Scrumptious by Amanda Usen

repeated. “Just doing my job.”
    “Uh-huh,” he said with a sardonic grin. “Which job? Pastry chef? Prep cook? Troublemaker?” Joe pushed away from the reach-in and began to walk toward her. She swallowed, resisting the urge to step back.
    “All of the above.” She lifted her chin and met his eyes, hoping he couldn’t read the bluff in hers. She wasn’t going to cause any more trouble. She just wanted her real job back, which unfortunately happened to be his job at the moment.
    Joe stopped right in front of her. His blue eyes went gray, like an ice storm. “You don’t have any other nasty little tricks planned for me during service, do you, sugar? Because if you do, neither one of us will be laughing this time. I’ll turn you over my knee and give you the paddling you deserve.”
    “Well, that would be something new.” She gave him a tight-lipped smile. He was so close that his breath feathered over her face and another lightning strike of simple, straight-up lust hit her in the gut.
    His eyes dropped to her mouth, and she saw a muscle in his jaw twitch. Maybe he wasn’t unaffected by the tension that charged the air between them. Frustration, pure and simple, made her crave some sort of satisfaction, and inner traitor wanted to remind Joe what he was missing. She reached out to smooth the cotton of his chef coat across the expanding width of his chest. “I don’t need dirty tricks to take down a schoolboy like you,” she said.
    “You don’t, huh?” His deep voice rumbled quietly in his chest. “What do you need?”
    “Not a thing.” Her palm slid over his firm muscles, caressed the warm column of his neck, and finally felt the rasp of his shadowed cheek. It did make a sound. She drew his face down to hers. “Just this,” she whispered against his lips.
    Joe leaned into her kiss.
    Heat rose between them. She hadn’t imagined how good their last kiss had been, after all. Their lips moved together in a perfect synchronization of shared breath, movement, and desire. She kept her eyes open. He did too. His strong arms sought her waist, pressing their bodies together from groin to breast, searching for a seamless fit. He surged into her, pressing her against the table behind her, lifting her onto its surface. Her back hit the storage shelf, and she didn’t care what precious garnish got destroyed as it hit the table.
    His tongue found the sensitive inner edge of her upper lip and stroked along its length. She wrapped her arms around his neck and held on as he moved against her, creating more heat with his lips. His hands caressed her back, and she felt him tug the strings of her apron loose. She welcomed his hand on her breast beneath her T-shirt and wished he would get rid of her shirt too. Arousal spiked hot in her center, and insistent, insane heat consumed her. She watched his eyes drift shut, and shut her own to better concentrate on the breathless awareness between them.
    You’re losing it , her inner traitor warned. You made your point. Now walk away. Show him what he’s missing. Do it now. If you wait another minute, you’ll be on the floor, on your back, and it will be too late.
    With effort, she loosened her hold around Joe’s neck and slid down his hard body until both feet touched the floor. Her kiss became teasing, deliberately seductive instead of spontaneously combustive. She gave him a playful shove and stepped back. “See? It’s not so hard to take you down.”
    He crossed his arms, cocked an eyebrow. “I distinctly remember you saying that my virtue was safe from you.”
    “Oh, I don’t think I hurt your virtue. Besides, if you can’t take the heat, stay out of the kitchen.” She grabbed her dirty dishes. “Let me know if you need anything else before service, chef .”
    Joe caught her arm as she sailed past him. “Don’t forget about your cakes, sugar.”
    Marlene wanted to continue her triumphant march to the dish room, but she knew from the nutty smell perfuming the