3.

Caitlin

 

“Duke? What are you doing here?” I ask the sexy biker at my front door.

He holds up bags of groceries in each hand for me to see. “You need to eat.” Then he pushes his way through the door, moving me aside with his large frame, in the process.

His boots clomp against the hardwood flooring as he makes his way to the kitchen. Like he’s been in my house a hundred times, though today is his first visit.

I blink at an empty doorway, unsure of what is happening at the moment. Then once I get my wits about me, turn to follow him. When I reach the kitchen, he’s pulling items from the plastic bags. Some he leaves on the counter and others, he opens cupboards to look for places to put the boxed or canned goods.

“I have a pantry.” I point to the door next to the utility room. “All my cans and boxes go there.”

With a full armload, he walks to the pantry. It occurs to me he won’t be able to open the door, and so I jog to reach the handle before he drops boxes all over the floor.

The thing about Duke, when he looks at me, it’s as if he’s accessing the innermost recesses of my mind and heart. Even for the briefest look, which he gives me now. It’s as unnerving as it is exhilarating. What does he see when he looks at me?

How do I measure up with the women in his past—and why do I care about the women in his past? They’re none of my business.

Though he is here, isn’t he?

No one is forcing him to be. But what does he want? Why is he here?

Duke shuts the pantry and slips out of his cut, that’s what Elise told me the vest he wears with the big patch indicating he’s a member of the Brimstone Lords is called. He slips it off his shoulders to drape over the back of one of my high-backed, wooden kitchen chairs. Then he walks to the sink to wash his hands.

Turning back to me, he grunts out, “Pan.”

Again, it takes my brain a second to kickstart, but I go to the pots and pans cupboard under the counter next to the oven and pull a cast iron skillet with a lid out for him.

“Might as well pull a pot, too. Big one,” he says.

I watch in bewilderment as the man works at the counter, this time ripping open a box of cornbread mix.

While he’s busy I move to the dishwasher to pull the measuring cups from the clean dishes and grab him the carton of eggs from the fridge.

Duke pours the oil into the measuring cup and cracks one of the eggs into the oil, whisking them together with a fork, then he pours the mixture into the skillet. The man works comfortably in my kitchen. I can’t wrap my head around this personality one-eighty he’s spinning. For almost a year I’ve seen him grumble, grunt and bark orders at his MC brothers. I’ve seen him accept touches from the women who hang about the clubhouse and even the starts to some pretty bawdy activities with them.

He uses my electric can opener to open a can of cream corn and dumps it into the skillet before giving the whole thing a mix. Though he hadn’t preheated the oven. I help with that because it gives me something else to focus on, even for a moment.

Sure I’d thought he was sexy before. Commanding and always charismatic in the way he holds himself and takes charge of any given situation, at least any given situation I’d been around to witness. I guess that’s why he’s their president.

What am I supposed to do with this new information? That he can be sweet and kind, and now domestic? I’d wanted to sleep with him before. But the man he’s showed me yesterday, and now today, that’s not the kind of man you simply sleep with. That’s the kind of man you lose your heart to. The kind you give of yourself completely. He’s a paradox of the greatest order. Who would have thought?

While we wait for the red light on the oven to turn off he opens a package of ground beef and dumps it in the pot. It hits me, the cans on the counter, the meat in the pan, he’s making chili for us. Chili. I love chili.

My stupid heart fills with warmth for the enormous biker filling my kitchen.

Emotion clogs my throat, but I swallow it back without calling attention to it. “Can I get you a beer?”

On a nod, he uses a spatula to mix the beef. “Two,” he says.

He opens the oven to place the cornbread inside while I pull three beers and put the eggs away.

Duke twists the cap off the first Guinness. He takes a long drink, then twists the cap off the second Irish stout and pours it into the pot with the meat. It fizzes, perfuming the whole kitchen with a deliciously meaty-yeasty smell. Duke and chili, it’s a heady combination.

Mid-dinner preparation, he pauses to flick on the old radio secured beneath the top cupboard next to the refrigerator, where Ann Wilson from Heart belts out some amazing high notes about a magic man. I’d never understood the lyrics before. That is, I’d understood the meanings behind them, just not the emotion. Now, in the kitchen with my very own magic man, I understand completely. That’s after only a few kisses shared between us.

