Chapter Five
Val was just pulling her third batch of chocolate macadamia nut biscuits from the oven when someone banged on the front door. She startled and almost burned herself on the hot tray. Cursing in a way she learned from a very young age hanging around rugby fields, she slid it onto the gleaming metallic surface of the bench top.
“We’re closed,” she shouted.
Couldn’t whoever it was see the bloody great sign on the door?
But the pound came again, and, annoyed, she pushed on the slatted, double-swing doors that separated the kitchen from the front of the shop. Kyle stood outside, peering in through the glass, not looking very happy at all.
Her stomach looped the loop. He was in shorts that moulded to the contours of his well-developed thighs and a T-shirt straining at the shoulders and sitting enticingly flat against his belly. She’d been dreaming about that belly for two weeks. The way the muscles there had contracted beneath her tongue as she’d licked her way down his body.
“Open up, Val.”
His demand yanked her back from the seduction of that night, and she met his gaze. The irritation in his tawny eyes did nothing to quell the riot going on in her ovaries.
Her instinct was to tell him to go away, to turn on her heel and not speak with him at all. She hadn’t exactly covered herself in glory as far as her conduct with him had gone, and never seeing him again seemed like a good way to avoid rehashing it.
Plus she was in her daggy work clothes—long black-and-white checked catering pants, a plain white T-shirt, and a Sticky Fingers cap on her head to constrain her hair to satisfy safe handling of food regulations. Her makeup had probably slid off hours ago. The ovens were warm, and she could work up a real sweat back here, no matter how cold it was at four in the morning. And he could probably join every single one of her freckles dot-to-dot style.
As if he could see she was gearing up for another request to go away, he pre-empted. “We need to talk.”
Val sighed. He was right, and she knew it. She owed him an apology and an explanation and the sooner she got it over with, the better.
She strode across the floor, flipped the lock, and yanked the door open. With the glass gone, the impact of his body was almost a physical force as it filled the open space, and Val gripped the door handle to stop herself from walking into his arms. They stared at each other for a moment, not saying anything.
There was something about this man that drew her. A primal thing. An aura he exuded, along with the heady voodoo ripeness of his cologne, which curled invisible fingers around her middle and yanked. She had to grind her shoes into the wooden floorboards to resist the pull.
“Come out to the kitchen.” Val fell back to let him in and shut her eyes as he brushed past to withstand the temptation of sniffing him. Licking him. She locked the door behind her and led the way through the swing doors into the kitchen, conscious of Kyle’s nearness. She rounded the bench and faced him, but not even the presence of the stainless-steel barrier between them was adequate enough protection for her recalcitrant body.
He opened his mouth to say something, then closed it again, inhaling deeply for a moment. “Bloody hell, it smells amazing in here.”
Val inhaled also, calmed momentarily by the assuring aromas of warm baked biscuits. Sugar and cinnamon and chunks of chocolate with melted centres. She still got off on it even after two years. She pushed the cooling tray toward him and offered him a biscuit because he was looking at her intently, and she was very much afraid she might offer herself, instead.
“They’re just out of the oven. The chocolate’ll be all gooey still.” She always made up a few batches at the end of the day and delivered them to a couple of the local cafés.
He shook his head, his gaze not quitting hers. “Are you okay?”
Val blinked. He’d seemed ticked off, glowering at her from the other side of the door, and he had a right to be. But his first words on what had happened the other night were are you okay? She shut her eyes briefly at the sweetness of his consideration, particularly when she didn’t deserve it. “I’m fine.”
“It was quite the argument,” he pressed. “With your father.”
Yeah. “Sorry about that.” The poor guy probably wasn’t used to such open dysfunction.
“It’s fine.” He shook his head like a woman he barely knew yelling at her father over a liaison she’d had was nothing out of the ordinary. “I’m just sorry for kissing you like that in front of everyone and causing trouble between you and your old man.”
“Oh, that.” She waved a dismissive hand. “Don’t worry about it. You did me a favour, actually. We never fight. I never say anything that rocks the boat, and he…”
Val shrugged and picked up a biscuit for something to look at other than him, something to do with her hands. She broke off a portion of the warm, pliant biscuit and popped it into her mouth. A sweet kick of chocolate and cinnamon burst on her taste buds, and she sighed as it practically dissolved on her tongue it was so fresh.
Her relationship with her father sucked, but biscuits she could count on.
“And he?”
Val glanced at Kyle to find him staring at her mouth. She licked her lips in case she had some gooey chocolate residue on them. His nostrils flared as he tracked the flick of her tongue, and the intensity of his gaze reached deep inside the muscles slung between her hips.
