Chapter Nineteen
Please God, deliver him from pain-in-the-ass chefs and their explosive personalities.
Nikko blew a thick stream of air out through his nostrils and crossed his arms over his chest as he watched two of the contestants shouting at one another on the monitor.
“What caused this blowup?” he asked Todd. “I was watching the MacNeill kid on the other screen when this started.”
The camera chief shook his head. “Cayman wanted Chinese-five spice for his recipe and Burbank allegedly took the only sample we had in stock.”
The sound of raised and heated voices blared through the tent.
“Should we stop rolling and get someone over there to break it up before it comes to blows?” Todd asked, his eyes nervously darting across the monitor as the two chefs stood, toe to toe, hands fisted at their sides, continuing to shout at one another.
Nikko considered for a half second before saying, “No. It won’t come to that. Burbank’s a dick, but he likes his pretty face too much to stick it out and potentially get it smashed.”
A strangled giggle came from behind him. Nikko glanced over his shoulder at Stacy, who quickly bent her head, her gaze intently focusing on her notebook. A ghost of a smile played across her mouth.
It gave him a warm and calm sensation just knowing she was settled behind him.
“My bet is he’ll charm his way out of this in about three more seconds,” Nikko predicted, turning his attention back to the ruckus.
As predictions went, it was fairly accurate. The crew watched as Clay Burbank grinned and then handed something to Alonzo Cayman. Cayman took it, his mouth pulled tight and his body language still on the defensive. But he’d stopped yelling. When Clay held out his hand, the other chef took it, reluctantly if Nikko was to guess, pumped it once, and then stormed off back to his station. The camera stayed fixed on Burbank, his grin turning cocky as he went back to preparing his dish.
“See?” Nikko said. He leaned back in the chair and took a hit from the water bottle he knew Stacy had placed on the console. “Guy’s a class-A chef, but a douche, just the same.”
Stacy’s walkie-talkie sounded. Nikko turned again to see her lift from her chair and move out of the truck. His gaze settled on her cute, tight butt as she left the area and for a hot moment he remembered how it had felt, naked and perfect, in his hands.
Since coming back from Big Sky three days ago, they’d gone back to their pre-intimacy professional relationship while production was underway. Stacy had assumed her executive producer role without pause, putting out fires when she had to and keeping him apprised of problems both real and potential along the way. He was sure no one in the crew or cast suspected anything had changed between them.
But it had.
After he was assured Melora was asleep each night, Nikko would leave the cabin and take the back path up to the main house. Amos Dixon never locked the front door, so he was able to sneak up the stairs and to Stacy’s wing unseen. He felt like a teenager again, slipping out after curfew, exhilarated at the prospect of spending a few stolen hours with her.
A swift rap on her door and he’d have her in his arms within a heartbeat.
Everything he’d fantasized about doing to her, and for her, during the hours they were enslaved with the production, he now gave free vent to. Stacy matched him, passion for passion, peak for peak, giving as good as she got.
Stacy Peters was a different woman from any and all he’d known before. She asked nothing of him and gave him everything. There was no hidden agenda with her, something common with so many other women he knew. Unselfish was the term he thought best to describe her. She never lost her temper in situations he knew would have caused him to explode. She was kind, but firm in her dealings with the producers and the other crew, and once she was brought into a situation, it was usually resolved to everyone’s satisfaction.
After those all-too-swift hours alone together, where Stacy would fall asleep, cradled in his arms, Nikko, with a heavy heart, would leave her with a kiss on her brow and head back to his own bed.
In the morning, he would hear Melora trying her best to be quiet while getting ready for her dawn workouts with Stacy. They mutually decided to keep their relationship a secret from his daughter for a number of reasons. Since coming back from the production shoot, the teen seemed happier than she had in quite a while and he knew a big part of the reason was his executive producer. He didn’t want anything to jeopardize her recovery—Stacy agreed—knowing that any little blip could send her off the deep end again emotionally, and the mutual agreement to keep their budding relationship from the girl seemed sound.
