Turn up the Heat
Second Chances # 1
Second Chances # 1
By: Serena Bell
Releasing July 14, 2015
Loveswept
Turn Up The Heat
Second Chances Series
For readers of Jill Shalvis and Susan Mallery, USA Today bestselling author Serena Bell teases all five senses in this poignant, tantalizing novel of fantasies long hidden . . . and finally indulged.
Aspiring chef Lily McKee noticed Kincaid Graves the first time he walked into the dingy diner where she waits tables. With his ice-blue eyes and primal tattoos, his presence puts Lily on edge—and reminds her of all the unfulfilled longings she isn’t pursuing while she’s stuck in this dead-end job. Without a doubt, the man is dangerous to her long-term plans of leaving town and hiring on at a real kitchen—and yet, she hungers for him, if even for just a taste.
Kincaid didn’t come back to his coastal Oregon hometown looking for a good time or a good meal. The ex-con has a score to settle, old wrongs to set right. But Lily, equal parts innocence and insight, brings out an impulsive side of him he thought he’d left behind in the past. And it only takes one intense moment of weakness between them to make him consider the possibility of an entirely new future—and the promise of passion beyond either of their wildest dreams.
“Dinner
rush is just starting. You will be in ten minutes. Look, I’m
not giving you a choice.”
“Of
course you’re fucking not.”
The
men glared at each other, then turned to her.
Lily
knew better than to look like she was waiting for an invitation. She
grabbed an order ticket and got to work.
Of
course it was the ticket for Booth 9. Her mystery man. He’d
ordered a burger.
She
let herself wonder, just a little. If he’d
do it. If he’d pin her, hold her,
boss her, own her. Wondering wasn’t
doing. There was no harm in wondering.
She’d
told herself that after what had happened with Fallon, she needed to
give herself space. She’d told herself:
No men in Tierney Bay. Do the job, make the
money, get out.
The
anger coiled now. The sense of betrayal.
Do
the job, make the money, get out.
And
yet, every time her mystery man came in here and she took in his
size, the hewn-wood solidity of him, the ripple and surge of what
he’d built under the surface of his skin
like a barely contained threat, she wanted to rewrite the rules. And
that was before he turned that cool blue gaze on her, stripped her to
the skin and then barer still, and dared her something she didn’t
have a name for.
She’d
promised herself. And in her head, she’d
promised her mother and her sister, who had given up so much for her.
And
her father, who had given up everything.
So
that meant she could wonder, but that was all.
But
it wouldn’t be breaking the rules to cook
for him. To grill him a burger and watch him eat it. She’d
seen him eat a few times, like he was ravenous and barely restrained,
but savoring every last nuance. Watching him eat would be only a
consolation prize, but it would be a damn good one.
Unfortunately,
she’d had a few of Tierney Bay Diner’s
hamburgers, and they were nothing to write home about. That would
dampen the fun of feeding him, for sure.
It
would take her ten seconds, no more, to fix that.
A
few chopped onions, minced garlic and parsley, Worcestershire sauce.
She
dared a glance, and there he was. Icy-lake eyes, full lips, the
slashes of cheek and jawbone, a day’s
stubble. Not reading. Watching her.
They’d
done this too many times for her to pretend they weren’t
doing it. She looked right back at him, held his gaze, and heat
flared in her, like the shimmer of air over the grill.
She
oiled the grill and formed the patty, the sound of her hands loud as
a slap in her mind but drowned by sizzle and the clang of metal and
the god-awful eighties XM station playing on infinite loop.
In
a few seconds she was flipping her own burgers with her left hand and
clearing space for sausages with her right.
She
brushed cooking oil on the grill—but someone had substituted lemon
juice in her oil bottle and the whole thing caramelized in an
instant.
Behind
her, Hadley snickered.
Screw
him. She scraped the grill clean, time wasted, and started
over.
On
his next pass, he knocked her elbow when she was salting, and she
seared his forearm with a metal spatula she’d
been heating on the grill for just that purpose.
He
jumped a foot and his jaw tightened, but he half-grinned, too. He
knew the score. It was every man for himself in the kitchen. Every
woman, too.
She’d
be poised for his next attack, but somehow, some way, she’d
prove herself in here. This was how you did it.
Meantime,
she wouldn’t let him distract her.
Wouldn’t let him break her rhythm. The
smack of patties on her latex palms, the swish of spatula against
grill surface, the dance she was part of now as her brain tracked
tickets and entrees, ingredients and subassemblies. What needed to be
started and what needed to be finished.
Booth
9’s burger was up, and she watched it get
delivered. He took a bite, then looked up from the burger and met her
eyes. It was there: gratitude and worship, hot and dark as sex. Like
no one had ever really fed him before.
She
loved that. She couldn’t
help her smile.
Someone
stopped by his table, breaking her line of sight. Markos. He’d
been moving around the diner, stopping to say hello to regular
customers and to check on people to see if they were enjoying their
meals. Markos and her mystery man began having an animated
conversation, pointing to the burger. Removing the bun.
Shit.
A
cold hand fisted in her stomach.
Markos
left Booth 9 and headed straight for her. “See me in the
storeroom.” Markos’s thick-featured face was angry, his voice low
and mean. “Hadley, watch her station.”
She
followed Markos into the storeroom.
“You
messed with my food.”
“I—I—”
“We
don’t put fucking onions and parsley in the hamburgers. Or
anything fucking else.”
The
real rage in his voice surprised her, set her back on her heels
despite herself. “I was— Did he not like it?”
Because
she knew he had. She’d seen him finish
the last bite a moment ago and lick his fingers, which had sent a
shiver of lust up her spine.
“That’s
not the fucking point. You don’t mess
with my food. You don’t try something
new. I tell you what to cook, you cook it. Except you don’t,
because it’ll be a frigid day in hell
before I let you back in this kitchen. Get outta here. Go do what I
hired you to do.”
He
held out his hand and she shed her apron and hairnet and returned
them to him.
She
went back to the floor. Tears stung behind her eyes, but she ordered
them back. Be tough. Show
no weakness.
Or
as one of her favorite teachers—a woman—had once said, Pull
on your big-girl panties and turn up the heat.
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