.

Of course, I’d thought of nothing else, but wasn’t making assumptions. “Depends on whether or not my companion from last night lets me return. There’s a hotel with saggy mattresses that might have a room, if not.”

“I think we can spare your back. At least for tonight.” He took a quick look at the slips Imogen had left behind, and they couldn’t be the cause for the smile. “Unless you snore.”

“Only if I drink too much.”

“We’ll keep you out of the cellar then.” He dished up two fragrant servings of shepherd’s pie and started two pans heating. “What else? I can’t take time off to go gadding about with you.”

“I didn’t expect that.” Stroking up and down his back while he worked, I explained my method of escaping my crew. “I made them all sorts of promises about doing research for upcoming shows to keep them from dragging me back to New York in spite of myself.” I needed to get this next part out in the open right away. One horrible situation per day was enough. “You can be as much or as little of the show as you want. It’s not a condition of me being here for anyone but me.” Tommy’s sudden dreaminess was a hint of what he’d choose, but I wouldn’t push. “And you don’t have to decide right away, but I’ll need your advice at the very least.”

“Imagine that.” He leaned down to the oven with basting spoon in hand. “Me advising you on anything.”

“Just don’t advise me to eat calf’s brains,” I had to beg. “I can’t deal with the texture.”

“That’s your only quibble with them?” He smiled at me over his shoulder and caught me admiring his ass. “You’re in for jellied eel, though.”

It couldn’t possibly be worse than my Australian bush food adventure. “Just pick the best place for it.”

“Only the best.” Upright again, Tommy leaned his shoulder against my chest, his face up for a kiss I was only too glad to give him. “I’d give you my very best now, but….”

“But you have this lunch rush going. I understand. Can I help?” Not waiting for the answer, I stuck my hands under the tap.

He handed me an apron, better than any “yes.” “We must have some tourists out there. Someone wants a chef’s salad.”

“I’ll do it.” Salads are low on the kitchen totem pole; I’d respect Tommy’s allowing me in again. “The greens are where?”

“Walk-in.” And for the next hour and a half we did a culinary ballet, working around each other while I studied his dishes, making mental notes of where he kept things and what might make his life easier. We’d touched on a few last night, but there were others. And I kept the dish pit clear, though once I’d turned the water off, my stomach rumbled undisguised.

“Bring your luggage.” Tommy dished up a large helping of shepherd’s pie, motioning me upstairs. Didn’t have to tell me twice; that morning’s cup of tea was the only thing I’d had since last night’s pea soup.

He pulled off his jacket to reveal a thin white T-shirt, which he’d probably call something else entirely, and snuggled me into his side on the battered brown loveseat under the window, holding the bowl for me so I could inhale the fragrant ground meat and potato. A fine breakfast, punctuated with kisses. Tommy didn’t try to talk while I ate, and I didn’t provide any commentary beyond noises that sounded a lot like last night’s and a contented sigh when I finished the last drops of broth sopped up with a spoonful of potato.

Turning against him, I draped my arm over Tommy’s stomach, prepared to stay as long as he’d let me. How long had it been since someone had fed me just because I was hungry, held me just because it was cozy, or been silent just because it was companionable? Too damned long—and now I was ready to bolt because I’d let my guard down. I told my natural suspicion to back off until we actually heard him whistling the theme from
Sweeney Todd.

He jerked his arms away at my first stiffening, not holding me down in any way, and then only slowly settled them against me again when I willed myself to calmness. “You don’t trust people easily, do you, Jude?”

“No” was too hard to say. I shook my head, my cheek rubbing against the kitchen-scented cotton.

“Why me?” Now Tommy asked my question. It deserved an answer.

“Everyone wants something from me, or they’re of some use to me. Or both. And then—” I sat up to look him in the eyes, blue and unnervingly calm, considering that I’d messed with his mind so badly. “Then I found a man who wanted nothing but the pleasure of my company, doing the things I love best, and everything else is a happy bonus. So of course I invited myself into your life. You can run screaming now.”

“I’ll give it another couple of days.” Tommy seemed to give that some serious thought. “The things you love best being sex and food?”

“Being food done well and sex done joyfully,” I corrected him, deciding I was a very simple soul, but still, were those bad priorities? “And that really was luscious shepherd’s pie.”

“Well, that’s one down. Why don’t we see about the joyful sex?” Putting his arms out to me, he let me melt back against him, grateful as hell that he’d seen through me. “I haven’t been out to buy condoms. It didn’t seem like there was much point.”

No, not after I’d left. “In a fit of extreme hopefulness, I got some.”