My belly pangs, and not from want of food. To distract myself from these understandable, yet wonton thoughts, I start to open the cans.

It doesn’t work when he puts his hand up. “Stop. Sit,” he orders. Duke Ellis, Brimstone Lords President, is cooking me dinner. I don’t think any man has ever made me dinner before. Even through the late night study sessions when a boyfriend should. Or when I started as an intern with crazy intern hours. Jade’s father never lifted a finger to help me.

God, I remember a few arguments when he’d yelled at me because I’d chosen to catch up on sleep rather than get dinner on the table for him once he got home from work. He, I’d found out after we began living together, had very ‘traditional’ expectations for gender roles, unfortunately.

Well, Duke’s wish is my command, at least right now. I hoist my bottom up onto the countertop, my bare feet dangle over the side.

The burly man grabs my foot to run his fingers over my glitter-pink polish. It’s just a touch on my foot but constitutes more intimacy than I’ve had in years.

I laugh uncomfortably. “Jade likes pedicures. Typically, we do it when we’re home. Friday or Saturday nights.”

“You always use glitter?” His laugh is not uncomfortable, but teasing—in a good way.

“No. Not always glitter, but Jade always picks.”

“So you don’t go out, then? At all?” he asks.

I shake my head. “That night at the clubhouse was my first night out since Jade was a baby. There’s just not enough time in the day. And I have to trust people to care for her. Look how that turned out. I sent her to her first sleepover, she ended up in emergency.”

Before I’m ready for him to stop touching me, because honestly, the contrast of his smooth skin and rough, calloused fingers— I suck in a sharp breath and shudder. If it wouldn’t be so obvious as to why I fanned myself, I’d fan myself. His feather-soft caresses simultaneously calm me and shoot white-hot tingles up my leg.

The man is a serious tease whether he knows it or not. Yet in the tradition set down by the centuries of serious teases before him, he ends the foot fondling to stir the chili simmering on the stove.

I don’t even freak out that he’d neglected to rewash his hands before picking up the cooking utensil. A freak-out might deter him from making a move like that again, and I’d greatly enjoy for him to make a move like that again.

Besides, it’s my foot. I know my showering habits, so I figure I’ll be fine this one time.

“Right, no going out with your girls. Does that go for dating, too?” He asks, pulling me back from the mental shutdown which he caused. It’s a good thing he’s cooking and not assisting me with a patient.

“Dating?”

“Yeah, you know—where a man picks you up and takes you out to dinner, or where the fuck ever.” He picks up the can of tomatoes and one of the cans of beans to dump into the pot.

“A man? I don’t think I remember what one looks like.”

His eyes grow huge, choking on the drink of beer he’d just lifted to his mouth.

Abruptly, I take in how what I’ve said might be construed and attempt to backpedal. “I mean a man on a date. Not saying you aren’t a man. You’re actually quite manly, um… strong… confident… handsome.”

The word vomit keeps spewing from my mouth while Duke throws his head back and laughs loudly. Still deep. Still gritty. Still unbelievably sexy. The sound reverberates throughout the kitchen.

Oh god, had I told him he was handsome?

I bring my bottle up to my lips. What I need to do is shut up now. But I’ve once again given him the upper hand, which means I have to act fast to get it back and cock an eyebrow his direction. “Tisk, tisk, tisk, if that was your way of getting me to divulge what I think of you. Men like you needn’t fish, Mr. Ellis,” I say, then take a long drink. Hoping to all get out, that it sounds more confident than I feel saying it.

At least my voice didn’t tremble.

Duke turns from the stove to push my hand, and thus my bottle, away from my mouth. I guess I sounded confident, because then he kisses me.

No, no. Not just a kiss. His beautiful, slow, sensual assault on my lips far surpasses any ordinary kiss. Dominant and powerful yet allowing me the time to respond.

He smells of cigarette smoke and tastes of Guinness and tobacco, and when his tongue parts my lips, I open fully to receive all he’s willing to give. The full Duke Ellis experience. His touch, his feel, his taste overpowers my senses, making me dizzy. As he presses harder, I feel it. The moment my bones liquefy, and I become pliant in his arms. All that liquid pooling in my lady bits between my thighs.