“He says as little to me as possible. He just…shuts me out. For the first time in years, I actually felt like he was seeing me. That he actually cared enough to warn me. I’m not sorry about the argument at all. But I do owe you an apology. An explanation. For that night. At the bar.”
He nodded. “Yeah. You do.”
The steel in his words matched the steel in his gaze. He was a little ticked. Fair enough. “I should have been up-front about who I was. I contemplated it, I really did, but then I knew we’d spend all night talking about my bloody father and I was pretty pissed at him that night.”
“Pissed enough to sleep with me?”
Val cringed. There was resignation in his voice. Like he knew the answer already. It’d be easy to lie to him, to deny that she did something so deliberate. But she didn’t seem to be able to. It was like he’d wrapped her in Wonder Woman’s Lasso of Truth, and she was powerless to do anything other than tell it like it was.
“Yes. I admit, there was part of me that thought sleeping with one of Griffin King’s precious players would be the ultimate fuck you to my father. But only part. And when I left that morning I was so ashamed of my actions. For not being completely honest with you, and when I thought about what we did potentially impacting on you…” Val shook her head, reliving her shame. “I was annoyed with myself. I know you don’t know me well enough to know this, but I really never would have told him. It was more a silent protest. I never planned for him to find out.”
“Except then I went and groped your ass and kissed you in front of everyone.”
One side of his mouth quirked up into a half smile. Val pushed the tray closer to him. If he didn’t do something else with his mouth other than smile at her, she might have to give him something to do with it.
“Yeah.” She returned his smile as he took a biscuit. “That hadn’t been part of my plan.”
“But I would have found out who you were eventually. How did you propose to manage that?”
“I assumed you’d learn pretty quickly Coach’s daughter was off-limits, and that when you met me at some stage down the track as Griff’s daughter you’d be smart enough to keep your mouth shut about our…”
Their what? Night of passion? One-night stand? Fuck fest?
“Liaison?”
Oh yes. That was a much nicer word for it. “I wasn’t supposed to run into you, Saturday night. Eve had texted me to lock up her office because she was taking Liam straight to the hospital for his asthma. I figured you’d all be in the locker room celebrating and I had the baseball cap on. I was planning on just sneaking past.”
He nodded. “But I screwed that all up by coming out of the locker room and…”
“Yes.” He’d come out at exactly the time she’d been passing. Epically bad timing. “I hope you believe it wasn’t ever my intention to screw with your career or your chances with the Smoke. Looking back, that was rather naive of me, but I was…sad and…not thinking very straight, and I sincerely apologise.”
He nodded, the steel in his gaze melting away. “Thank you.”
Tension in Val’s shoulders also melted away. She didn’t want him to be ticked at her, even if she did deserve it. “What did he say to you after I left?” She hadn’t given it much thought after she’d stormed out of her father’s office, but she had after she’d calmed down.
“He asked me for my word that I’ll stay away from you.”
Val blinked. She’d always been pissed off at her father’s rule where she was concerned. It was patriarchal and archaic and none of his fucking business. But it was one of the things she clung to because surely, it meant he cared? Surely trying to keep a bunch of testosterone-driven, sexed-up rugby players from her was his way of being a father.
His heart was too broken to love her, and it was too hard for him to look at her every day when she was a constant reminder of Lauren. Of what had happened. Of what he’d done.
But he could still do this.
“I hope you gave it to him.” She said it lightly, but Val was conscious of holding her breath, waiting on his answer. Which was ridiculous. They’d been a one-night thing. A flash in the pan. It would be stupid to ruin his career over making it into something it wasn’t.
“I did.”
“Good. What we had was fun, but anything between us would be untenable for you.”
The groan he emitted as he finally bit into the biscuit should have been illegal in all six Australian states. And the two territories. Lordy. “Oh. My. God.” His hand went to his abdomen as he devoured it, staring at her. “This is seriously good.”
Val smiled, stupidly proud. She knew she was a good baker. She ran a very successful business based on her prowess in the kitchen. She didn’t need his praise. His validation. But there was something about this big sexy man appreciating her food that stirred primal juices.
The cavewoman inside her was strutting around like a bloody peacock. She was satisfying her man. Except he wasn’t her man.
So snap the fuck out of it.
“Mmmm,” he murmured as his hand hovered over the tray and he arched an eyebrow, asking her permission to take another. She nodded—she could bake more. “And to think I only wanted you for your buns.”
She frowned, tucking a loose tendril of her hair back up under the cap at the back. “My buns?”
“Your Chelsea buns. I call in here about quarter to six most mornings on my way to training for a Chelsea bun. Have been ever since you opened.”
Val blinked. “You do? You have?”
He laughed. “Yes. How’s that for a coincidence?”
