Chasing your tail, p.15
Chasing Your Tail, page 15
“Smug? I would never.”
“Brad?”
“Lindsay?”
“Be with me tonight.”
Brad groaned and kissed her neck. “Happily.”
Her body was doing a number on him. Her creamy skin contrasted with her dark hair, her pink nipples, the rise and fall of her curves, all of it beautiful and arousing. His own body felt electrically charged, and he longed to sink into her. So he was distracted and hardly heard her. But somewhere in his mind, he registered what she’d just said.
“Okay,” he said.
“Okay?”
He tried to focus on her face and not the growing need within him, although he couldn’t seem to stop his hands from stroking her body. “We’re not getting back together. Yet.”
“Yet?”
“Once we finish with this, my intention is to convince you that we should be together. If not for the hot sex, then because we like each other.”
“What makes you so sure of that?”
“I like you. You are currently naked in my bed, so either you just think I’m dead sexy or you like me, too.”
“More the first one.”
“Uh-huh.” This time he didn’t believe her.
But the longer they lay there, the more his body cried out for him to move against her. He rolled on the condom, tossed the wrapper over his shoulder, and then grabbed Lindsay. He rolled them both so that she was on top, and she fell forward onto his chest with a laugh.
“Oh, is that how it is?” she said, staring down at him with a sly expression on her face.
“I put my fate in your hands.”
He wanted to persuade her that they should be together, but he wanted her to agree with that as fervently as he believed it. So he gave her control.
She kissed him. Unable to resist, he put her arms around him. She started to shift against his upper body, then she slowly slid away. She sat up. Then she sank onto his cock.
Brad groaned as he sank into her. She was hot and tight, and this was like relief and agony all rolled into one. Having her arms around him felt like coming back home again, and he wanted to remember this moment in case he never got another. Even though everything in his body screamed to go faster, push harder, get to the finish line faster, he wanted to slow it down, savor it.
He kissed Lindsay, took her lower lip into his mouth, nipped at her with his teeth, wanted her to feel it. He touched her everywhere he could reach, tried to memorize the feel of her skin under his hands. He pumped his hips slowly, slid in and out of her, and wanted to make her feel it all, too.
As far as he could tell, they were back together right now. But he didn’t dare point that out to Lindsay.
She rode him. She stretched her arms into the air, making her beautiful body long, making her breasts stand out. God, she was perfect. He put his hands on her hips but didn’t try to control her pace. This was all Lindsay. Her body squeezed his, she let out cute little sighs, and his heart pounded so hard he thought it might beat out of his chest. She looked beautiful, powerful, stunning. And she was making him feel, well, everything. He needed her in his life. He wanted her like this every day. He would not stop until he found a way to show her that the two of them were perfect together.
He wasn’t there yet. So he’d keep trying.
“God,” she panted.
“Yes, dear.”
He couldn’t not touch her, so as she rode him, he pressed a thumb against her clit. She rode against him and touched her breasts, cupping them, squeezing her own nipples. “Right there,” she said.
He was going to make her go off like a rocket.
His secret was that he still remembered. He knew what set her off. He knew what she liked. He’d held on to that knowledge in case it proved useful again, and it definitely had. He moved inside her, drew his thumb in circles, pressed with just enough force to make her really feel it, and then she groaned. The way she shook, above him, around him, told him he’d achieved his goal. It was the most amazing thing he’d ever seen. She was flying apart, and braced a hand on his chest to support herself. As her orgasm waned, she pinched his nipples, and that was all he needed to get the rest of the way there. He threw his head back and lost himself in her, coming hard, seeing stars.
A few minutes later, they were both lying on their backs, still panting.
***
Lindsay hadn’t eaten, and when her stomach growled, Brad suggested they get dinner delivered.
And so, dressed in one of Brad’s old T-shirts and her own underwear, she sat cross-legged on the sofa and shoveled green curry into her mouth, because that bout of sex had left her starving.
Brad twirled his fork through a plastic container of pad thai. “So riddle me this,” he said. “Why are we not getting back together?”
Brad wore only a pair of soft-looking sweatpants. He’d answered the door when the delivery guy came wearing only those sweatpants, probably giving that poor guy an eyeful. His chest was distracting. Lindsay struggled not to stare at it.
“We didn’t work out the first time,” Lindsay said with a shrug. That was an inescapable fact. That Brad didn’t agree was a little disconcerting. “I never felt like I knew where I stood with you, because you were so flirty with everyone. You still do it, you know.”
“What, flirt?”
“With everyone. At that adoption party, you had every woman there in the palm of your hand. Some of the men, too.”
“Jealous?”
“Not now. We’re not a couple now. Back when we were dating? Yes.”
Brad sighed. “Okay.”
Hamilton trotted into the living room with his nose in the air. He hopped up on the coffee table to investigate the spread. Brad quickly put the tops on all the open containers and tried to shoo away the cat, but Hamilton just lay down on the empty end of the table.
“Cats don’t like Thai food,” said Brad.
“I don’t think he knows that.”
