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Cockney:A Stepbrother Romance(5)

By:Aubrey Irons


     



 



Thirty minutes later, I'm still scowling, but now I'm at least scowling with delicious Chinese food sitting in front of me.



I'm also realizing I need to wrap my head around this situation and deal  with it. I mean, I'm here; this is happening. Whatever happens after  this fall with grad school back home is something to think about, but  for now, this is where I am.



And hey, the bright side is that I've got a job that other up-and-coming  cooks and bakers would literally kill for. I mean, I'm working in one  of the hottest kitchens in London right now; that's hardly bad luck.



So what if the chef - my boss - also happens to be my new stepbrother?



...So what if I can't get the feel of his hungry mouth on my lips or his  powerful hands on my body out of my head? Totally normal, right? I can  definitely get over this and just do it; no problem at all.



I look up to see Oliver just staring at me, grinning as if he's inside  my head reading my very thoughts. The idea of him reading my mind bring  an uncomfortable flush to my cheeks as I look down into my dumplings.



"So, you bake now."



It's really more of a statement than a question, and I swallow the bite  of food in my mouth as I look up at him, fully ready to throw that  dickish attitude right back in his face, when my mother answers for me.



"Well, Chloe's not a real baker, she just-"



"Mom," I say sharply, frowning at large glass of wine in her hand. It's  like we haven't had this same conversation forty times before. "Mom, I  bake, and it's my job. I'm pretty sure that makes me a baker."



"Well, it isn't your career or anything," She says, shaking her head at  Barney as she takes a big sip from her glass, as if I'm some silly  little girl pretending to be a princess or something.



"Um, yeah, mom. It might be."



I'm trying, at least.



"A career working in kitchens?" My mother says disdainfully, as if looking at roadkill or something.



Oliver snorts and makes a coughing sound, and she looks up at him with a  whole new expression. "Oh, no offense meant Oliver, but you're a  professional. This is just a hobby for her."



"Mom! What the hell is that supposed to mean?"



"I mean you do what you love, right?" Oliver says loudly, suddenly,  interrupting the exchange. "And you happen to love cupcakes and biscuits  and all that, yeah?"



I frown, not sure I like his opinion of what I do any more than my mother's based on that tone, but I nod my head anyway.



Oliver shrugs, "Well, it's not like you're working at Jolie for free,  right?" He looks at his dad, "Wait, you are paying her, right?"



Barney nods. "Oh, of course."



"Well good!" Oliver reaches down and snags one of my dumplings off my  plate with his chopsticks, "So, you're doing what you love, and being  paid for it." He shrugs. "Seems like that might make you a  professional."



He shoots me a quick wink before turning back to my mother.



The conversation changes to movies after that.



*****



Mercifully, Oliver ducks out right after dinner to go do something at the restaurant even though it's closed on Mondays.



"He's such a hard worker, that one!" My mother says, smiling at Barney as we clean the takeout boxes from the dining room table.



"Yeah, well, he better be," Barney says wryly. "The Army whipped a little sense into him."



I frown. Oliver was in the army?



Barney continues with a shake of his head. "Still though, that boy needs  to get more into work and less into trouble if you ask me."



I excuse myself to go upstairs, and with every step, the only thought running through my head is that if Oliver



Trouble? I can feel the flush in my cheeks as I quickly exit the dining  room. With every step, all I can think is that the only "trouble" I can  see is Oliver himself.



He's trouble with a cocky, troublingly-attractive smile. Trouble with  inked tattoos running down his muscled arms. Arms that I'm intimately  familiar with; especially how they feel wrapped around my body.



He's trouble with a dirty, devious, and panty-dropping mouth; one that I happen to know firsthand what it feels like to kiss.



Oliver? In trouble? I bite my lip as I close the door to my new room  behind me and lean against it and shake my head. It's when I look up  that I see that there's a note on my pillow:



"8 am sharp. DO NOT BE LATE."