“Ah…yeah.”
If Valerie believed in woo-woo stuff, she’d be freaking the fuck out now. The two of them had about a degree of separation and yet they’d unknowingly crossed each other’s paths on too many occasions to count. Kyle just happened to be in the bar that night she’d been ripe for the plucking. He just happened to step out of the locker room the second she was passing?
He just happened to be coming to her bakery every morning for two years.
He was right. There was a disturbing amount of coincidence going down between them. Her mother would have said the universe was trying to tell her something. But her father’s indifference and rejection over twenty-two years had crushed any such flights of fancy from her existence.
Val didn’t believe in fate or luck or happenstance. Or star-crossed lovers. She sure as shit didn’t believe in fairy tales.
And she wasn’t giving this coincidence any significance whatsoever. She cleared her throat, determined to steer the conversation to more tangible subjects. “Quarter to six? I’m usually deep in the thick of croissants and doughnuts at that hour.”
“Your croissants are sublime.”
Stupidly happy at the compliment, she smiled. “Thank you.” Her croissants went like hotcakes. She could barely keep up with demand.
“I’m surprised it didn’t come up when I googled you. That you owned Sticky Fingers.”
He’d googled her? Her heart did a funny little giddy up. “You wouldn’t have, it’s registered in my mother’s name.”
“Your mother owns the business?”
“Technically.” Val girded her loins for the convoluted explanation, which all boiled down to her father’s incapacity to show emotion. “My father found out I was interested in buying the business and offered, through his lawyer of course, to buy the business for me. I told him I didn’t want any of his damn money and I certainly didn’t want to trade on his name or put up with autograph-hunting Smoke fans or gossip-hunting paparazzi bugging me every chance they got when it came out—and these things always do.”
“So your mother bought it instead?”
“No. He went ahead and bought it anyway and registered it in my mother’s name.” She shook her head, the wash of disbelief still potent after two years. “I was so mad at him. But as my mother said, it’s his way of expressing his love, and I was hardly in a position to buy it myself.”
“That was…” Val could tell Kyle was choosing his words carefully. “Very generous of him.”
Val dismissed the statement with an annoyed shake of her head. “He’s always provided financially. That’s never been an issue. I’d trade it all for one hug. For one I love you.”
An unexpected rush of emotion bloomed in her chest and threatened to close off her throat. Her voice wobbled a little as she swallowed hard against the blockage. Her eyes burned with threatening tears, and she blinked them rapidly away.
“Hey,” he said quietly and, before she knew it, he was on her side of the bench. Close. Coming closer.
Temptingly, achingly closer.
“It’s fine.” Val held up a hand to staunch his progress, and their gazes locked. It seemed this man was always seeing her at her lowest moments. “I’m used to it.”
They stared at each other, his gaze uncertain, a tension to his frame as if he was prepared to take that last step between them and crush her to him if she so much as sniffled.
“So…” Val cleared her throat of its huskiness. “You googled me, huh?”
He dropped his gaze from hers, but not before she caught the telltale signs of a flush in his cheeks. It was very cute and kinda sweet, considering what they’d done to each other in his bed. Val hoped he never got a peek at her browser history. She’d Google-foo’d the fuck out of him.
“I was trying to find you.”
Val frowned. “The guys know how to get hold of me. Why didn’t you just ask one of them?”
“The guys?” He snorted as his eyes sought hers again. “The guys think I pretty much defiled you and are determined to make it impossible for me to do again.”
Her belly tightened. He wanted to do it again?
“They’re the villagers. You’re Princess Fiona. And I’m the ogre.”
Val laughed. She should be pissed at them, but their protective-big-brother bullshit made her feel like part of a family. A family where her father was the head and to which he was fully devoted, and therefore, by extension, devoted to her.
God. Even admitting it sounded fucked up.
“Yeah. Sorry about that. They can be a bit…overprotective.” She laughed again at his unimpressed expression. His forehead and lips had scrunched into uneven lines, and even all frowny he was spectacular to look at.
If Kyle Leighton was an ogre, then she was going to set up house near the swamp.
“I suppose I should be grateful none of them were packing pitchforks.”
“So. How did you find out where I worked? Who ratted me out?”
For a moment he looked like he wasn’t going to reveal his source, but then he acquiesced. “Eve.”
Val nodded slowly. Of course. Her father’s PA had been playing the go-between for father and daughter for the last ten years. Their estrangement distressed Eve. Her husband had walked out when her son was five, unwilling to make allowances for the lifestyle adjustments necessary with a special needs child. Consequently, she didn’t approve of Griff letting grief abdicate him of his fatherly responsibilities.