A sudden realization he too was happier than he’d been in years, radiated through him as he watched the chefs scramble to finish. And it wasn’t just the fact he was getting laid, although the sex was phenomenal all by itself. For all her spit and polish, cool and controlled demeanor, Stacy Peters was an uninhibited and thoroughly sensual lover. He’d shown her that her physical scars in no way detracted from the fact that he desired her. Once she was convinced of his sincerity, she’d given herself completely to him without reserve.
No, it was the woman he was rapidly coming to view as important in more than just her professional capacity that he could claim made him happy.
He regretted treating her so horribly when she’d first arrived. The look of fear on her face when he’d railed at her the day she’d taken Melora to the airport still haunted him and he vowed he’d never make her frightened of him ever again.
“You lucked out, you know,” Todd said from next to him, pulling him back to the production.
“What do you mean?”
Todd pointed his thumb over his shoulder and said, “Having Stacy Peters as your EP. You lucked out.”
He knew it, but he was interested in why his camera chief thought as much, so he asked.
“Smart as they come and she’s hard to ruffle. Plus, she’s one of the nicest people I’ve ever known.”
Nikko nodded.
“Having said that,” Todd said, chuckling, “she’s also kicking my ass into shape. Did you know she’s now leading a yoga class at sunrise down by the lake?”
“I’d heard that. I saw it for myself when we were in Big Sky.”
“Yeah, but the class has grown since word got out. She must have twenty people every day now. A few of my crew, and a bunch of the chefs, our wild child Burbank among them.”
Shit.
The way Burbank had blatantly flirted with Stacy came back to him in a nanosecond. As did the conversation he’d overheard between them before filming began. The chef was obviously interested in her. Nikko recalled hearing of Burbank’s man-whore rep prior to being chosen as one of the contestants. Back then he hadn’t given it second thought.
That changed the moment he’d taken Stacy to bed.
“He’s such a tool,” Todd said with a droll grin and a shake of his head. “Drives Stacy nuts with all his questions and requests.”
“Requests?”
“Mainly about how to get into some of the stances. ‘How far do I spread my legs?’ and ‘This is gonna make my abs irresistibly touchable to the ladies.’ Shit like that. Like I said, the guy’s a tool.”
Nikko bit down hard on his immediate response. So hard, he felt his back molars shift.
“Is it bothering Stacy? Making her uncomfortable?”
For the first time Todd turned, full face, to him. Nikko couldn’t quite read the expression on the man’s face.
“No-oooo,” he drew the word out. “She can handle herself. Puts him in his place more times than not, making him look like the jerk he’s acting. Nicely, of course, ’cause it’s Stacy.”
“Well, that’s good.”
His gaze flicked to the chef in question, who was currently putting the finishing garnish on his challenge dish. Nikko could feel Todd’s gaze still on him. “What?”
A heartbeat passed before Todd asked, “I’ve known you, what? Eleven, twelve years?”
“About that. Why?”
“In all that time, through all the shows we’ve worked on together, you’ve never given one thought that wasn’t a pissed-off one about any producer, executive or otherwise. Usually you just ignore them and act like they don’t even exist.”
Nikko knew the benefits of staying silent, so he did.
“And then, out of the blue, you ask me if I think Stacy Peters—an EP you screamed bloody murder about having out here—is feeling uncomfortable because of a few off-color comments from a guy she knows.”
Nikko turned back to the screen after taking a quick look at the countdown clock. “What’s your point, Todd?”
“I don’t really have one. I just find your... well, concern, interesting.”
“My concern is litigious in nature,” he said, quickly thinking of something to satisfy the man’s curiosity. “The last thing this production or the network needs is a sexual-harassment suit from her if Burbank is being inappropriate. Countdown in ten,” he said into his microphone as Jade and Dan moved into the kitchen and took their places.