Brad sighed. “I fed him when I got home and have not seen him since. Of course he shows up again at mealtime.”
“How is having a cat?”
Brad’s lips twisted in a way that showed he was clearly trying to suppress a smile. “It’s actually fun. Most evenings, he hops up on the sofa and watches TV with me. He likes to sleep on the corner of the mattress near my head at night. I keep forgetting he’s there and wake up next to this orange ball of fur, which is a little weird, but I’m starting to get used to it.”
“And he tries to steal your food.”
“Always. Cat after my own heart. Loves a good meal.”
Lindsay reached over and petted the cat and tried to remember what they’d been talking about before he jumped up on the table. Oh, right. The past. After mulling it over for a moment, Lindsay said, “If I’m going to give you another chance, I need to know that you’ll come home to me. I’m not saying you can’t look or you can’t flirt because that would be unreasonable. But I need to have faith that, no matter what you do, it’s me you come home to. It’s me you love.”
“It was always you.”
He sounded earnest, and his words squeezed her heart, but she didn’t have complete trust in them. But was that her, or was that him? Hadn’t he been trying to show her things were different? “It’s not that I don’t trust you—”
He sighed. “You don’t.”
“I need some time, okay?” And that was the truth. Everything about Brad’s presence in her life confused her. Did she trust him? She couldn’t tell. She wanted to. Could she be with someone who made her feel like she’d failed, albeit through no fault of his own? She was less sure of that. Could they make this work, or were they just tangled up in their old feelings for each other? “I’m just… I don’t feel like I’m on steady ground with you. I need to think about things, okay? I’m willing to see where this goes, but I need more time to decide what I want.”
Brad gave her a long look, like he was mulling that over. “Okay. I can give you time. But I need something from you.”
Lindsay steeled herself, although she guessed what he’d say. “What is it?”
“Try to trust me.”
“I am trying.”
“Look, I want you back in my life in whatever form you will have me. Given that we just had sex, again, I am guessing a friendship is probably not in the cards. So I will do everything I can to prove myself trustworthy. But you have to do the same. You have to show me that I’m putting my faith in someone who wants to be with me, who is willing to be vulnerable with me. And if you can’t do that, there really is no hope for us.”
She fidgeted, uncomfortable with how intensely he looked at her now. She hated that word. Vulnerable. It was unsafe. It terrified her.
He kept talking. “I know how hard it is for you to open up and trust people, but trust is not a one-way street. I think part of you always expected me to leave you, so you left me first, and I’m telling you now that I need you to trust that I won’t. Trust that I want you and I will be here for you, but only if you are there for me, too. I will do everything in my power never to betray your trust, and you have to do the same, or this will never work.”
She nodded slowly. She recognized the dilemma here. She had to open herself up to trusting him, something her mind and her heart were screaming at her not to do, but in return she could have a life with a great man who made her happy. Or she could stay in her safety zone and keep living her life as if he’d never walked into it but lose out on being with a great guy.
“What do you want?” Brad asked.
Lindsay stared at the little plastic tub that held what remained of her green curry. She genuinely had no idea which option was better, and she realized that she’d lose something no matter which she chose. “I don’t know. I want to trust you. But it’s hard.”
Brad nodded. Then he sat back on the sofa and eyed her. “I’m going to prove it, you know.”
“Prove what?”
“That you can trust me and that we belong together.”
“How are you going to do that?”
“I don’t know yet. But I will figure it out.”
Chapter 14
TV producers did pretty well for themselves, and Aaron’s Chelsea apartment somehow had a wet bar. It wasn’t the biggest space, but Aaron had sunk some money into making the space nice. It made Brad think about the sad Post-its on his wall where art should have gone, and Lindsay’s crack about his only art being a Star Wars poster. And she wasn’t wrong; he had some work to do to make his apartment look like an adult lived there. But Aaron’s place looked mature and expensive, even though it was small.
Aaron mixed Brad a manhattan and slid it in front of him. “So. Tell me about Lindsay. Does she still hate you?”
Brad sighed. “She still hates me. Well, no, that’s not true. She doesn’t trust me.”
“It was wild seeing her again. She looks better now than she did five years ago.”
“I know.”
Aaron laughed. “She doesn’t trust you because she still thinks you cheated on her?”
“I think we’ve gotten past that, actually. She doesn’t trust me because she doesn’t trust anyone.”
“That’s a pickle. And you still want her back?”
“More than anything in this life. I can’t even put a finger on why, just that whenever I see her, I feel…” Brad couldn’t explain it. Something in him melted whenever they were in a room with each other, but that was the kind of schmoopy, romantic nonsense Aaron would definitely make fun of him for.
“Turned on?” Aaron suggested.
“Sure, that. But…happy. I feel happy. I think we can make each other happy. But winning her back is turning out to require a lot of effort.”
“In what way?”
Brad huffed out a breath and sipped his drink. “Well, she requires some convincing.”
“So you contacting me to get her on Mystery Meal didn’t do the trick?”
“I didn’t do that to win her back.”
“The hell you say.”
