Hard(28)

Including me.

My car’s trunk filled with groceries. I thought hauling the bags in from the curb to my old apartment was difficult. No wonder people hired help in estates this big. I was out of breath by the time I hit the hall and struggled just to lift the plastic bags onto the island. I grunted and went back for the bottled water.

Zach watched it all in amusement. He munched on an apple over the sink, but he didn’t offer to help—the silent treatment went both ways.

He set a box of spaghetti, a giant pack of ground meat and sausage, and a can of marinara sauce on the counter. I watched as he filled a pot too small for noodles with water. He warmed a skillet for his meat and claimed the entire cutting board for his mess.

What an ass. It was no accident that he started cooking the instant I got home. He just wanted to get in my way and under my skin while I made my dinner.

The mature, responsible thing to do would have been to surrender the stove until he was done. Screw it. I wasn’t letting that bastard chase me out of my own damn kitchen.

Shrimp and grits were on the line. Wars fought for less.

I dropped the fresh shrimp on the counter—whole and raw like Momma and Gran preferred—but the sink filled with his dishes. Two glasses were rimmed with his chalky protein powder supplements. A plate smeared with mustard. The colander for his spaghetti haphazardly angled to the side so he wouldn’t have to load the dishwasher.

I scowled and piled his mess before rinsing my shrimp. He laughed, still crunching on the apple.

The serpent in the garden had more tact that him.

But I wasn’t going to scold him. He wanted that. Expected it. If he couldn’t get me to talk, he’d try to rile me up. And usually it worked.

Not this time.

No way.

If he was that bored, he could call little Miss Tasty-Cake for a romp.

I ignored him as I cleaned the shrimp, but I needed the stove to get my bacon rendering and the grits on to boil. Zach paid no attention to the chunk of meat he burned in the skillet. I turned, nearly dropping the bowl of deveined shrimp.

The gas burner cranked all the way up. His ground meat smoked and charred on the bottom while the top quivered, pink and cold.

I wasn’t about to help him fix his mess, but he’d burn the damn house down!

I cleared my throat with all the subtlety of a cough with laryngitis. Zach grinned, pitched his apple core away, and flipped the meat. Half of the charred gunk stuck to the pan.

Then he dumped the noodles into the pot.

Lord have mercy, the water wasn’t even boiling.

Did he have any idea how to cook? No wonder he ordered out, brought in pizza, chicken, and hoagies. He wasn’t bulking—he was barely surviving on his own. The boy was lucky he managed to cut a bologna sandwich in half.

Not. My. Problem. I let him do his thing.

I searched the lower cabinet for a pot to cook the grits and a skillet for the shrimp. My father had excellent foresight in ordering three crystal gravy boats for special occasions but only one suitable skillet.

Fine. Shrimp and grits. From a wok. We’d call it fusion and I could sell it at a sixty percent markup in a restaurant.

I grabbed the dish. Zach moved behind me to stir his pasta. I rose, but my butt bumped his legs.

Not his legs.

Oh, God.

I bent over, head in the damn cabinet, booty on display, and I knocked into his hips. A rush of heat that should have gone to my cheeks decided to bolt straight down to the troublemaker between my legs.

I had deliberately ignored her this morning, a punishment for the dream about Zach.

Well, that was a mistake.

I couldn’t blame my reaction on the sexy dream. This particular bout of shame and weakness was brought to me by the letter F—as in Fuck, I should not be grinding against my step-brother’s legs. Terrible, sensual thoughts popped into my head. I imagined his hands holding my hips. Fierce strokes of his namesake that hit everywhere unholy inside me.

I remembered him in both reality and the dream, everything from his dusty scent to the monster between his legs.

Hard.

My senses came back to me…and they were pissed off.

Zach was hard.

I launched forward, crashing into the cabinet. The dishes and glasses above rattled around, but the only thing broken was the spell that sleezeball put me under.

I grunted and untangled myself from the pots and pans, but Zach already turned his attention, chiseling at the crispy flecks of meat in the skillet I needed.

He whistled a little tune.

Like nothing had happened. Like nothing passed between us. Like nothing about me bending over even affected him.

And why would it? The man-whore probably humped everything from here to Washington D.C. while he was on leave—storing it up for the long winter of his deployment like a perverted little squirrel. Money and girls. All the same to him.