For the next few minutes both men were occupied with watching the monitors. Jade and Dan walked through the kitchen, sampling each dish and giving a quick commentary. For once, Nikko thought as he watched her, Jade Quartermaine was letter-perfect.
When the segment was finished, Nikko spied Stacy walk on set and speak to a few of the chefs and their individual producers who had gathered around. He tracked her as she moved from station to station, making comments and referring to her ever-present tablet as she did.
Her only concession to the deplorable dry heat engulfing the ranch was to pull her hair off her face and neck, held back by a wide scrunchie. The typical long-sleeved blouse she favored was a pale pink today, the color highlighting the gold in her hair. Tan trousers and tennis shoes finished the look. As usual, she was professional, proficient, and perfect and all Nikko could think was how much he longed to strip those polished clothes from her long, lean body and melt into her.
“Sexual harassment, my ass,” he heard Todd mumble from behind. When he spun around, the camera chief began talking into his headset.
Nikko removed his own headset and finger-combed his hair.
It was time to make lunch for his daughter. The break was just what he needed.
While he walked from the trailer, he wondered what Stacy was doing for lunch.
* * * *
“This is, like, so cool,” Melora said with a bright smile and childish glee in her voice. “I always have to eat lunch with just Daddy.” Her eyes rolled 360 degrees. “It gets wicked boring, so it’s nice to have someone else to talk to instead of just him.”
It didn’t get past her notice that the teen had called her father Daddy. It was at rare moments such as this, when Melora was open and free and not behaving like a typical, surly teenager, that Stacy could see the girl she’d probably been before her eating disorder, before her mother’s death and her father’s accident.
Nikko stopped pouring the iced tea he’d pulled from the refrigerator and slanted a squinty glare at his daughter. “I may be wrong, but I think you just tossed a boatload of shade at me, young lady.”
Melora’s eye roll was a thing of beauty, Stacy thought.
“It’s, like, amazeballs you even know what throwing shade means, old man.”
Nikko placed the pitcher on the kitchen table and, in a speedy move which Stacy marveled at coming from such a big man, had Melora in a body lock, his arms circling her thin frame.
“Who you calling an old man?” He kissed her temple when she giggled.
The sound touched Stacy’s heart.
Nikko grinned at her over his daughter’s head and then released his hold.
She’d been more than a little surprised when Nikko had found her in the set pantry going over the needed produce stock with one of the supply crew. Her tummy muscles did their usual giddyap when he entered the spacious room.
Not too long ago, those muscles would have tensed with nerves and worry whenever he sought her out. Now, the flutter was pure anticipation, laced with a sexual awareness that still stunned her.
Never in her wildest dreams would she have thought an affair with Dominick Stamp was in the cards when she agreed to work on the show.
Okay, well, maybe affair wasn’t quite the right word. Stacy’d always considered it a tawdry and salacious way to describe a mature sexual liaison. Besides, they were two single and consenting adults, neither one in a marriage or a relationship, so affair really didn’t do justice to the situation.
All semantics aside, she was unsure of exactly how to describe what she and Nikko were doing. Yes, they were having sex, and yes, they were keeping it a secret, both of them agreeing it was best for all concerned, mostly Melora. The last thing Stacy wanted was to compound the girl’s precarious emotional state by admitting she and her father were involved, off set. And Stacy had her own reason for keeping her actions with Nikko a secret from his daughter: She didn’t want anything to come between their own budding relationship.
Stacy truly loved being around the teen. Never having a sister of her own, Stacy had always been a little jealous of Kandy, her six sisters, and the unbreakable bond they shared.
True, Melora was over a decade younger, but the age difference didn’t seem to matter much when they were together. Stacy sensed the girl needed a strong and supportive older woman in her life at the moment to act as a foil to her—at times—overbearing father.
“You are an old man,” Melora said, slaking a glance at him under her lashes, “to me. No shade, just fact.”
Stacy smiled into her glass.