I can’t even move my arms to hold him back, having lost all body control when I became liquid.

Slowly, he begins to lay me down, my back against the counter. He hooks one of my legs around his hip and begins to stroke me over my shorts, but right there. Right where I need him to touch me. Every nerve ending in my body ignites with burns and tingles. Torturously decadent burns and tingles. Oh god, so good. So good.

Of course, right as he pushes up my T-shirt going in for the kill by tugging on the cups of my bra, right as he has me ready to jump out of my skin from the continuous stroking and now nipple rub, the timer for the cornbread goes off. I am fortunately shocked back to my senses.

This isn’t me.

I don’t do one-night stands. Especially not in my house. In the middle of the day. Between cornbread and chili preparation. And not with a scary biker who has shown his sweet side in recent days but didn’t like me until my daughter went to the hospital, and has probably had more women in the past month than I’ve had men in my entire life.

Considering all this, I push him off. “Cornbread,” I say lamely.

He laughs. Shaking his head, he touches my nose as if teasing a small child, then turns to grab the potholders I have hanging from a magnetized hook on the refrigerator. Pulling the sizzling hot skillet from the oven, he then places the golden-brown goodness on one of the back burners to cool while I right myself.

For the next twenty minutes, he prepares chili. Dicing condiments like raw onion and avocado. He opens a package of shredded sharp cheddar cheese and a bag of corn chips. He does all this while ignoring the fact that with a kiss, the man knocked my world off kilter.

How could I go back to my life before he touched me when my body is still fizzing from his touch? And that’s without coming. The man is dangerous. I assumed old age would be the death of me. Who would have thought life as I’d known it would end with a kiss? From Duke Ellis, of all people.

He doesn’t announce it, but I know the chili is done when he opens the cupboard to take a couple of bowls out. So while he ladles up a heaping mass of beans, meat, and tomato sauciness for each of us, I jump from the counter and walk to the fridge where I grab us each another cold brew, twisting off the caps. I toss them in the trashcan next to the pantry and hand his off. I lean my hip against the edge of the counter and watch him sprinkle cheese and onions on top of one of the bowls. “That’s for you, right?”

“You don’t like onions?” he asks.

“Oh, no. I like onions, just not that many. I don’t want hair on my chest.” I joke.

His eyes drop from the bowl to my chest, almost glazing over as he stares, then he clears his throat. “I see your point. Any objections to cheese?” he teases back.

“Nope. I love cheese. Avocado can find a place in almost any meal and corn chips—” Instead of continuing, I give him a look to convey ‘enough said.’ Because who doesn’t love corn chips? “Would you like to watch a movie while we eat?” I use my chin to gesture to the living room.

“Yeah, Doc. That sounds good.” Not waiting for me to lead the way, he picks up his bowl with one hand and his beer in the other, and walks back toward my big, fluffy, denim-covered sofa. A sofa sectional is perfect for snuggling with little girls or hot bikers. Cleans easy in case of spills. As I watch his retreating back, I realize how much I like him in my space.

His gate screams confidence. Strong, power in every step. The way his muscles move, it’s like he’s stalking—almost cat-like—even though it’s only to my sofa. He can’t help it.

When I join him, he’s standing next to the coffee table, not sitting.

“Something wrong?” I ask.

“You got coasters or some shit you want me to use?”

The man smokes, swears too much, and heads a motorcycle club. But asks if I use coasters? Another sweet act from the man who continues to surprise me.

When I don’t answer, he clears his throat. “Women usually want coasters so as not to ruin the coffee table with water spots.”

I look down at the painted white, chipped, has-seen-better-days coffee table made from salvaged wood Jade and I had “rescued” according to her, from a beach in Ireland before we’d left. She’d loved it so much that I paid the hefty sum to have it shipped back here to the U.S. To my parents’ house, where we stayed when we first moved back.

“No,” I finally respond. “No coasters here. Jade and I live comfortable. A home should be a safe place, an escape from the world outside. You want to put your feet up on the coffee table to get comfortable, I won’t complain. The only thing I ask is boots off first, because germs close to food.” I scrunch my nose.

“Fuck, you ain’t who I thought you were.” It’s a strange response. Not said hurtfully, more like, dare I say, reverently.