“Well, okay, maybe in the back of my mind, I thought she might be grateful, but I genuinely just wanted to help her. Because I still really care about her. If she decided to view that as a reason to give me a second chance, then bonus. Unfortunately, I don’t think that’s how she saw it.”
“Hmm.”
“And on top of that, I managed to piss off a journalist in the process.” Brad explained what had happened with Heather, the Times reporter.
When Brad finished talking, Aaron said, “So let me get this straight. You pissed off a New York Times reporter for Lindsay’s sake?”
That wasn’t exactly how Brad had seen it in the moment, but… Yes, that is exactly what he’d done. But he said, “I didn’t think you’d do me another favor.”
“Nor could I have without pissing off my bosses. Especially in that case. Heather Chapman is a hack.”
“You know her?”
“She took over for Russo when he got promoted, but her writing lacks any life. She writes about food with about the same excitement I have for watching grass grow.”
“I’m pretty sure she’s a robot. She has no personality.”
Aaron nodded. “My boss doesn’t like her because she gave one of the Food Channel’s regular chefs a bad review. You know Wood Plank in the Village?”
“Yeah. That’s Billy Watts’s place, isn’t it?” Billy Watts was kind of the ur-celebrity chef. He hosted or worked as a judge on a half-dozen different properties.
“Yup. And Billy Watts is a god at the Food Channel. I’m not saying Wood Plank is this amazing restaurant, because I ate there once and it’s good but definitely trying too hard. Although the salmon there is…” Aaron moaned. “Well, anyway, her panning Wood Plank effectively got her blacklisted.”
“She said she’d been trying to get Champion Chef tickets.”
“Don’t mess with Billy Watts. That is for sure why she keeps getting turned down. He coproduces Champion Chef.”
“So just as well I didn’t try to get her in with you.”
“Yeah, that would have been embarrassing for all of us.”
Paige was still a little pissed Brad had biffed the interview, but so far no story had run. Brad thought no review was better than a negative one, which he’d been worried about. Heather might have been a robot, but she could have retaliated if she was genuinely mad at him.
He sighed and sipped his manhattan.
Aaron pulled over a stool and sat across from Brad. “Okay. So, let’s think about this for a second. You did Lindsay a solid. She was great on the show, by the way. I have zero regrets about setting that up.”
“I knew she would be.”
“You have it bad, man.”
“I know. She doesn’t like that I’m flirty with everyone. That’s part of her issue with me.”
“So stop flirting with everyone.”
“If I could just turn it off, I would. I don’t even think about it most of the time.”
“Yeah, sure. Must be hard to be a good-looking guy with women throwing themselves at you all the time.”
Brad rolled his eyes. “It’s not like that.”
“Then what’s it like?”
Brad stared at his drink.
There’d been a time in his life when he’d overcompensated. His family was very conservative. Brad had been a pretty average kid—he’d played sports and got decent grades and had a lively social life—but he and his father had gotten into a knockdown, drag-out fight over Brad’s career when he was about twenty. College was…fine, but Brad hadn’t found anything he was passionate about until he got a job at a restaurant to help pay tuition. He’d just been waiting tables, but he became friendly with the kitchen staff and started learning more about cooking.
Men didn’t cook, his father had said, which was patently absurd. Most chefs were men; sexism in the industry still made it incredibly hard for women to break through to the highest levels. And then Brad had gotten excited about pastry, which his father thought was even less masculine. Brad ultimately didn’t care—he’d pursued what he was passionate about, and he loved his job.
But he knew he’d internalized some of his father’s bullshit about being a pastry chef and how that made him less masculine, and he supposed he’d gone a little out of his way to prove his heterosexuality. Here at the ripe old age of thirty, he could see how ridiculous and homophobic that had been, but when he’d started culinary school, he hadn’t been so self-assured.
So, yeah, subconsciously, he’d probably gotten into the habit of flirting with many women to prove to someone—his father, himself—that he was an adult heterosexual man even though he made cupcakes for a living.
Hell, just the other day, Brad had called home to ask his mother for something, and Dad had gotten on the phone and said, “Still working in that pussy café, huh?” He’d seemed tickled by his double entendre. Brad didn’t have it in him to tell his father to fuck off, so he’d gotten off the phone instead and realized after the fact that he’d forgotten to tell his parents he’d won a cooking competition. At least here in New York he was a safe distance from his father’s bullshit, but Dad still got into his head sometimes.
Brad sipped his drink. “Residual childhood trauma.”
“How’s that?” asked Aaron.
“Our parents have fucked us up so much. Me, Lindsay, probably you.”
Aaron grimaced. “We never had alcohol in the house when I was growing up because my uncle is an alcoholic.”
“Not so unusual.”
“Perhaps not. But I was afraid to drink for a long time because I might be an alcoholic. I’m not and I got over that, obviously.” Aaron held up his own tumbler.
“And my dad thinks pastry is girlie. And Lindsay’s parents hate each other’s guts because her dad couldn’t keep it in his pants. And all of that garbage weighs on us as adults.”