“Todd told me you’ve got quite the yoga class going on in the mornings now,” Nikko said to Stacy, forking in some of the rice pilaf he’d made to go with the leftover turkey Melora had cooked the day before.
She nodded and swallowed.
“I can’t believe how it’s grown since we’ve been back. I had no idea so much of our crew were practitioners.”
“Well, I think it blows, big-time,” Melora said. “It was way better when it was just, like, you and me.”
Stacy had to agree. She’d never liked being the center of attention, much preferring to work on the sidelines or under the radar. But ever since word had gotten out that she was a master of the art, their quiet duo had expanded significantly.
Stacy cocked her head and watched as the girl cut her turkey into several smaller slices, all almost identical in size and shape, and then forked one into her mouth, chewing with rapid ferocity. As soon as the fork hit her plate, she raised her glass to her lips and chugged almost a third of the iced tea.
From everything Stacy remembered about eating disorders, she knew stress and negative emotions could trigger lapses. For some reason, Melora was stressed about the additions to their workouts. Maybe it was because she didn’t like being watched by people as she exercised, much the same way she hated being observed when she ate. Whatever the reason, Stacy wanted to help.
“You know, I kind of feel the same. It was more fun when it was just you and me.” Stacy turned her gaze to Nikko and then back to his daughter. “Why don’t we try and find some free time during the day when just the two of us can practice? How does that sound?”
Stacy was doubly rewarded when Melora’s smile bloomed once again, and when she caught the warm look of thanks Nikko threw her.
“Daddy always cooks lunch for us. It’s his thing.” She rolled her eyes and tried to suppress a grin when she looked over at her father. “Why don’t we do it while he’s cooking? Then, when we’re done, you can, like, have lunch with us every day. How’s that?”
The look of expectation on her face and swimming in her eyes was impossible to refuse. But Stacy looked to Nikko first for approval.
“Is that okay?” Stacy asked him. “It won’t cut into production time at all, since you allot ninety minutes for lunch break. Our workout takes just a teeny bit under thirty.”
“Please, Daddy?” Melora reached over and laid a hand on his forearm.
His gaze drifted from her hand, up to her face, and then over to Stacy’s.
When he started to nod, Melora jumped up from her seat and threw her arms around his neck, just as he said, “Okay. I guess it’s as easy to cook for three as it is for two.”
While his daughter hugged him, Nikko’s eyes found hers. The thanks in them just moments before had changed, deepened to something more, something…wanting.
Stacy squirmed in her seat and pressed her legs together. She had to quell the gasp that threatened to explode from the erotic tingle that flashed through her system and settled between her thighs. He could make her ache with just a glance. Make her want with just a flick of his eyes. Make her half blind with need just by being in the same room with him.
“You’re like, the best father, ever!”
And when he smiled and tapped a finger to the tip of his daughter’s nose, Stacy knew he could make her fall in love with him as well, without even trying.
“You two can start tomorrow, since we’re almost done now,” he told her. “Besides, I have some things I need to go over with Stacy before we head back. Think you can manage cleanup alone today, kid?”
“I’ll try to, like, muddle my way through it,” she told him.
“Muddle? Another five-star word.”
“You are so lame.”
“I thought I was, like, the best father, ever.”
Stacy couldn’t control the giggle that bubbled out of her at his dead-on imitation of his daughter’s speech pattern, tone, and dramatic eye roll.
She almost burst out laughing again when Melora tossed her a haughty glare and said, “Traitor.”
As soon as lunch was finished—Stacy happy when she saw how much Melora actually ate—Nikko excused them both to his office.
“Don’t mind me,” Melora said, waving them out of the room with a dramatic sigh. “I’ll just be slaving away here, all by my lonely self. Just call me Cinderella. Is, like, dishpan hands a real thing?”
Nikko turned at the kitchen doorway and shot his index finger at her. “Knock it off, Cindy. I cook, you clean. When you cook, I clean. Those are the rules.”
“Yeah, yeah.” She filled the sink with running water.