But Griff had given her a job when she’d been a struggling single mother. A job that had been flexible, and a family that had welcomed her and Liam. He paid her very well, and the job was varied and interesting. She was loyal to Griff. Val suspected she was more than a little bit in love with him. She was most definitely firmly in his corner. Except where Val was concerned.
On that one Eve called bullshit.
Val loved her. She was the conduit to her father. She passed information back and forth and smoothed out the hurts, filling in all the cracks with good sense, empathy, and a generous dollop of insight. She soothed the friction between them, which made her father’s distance that much easier to bear. She was his gatekeeper and she took that role seriously, and despite how Val felt about her father, she was pleased he had someone looking out for him.
Because he’d sure as fuck pushed everybody else away.
“She didn’t give it up easily,” he assured as the silence stretched. “And she didn’t do it out of malice, she really was reluctant to break a confidence.
Val nodded. “Yeah. I know. Eve doesn’t have a vindictive bone in her body.” In fact, she knew exactly how Eve’s mind worked. “I’m sure she was just hoping that somehow this altercation would bridge the gap between my father and me. Like my mother, she lives in hope that one day my father will realise that ignoring my existence won’t make Lauren’s death hurt any less.”
“I’m sorry.”
His voice was deep and rumbly and laced with understanding, and she wanted to fall into it, to sink into his arms and forget for a while, as she’d done the night of her birthday. Her stomach tightened at that pull again, her nipples hardening, her inner thighs trembling.
Maybe it was just the intimacy of the quiet kitchen setting or the warmth from the ovens causing her body to flush with heat and need? Or maybe one night with this man was never going to be enough. Maybe this chemistry needed to be allowed to burn out of its own accord.
She turned away briskly, facing the counter, automatically reaching for the biscuits and transferring them onto wire racks to completely cool. She wasn’t going to compound her error from two weeks ago by making another totally crazy, completely inappropriate pass at him.
“It is what it is,” she dismissed, staring hard at the crumbly surface of the biscuits as she loaded them. “It doesn’t excuse that I put you in the middle of all my family stuff.”
He gave a short, sharp laugh which startled her enough to glance at him. “Trust me, I’m an expert on family stuff. Don’t worry about it.”
She was intrigued by his comment, but she wasn’t going there. The polite thing would have been to enquire as to what he meant, but the less she knew about him, the less she had to do with him, the better. The best thing right now was for him to leave. Her body was shifting, stirring. Heating up. Had he inched closer or had she just leaned in a little more?
Pretty soon she’d go into some kind of Pavlovian meltdown and either start frothing at the mouth or be all over him.
Possibly both.
“Let me make it up to you.” His eyes widened briefly, and Val blushed as she saw about a dozen risqué suggestions swimming in the tawny gleam of his eyes.
“For knowing you were off-limits to me but ruthlessly sleeping with me anyway?”
“Yes. That.” She rolled her eyes. “How about free baked goodies for all eternity?”
He quirked an eyebrow. “As many Chelsea buns as I can eat?”
“Yep.” Val nodded. “I’ll do you up a special order every morning just for you, if you like.”
“A special order. For all eternity?”
Val smiled. “Well, for as long as Sticky Fingers is around, I guess.”
He glanced at the biscuits. “That’s not playing fair.”
“Oh really?” Her eyebrows shot up in enquiry. “Why’s that?”
“How am I supposed to be able to think of anything else when you’re dangling a lifetime supply of free Chelsea buns under my nose. I am but a man.”
She smiled. Oh yes he was. A very big, very hard, very fucking good-in-bed man.
“You drive a mean bargain, Valerie King.”
God, the way he said her name, like he was humming it against her inner thighs, turned her knees to jelly. “I’m open to other suggestions.”
Val held her breath. She was walking an incredibly thin line. There were about a dozen other ways she could make it up to him right here, right now. But she was supposed to be cooling this down, not heating it up.
Any more heat in this kitchen and it might just explode.
Thankfully, Kyle was sensible enough to pull them both back. “I think access to your buns”—he grinned unashamedly—“whenever I want is adequate compensation for something I never regretted doing in the first place.”
“You’re going to send me bankrupt, aren’t you?” She stacked the empty trays together and pushed them over the other side of the bench, closer to the sink.
He didn’t answer, just grinned and held out his hand. She took it after the slightest of hesitations. A prickle of heat flared up her arm at their contact, and Val swayed a little. The pulse at her wrist fluttered madly.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” His voice was low, hitting that you can tell me anything, baby register that made Val want to melt and surrender. Snuggle into his body and unburden years and years of crap.
No man had ever made her feel like that. Like her hurts and her secrets and all the ugliness in her life were safe with him.
It should have been a father’s job, but right now she’d settle for Kyle.