Great. I haven't even started yet and I'm already getting yelled at by my boss.



My very bossy, very distractingly attractive boss.



My new stepbrother.



Yeah, no, Oliver's not in trouble.



I am, and with that man sleeping right next door all night and being my boss all day at work?



Yeah, I'm in big, big trouble.





I'm leaning against the outside wall back behind the kitchen, frowning  at the cobblestone streets of London's south bank and sipping espresso. I  close my eyes as I take a sip, breathing it all in and just loving it.



I love the smell, the sounds and the taste of restaurants opening in the  morning. This life is not for everyone, that's for damn sure. Late  nights, super early mornings, and all manner of drink, drugs, and sex in  between. Honestly, those who cook your food might be the final great  rock stars in the world, like the Stones back in the ‘70s or something.



We might be the world's last pirates, and I fuckin' love it.



I love the chaos, the threat of danger, the pressure, the burns, the  cuts, the screaming maelstrom of fuckin' chaos that somehow births  something beautiful. I love that, somehow, through the utter chaos of a  commercial kitchen during service, the madness can still give birth to  something pure and something perfect: a meal that transcends food and  becomes a fucking experience.



And that's what I want. I want people to walk away from a meal I've  cooked them changed on a visceral, fundamental level. I want to rock  their world; I want that first bite of food to be a fuckin orgasm for  them. That's what I love about all this. I love ending the night and  looking out over my field of battle in that kitchen, and knowing that I  bled for the cause and won. The cause of a perfect meal.



I take another sip of the espresso and frown. What I don't love is  lateness. Lateness like how Chloe is already ten fucking minutes late to  her first day on the job. The job I'd never have given her, truth be  told. I run a fucking machine back there on that line, and I do not have  time to babysit fucking hobbyists trying to "rough it" with the big  boys in the kitchen. Fuck that. And her being late is just pissing me  off even more.



I can't have it; not in any kitchen but certainly not here at this one.  People here need to fear me like they do their father, or a Goddamn  brigadier general.



And if she thinks I'm going to go easy on her because of our parents, or because of our...well, history, she's sorely mistaken.



Oh, fuckin' finally. She's coming around the corner, on her fucking  cellphone of course, with a coffee. She looks up quickly, as if feeling  my eyes boring into her. I sip the last of my espresso, my arms crossed  over my kitchen whites as I narrow my gaze at her.



"Sorry!" She says, looking up from twitter or whatever bullshit has her  late to my kitchen. She throws me her best "cute" wincing face.



It sort of works, even if I hate to admit it.



"The trains-" She shakes her head; "Sorry, I'm not used to-"



"So leave earlier."



She shoots me a sharp look. "Look, I just got here last night, you know. It's not like I've ever been to London bef-"



"So look at a map."



She drops her jaw, her mouth going into this adorable and shocked  looking "o" face. I have to suppress the urge to grin, because truth be  told, I'm more interested in seeing how far I can push this girl than I  am actually mad at her. Yes, lateness is something I abhor, but I'm not a  fuckin' dictator. Honestly, I'm partially amazed she's only ten minutes  late after trying to figure out London's tube system on day one.



Not, of course, that I'm going to tell her that.



She shoots me another glaring look full of daggers, "You want to give me some fucking slack?"



"No, actually," I say, smiling widely at her and loving the way it gets  her all flustered looking, her mouth opening and closing like she can't  even find the words to express her anger at me. Her cheeks get all  flushed and pink looking, and I can't help but remember the last time I  saw them like that.



Of course, that time I had her shirt half undone, my cock pressed  against her thigh through our clothes, and her moans melting through my  ears as she kissed me like our lives depended on it.



Suffice to say, I would be extremely curious to see that particular blush on her face again.



But I quickly shake that thought from my head. I have to be the hard-ass  here. If not for her, at least for the rest of the kitchen.



"Be on time," I say again, forcing the grin from my face and mustering my hard-ass chef glare.