“What did you need to go over with me?” Stacy asked when Nikko shut the study door behind them.
He leaned back against it, his hands out of sight behind him, just staring at her.
Good Lord, the man invented the smoldering stare!
When she heard him bolt the lock in place, her knees started to tremble and her hands started to shake; so much so, she had to place them in front of her, holding fast to the tablet so it wouldn’t fall.
Nikko pushed off the door and in two, purposeful strides stood in front of her, his gaze locked on hers.
Without breaking eye contact, he grabbed her tablet and tossed it carelessly onto his desk. When his hands were free, he snaked one around her waist, pulling her in so she molded against him, the other cupping her neck, holding her in place as she arched her head back to look at him.
“I needed,” he said, then placed a soft, swift kiss on her mouth, “to see you about this.”
This time the kiss was neither swift nor soft. His mouth claimed, commanded, consumed.
With a none-too-gentle tug, he yanked the scrunchie from her hair and fisted the falling tresses, bowing her back to allow him to plunder even further into her mouth.
The trembling in her knees quivered all the way up her thighs to settle in the hot space between them when the hand at her waist rounded down and cupped her butt, pulling her up on her toes. Stacy wound her hands around his neck for purchase and held on tight.
In the next breath, he lifted her. With her legs twined around his hips, he walked them to the couch and fell back with her straddling him just like that first time in the hotel.
He never broke contact between their mouths this time, either.
They were needed back in the production truck for afternoon dinner-prep filming in just a few minutes.
She had at least ten to-do items that needed immediate attention, and probably another half dozen that had erupted since lunch.
Added to those facts, Melora was a mere room away and might at any time need to speak with her father.
None of that, it appeared, seemed to matter to either of them. Right now, the only thing that did was getting their hands on one another and sating the consuming hunger thrashing through them.
Weaving her hands into his hair, with an impatient tug filled with intent, she forced his head back to give her better access to his mouth. And his tongue.
Christ, she craved his tongue like it was some sort of lifesaving nourishment.
Nikko tugged her blouse from her pants and danced his fingers up her back while his mouth mated with hers.
If the taste of him was nourishment, the feel of his large, warm, and demanding hands on her naked skin was added sustenance. Manna from the Gods above.
“I want to be inside you. Right now,” he whispered along the column of her throat, sliding his tongue down to where her blouse opened at her neck. “I’ve been thinking about having you underneath me all morning. Hell, since I left you last night.”
His hands slid underneath the waistband of her pants to plump and pinch her butt cheeks.
Stacy opened her knees a little wider and lifted just a bit, just enough for him to snake his hand down further to slide two fingers inside her thong.
“I knew you’d be this wet,” he growled. In a slow, steady stride he traced his fingers from the front all the way to the back and then did it again. Every nerve ending in Stacy’s core exploded at his touch. His thick, long, and nimble fingers tortured her with pleasure as they rubbed against her swollen, wet flesh. Needing him to run his fingers along her most sensitive spot, she lifted even higher to give him access. Nikko bit down on her earlobe and pushed those two fingers inside her.
Stacy clamped her lips together to keep from screaming aloud and dug her nails into his neck. With her head thrown back and her eyes closed, she focused every ounce of attention on the feel of his fingers.
“You’re gonna come right now, aren’t you?” He captured her mouth again. “Right in my hands.”
She answered him by pistoning her hips to the rhythm of his pumping fingers and clenching down when the orgasm barreled through her.
When she screamed this time, he swallowed the sound.
Nikko slid his fingers from her and then cradled her against his chest. While she floated back down, he kissed her forehead and rubbed her back. The sound of his heart thumping resounded against her ear.
When she could see clearly again, she pushed back to look at him. Thick, glossy hair where she’d clutched it stood out at odd angles from his head. His mouth was swollen and kiss-slicked and had her panting again just looking at it. But it was the expression floating in his half-closed eyes that undid her. Dark inkwells, so deep and warm she wanted to dive right into them, stared back at her filled with so much emotion, so much yearning she wanted to tell him what was rapidly growing in her heart.