“Seeing to my
mise en place
again, are you?” Tommy’s smile was broad enough to reveal the twisted bicuspid that didn’t quite hide behind the canine, and I wondered how many other ways I could bring that grin. Right now I covered it with my own lips, and we quit talking.

Lord, Tommy was as oral as I, his tongue finding mine for soft strokes that grew firmer, wilder, sliding across my cheek and down my neck. Taking time to really explore would have to wait. Right then I needed more than anything to feel the strength of his desire, to know his urgency, to be welcomed in all at once. We tried to strip each other and succeeded in landing on the floor in a tangle of denim and jersey that only came off when we remembered to kick away our shoes.

He splayed me across the giant cabbage roses on the floor, the worn Axminster carpet scraping my butt while he kissed his way across my belly, rubbed his face across the skin, and brought me curving up to implore him not to stop with the one little lick across the head of my erection. He only laughed.

Strong, scarred hands pinned my hips, and he set to slurping me in, sucking me down with abandon. Twining my fingers into his hair, I could only wish to reach more of him, but he made me wait, until suddenly I couldn’t wait any longer, exploding from somewhere deep within.

He held me in his mouth until the shaking stopped, then brought a few more shudders in the long, warm letting go. “Turn about,” I wheezed, meaning fair play, but he swiveled, bringing his haunch into patting range. “Sit on the couch.”

I could get to my knees unaided, but didn’t try to rise farther. Tommy bent to me, lips to lips for a moment, the tang of my fluids on his tongue. A moment to rest against his chest, to hear his heart thudding, and then my mouth was against his cock, which had been a hard and pulsing column against my chest while I listened to the warm beat of his life. I savored him, tasting, engulfing, feeling the play of textures, soft, hard, velvet and scratch, licking the salt and breathing the musk, until he too was undone, filling my mouth.

Tommy’s heart beat hard, the wild pounding calming under my ear when I slipped my arms around him to lean against his chest again. The soft hairs tickled the side of my nose, his strong arms across my shoulders reminding me that I had come much too close to flying away from this joy.

“I’m glad you came back,” Tommy eventually murmured into my hair, where his lips had been resting. “And I’d love to stay like this the rest of the afternoon, but I still haven’t decided on what goes with the chops for the special.”

“Mmmm, what was nice at the market this morning?” I could think like a chef with the part of my brain that wasn’t focused on skin pressed to skin. A small part, true.

“Cherry tomatoes, fennel to braise with orange, some Kalamata olives to broil in bacon for starters. Granny Smith apples; I thought I’d do a
tarte tatin
with those. I only do one sweet, take it or leave it.” His little sigh reminded me he’d said he wasn’t much of a pastry chef.

Even so, a one-man operation had only so much time. The
pâtissiers
often came to work in the early morning and were done with their magic before lunch service started in the finer restaurants, their relatively good hours earning them the reputation as the wusses of the culinary world, but how many people with conflicting needs for oven space could one kitchen accommodate? When some of my old line cooks got to slamming around, every cake in the place would fall flat. Hell, I’d slain a cake or two with my temper.

“It wasn’t a terribly balanced selection,” Tommy concluded.

“But not undoable.” I’d unbalanced him—I needed to help him recover. “What do you have on hand in the way of cheese?” My baguette last night had Camembert inside it, which had been trendy thirty years ago but was uncontroversial now.

“Some feta, quite a bit of Boursin. Small amounts of three or four others, salad quantities, really.”

“Then”—I paused to kiss his breastbone—“we use the tomatoes, the Boursin, and a few of the olives for a savory
tarte tatin,
very pretty next to a chop, braise the fennel as you planned, and if I may have a couple of liters of stout, we’ll make apple-Guinness crumbles. Two kinds of
tarte tatin
will confuse the diners. You do have a lot of boats?”

“I’m not sure what I have is what you’re asking for; we’d best check. But—” Tommy looked concerned when my knees creaked on my way to upright. Blame twenty-plus years of concrete flooring. “But since I screwed up my purchases, I shouldn’t depend on you to extricate me.”

I extricated him from the loveseat, taking the opportunity to pull him close once he was on his feet. “I’m here, I’m willing. Put me to work.”

“You’re here now.” Tommy held me and didn’t complete the thought aloud.

“Yeah, I have an expiration date. I’m on tour again the middle of next month for around three weeks. Not negotiable; I
have
to be there. Then planning and filming for the eels and whatever else, so I’ll at least be in the vicinity if you’re still talking to me, and we decide after that.” I had to warn him. “Tommy, I am an irritating cuss. You might be glad to get rid of me.”