Submission Specialist(Still a Bad Boy #2)(70)

“Fuck this, c’mon,” he said, standing again.

“What is…” I began as he took my hand and I was pulled to my feet.

Jace ushered me in front of him towards the back of the restaurant, where the woman from the front desk was talking to the waiter who had been leading that couple, Mike and Liv, to their table. Not too far behind them were the doors that presumably led to the kitchen.

“Sorry, sir, ma’am, I was just on my way over to see if there was anything I could-” began the waiter.

“Not now,” said Jace, still urging me forward in the direction of the doors.

“Sir, you can’t-”

“It’s OK, Donovan. Mr. Barlow has an arrangement with the owner.”

Poor Donovan didn’t seem to be having much of a day for getting full sentences out. Before I knew it we were through the doors and at the edge of a busy kitchen with celebrity chef, Luc Monette himself, barking orders through the steam and smoke.

A couple people glanced up from what they were doing as we rushed through, Jace steering me to the right, but nobody said a word. Just around the corner from the kitchen was another door, and Jace reached out ahead of me to turn the handle, pulling it open and pushing me through with his hand on the small of my back.

I wasn’t sure what I had been expecting, an office or a rear exit perhaps, but this was a dimly lit storage room. Shelves upon shelves of ingredients lined the walls on all sides, but other than that there was nothing in there except Jace and me.

Turning to face him with a confused expression, I saw him close the door and then advance on me with such hunger on his face that my question faltered before it could escape me.

Is he going to ki-

Jace Barlow cradled my head with both hands, his fingers burying themselves in my hair as he tilted my head up and pressed his lips against mine. I opened my mouth to gasp in surprise but, as he was already mid-kiss, it only allowed him to kiss me more deeply.

Even though he was leaning down, I was still up on the balls of my feet to meet his kiss. That thrill of excitement I’d been feeling ever since I felt his eyes on me grew to a powerful flutter that made me breathe in short shallow bursts as a million butterflies rioted inside my belly.

Jace kept up his momentum and I was forced awkwardly backwards, our lips never losing contact with each other. My hands were on his stomach, feeling those washboard abs through his shirt as he steered me wherever he wanted to go, while giving me a kiss more urgent and primal than I had ever dreamed a kiss could be.

One of his hands pushed harder than the other, and we went around a corner in a gap between two shelves until I felt my back hit the wall. Jace didn’t stop kissing me, if anything he kissed me harder now that I had nowhere to escape, forcing my mouth wide open and curling one hand around the back of my head, as he let the other hand trail down my arm, coming to rest at my hip.

His knee pushed between my legs and his whole body was pressed up against me, pinning me against the wall, before he let our lips part. One time, I ran a half-marathon, I thought I was more breathless now, in this moment.

My chest heaved against him and I stared up into his eyes, almost mesmerized by their intensity, their glowing desire. Every breath I took, his scent filled my world. Expensive cologne, money, and a faint undertone of masculine musk blended with the smell of some cinnamon on the shelf next to us. It was a heady mixture.

I felt a pang of fear when his hand on my hip curled around to cup my rear end though my skirt. Flirt with him, my boss said, but this was quickly going beyond that, if it hadn’t already.

“You are sexy as fuck, Kendall,” he said, giving my ass a hard squeeze.

His intensity was almost enough to wash away a lifetime of self-consciousness, a lifetime of sexual invisibility, but how was I supposed to respond to that?

All my life, I’d dreamed of being wooed with flowers, maybe a nice poem and a compliment about my eyes. This was nothing like that, this was raw lust, it was hot like standing in front of a furnace and I was completely out of my element.

“Uh… thanks?”

My uncertainty was blatant in my voice, and I hated the inexperience that put it there. My sisters would know what to do in this situation, and my friends would too.

Jace bent down to kiss me again, and I had no choice but to let him take the lead. My jaw worked in time with his, my head tilted and moved in rhythm with him. I felt the tip of his tongue touch mine and moaned softly in the midst of the kiss, surprised at the gentle touch in the middle of that wanton passion.

It was like a drug, feeling all that attention focused on me from a man like Jace. I was supposed to be here getting the kind of interview that would make or break my career, but the mysterious multi-millionaire seemed to have a one-track mind, and he was intent on taking me along for the ride. Where was that professionalism I’d been so worried about earlier?