Just as the words formed in her mind, the harsh blare of a cell phone exploded through the quiet room, silencing her declaration.
“That’s you,” Nikko said, glancing down at her lap.
With a nod, Stacy lifted up fully onto her knees to gain access to her pockets, her breasts now level with Nikko’s mouth, and pulled the phone from where she’d stored it.
While she answered, Nikko leaned forward, undid a few buttons on her blouse, and then nipped her nipple through her silk bra cup. The move was so unexpected, along with the bullet of need that shot straight through her soul, Stacy arched and pressed forward.
Nikko needed no further encouragement. He snagged the breast from its cup and, after licking his lips and making her almost come again just from watching him do it, sucked the puckered point into his mouth.
Once again, Stacy went blind.
And apparently deaf, because the producer on the other end of the phone was repeating herself. “Are you there? Stacy? Can you hear me?”
“Y—yes. I’m here. I’m good. Um… what did you say?”
Nikko’s shoulders shook with mirth. She clapped him on the collarbone. He glanced up, her breast plumped in his hand, his tongue swirling around her nipple, a grin of absolute devilry on his face and her heart simply turned over. Pursing her lips in a fake pout, she bent and kissed the top of his head while listening about the latest personality crisis.
“Okay, I’ll be right down.” She sat back down on Nikko’s lap, almost impaling herself with the hard, pulsating rod pressed up against his trousers. His self-satisfied smile had her wicked-meter pulsing too, and for a subtle form of payback, she slid her pelvis back and forth along him.
Nikko’s face went blank as his head dropped back. His hands shifted to her waist again, a silent plea to hold her in place.
“Give me five minutes,” Stacy said into the phone. “And try to keep them separated, okay?”
A second later she ended the call.
“I have to get back.” She glided off his lap to stand within the confines of his spread legs.
“Problem?”
While she tucked her breast back into her bra, then buttoned her shirt, she glanced around for her hair tie.
“Cayman and Burbank got into it again during lunch. Seems Cayman is on a tear about his spices going missing. He’s blaming Clay.”
She shoved her shirt back into her pants, still looking for her scrunchie.
“Here.” Nikko picked it up from where he’d tossed it onto the sofa cushion. While she wound her hair back up, he said, “Speaking of Burbank...” then swiped his hands through his hair, finger-combing it back into place, and sat forward. “Todd told me he’s been acting like an asshole during your morning yoga sessions.”
Stacy smoothed down the front of her slacks. “He’s just being his normal bad-boy self. He can’t help but flirt.” She sighed. “It’s the way he’s made.”
“Is he bothering you with what he’s saying and doing, though? Do I need to have a conversation with him, Stacy? To make him stop?”
Touched more than she realized she could be by his offer, she stepped back between his open thighs. Instantly, his hands wove around her waist, securing her, bringing her in closer.
With her palm against his cheek, she said, “Don’t worry about him. He’s a pain in the butt, but harmless. I’ve handled more obnoxious people than Clay”—she peered pointedly at him—“without any bloodshed. I find the best way to deal with guys who act like he does is to either ignore them or embarrass them.”
While she’d been speaking, Nikko had been tracing circles along the small of her back. Every inch of her spine tingled at his touch.
He flatted his hands against her butt and pulled her in closer until his mouth was a whisper from hers.
“Stacy.” He touched his forehead to hers. “I wish we didn’t have to go back just yet.”
She kissed the tip of his nose. “Me, either. But we do.” Her sigh sounded heavy and forlorn even to her own ears.
With his hands tucked inside the back pockets of her trousers, he palmed her butt and squeezed. “Can I come to your room later?”
She smiled at him and kissed a corner of his mouth, then nodded. “Now, I need to go before there actually is bloodshed.”
“Call me if you need any backup with those two. Otherwise, I’ll see you back at the production trailer.”
With a quick grin and nod, she unlocked the door and left.