Chapter 1: Kitchen Encounter
The hum of the fridge was the only sound in the sleek kitchen. Lee McKillop leaned against the doorframe, his calloused hands shoved into the pockets of his work jeans. He’d come by to drop off Toby’s socket set, said he’d leave it on the sideboard, but the sight of Anna stopped him cold.
She was stretched up on her toes, reaching for a high shelf, her fingers brushing the edge of a serving platter. The movement pulled her thin linen shirt tight across her back, and her skirt—some flowy, expensive-looking thing—had ridden up, exposing the backs of her thighs. Sunlight through the floor-to-ceiling windows caught the fine downy hair there, turning it gold.Lee watched.He always watched. He’d been watching for years.
“Need a hand?” he said, his voice a low rasp in the quiet.Anna startled, nearly dropping the platter. She turned, her sharp features composed into that familiar, polite mask.“Lee. I didn’t hear you come in.”
“Door was open.Toby around?”
“Golf. He said he texted you.”
Lee shrugged, a slow roll of his shoulders.He hadn’t checked his phone. He took a step into the room, the scent of her—something clean and floral, and underneath, the faint ghost of last night’s garlic—hitting him. The black granite island stood between them like a polished mile.
“Just came to return this,” he said, hefting the red metal toolbox he still carried.He set it down on the counter with a solid thunk that seemed too loud. The city skyline sprawled behind her, all distant, orderly lines. In here, the air felt charged and close.“Thank you,” she said. Her eyes, dark and unreadable, flicked over him.They always did that.A quick, dismissing sweep. But sometimes, like now, they lingered a fraction too long on the sweat-damp V of his t-shirt, the worn belt buckle, lower.It was a game he’d learned to play. A game he was suddenly, violently tired of playing.She turned back to the shelf, reaching again. “I can manage.”
But she couldn’t.The platter was just out of reach. He saw the tendons in her neck stand out, the elegant strain of her arm.He didn’t think. He moved.
In three strides he was behind her, his body not touching hers but close enough that he felt the heat radiating from her skin. He reached up, his arm brushing hers, and easily retrieved the platter.He held it, not handing it over.She didn’t turn. She went perfectly still.He could see the pulse fluttering in her throat.
“Here,” he murmured, his voice right by her ear.He placed the platter on the counter beside her splayed hands. He didn’t move back.His eyes traced the line of her spine through the thin fabric. His own breath felt heavy in his chest. The cocky swagger he wore like armor usually came easy.Now, it felt like a brittle shell.This was the moment. The theory he’d carried for years, nursed in silence over beers after Toby had gone to bed, was about to be tested.Slowly, deliberately, he shifted his weight. The front of his jeans, rough against the soft linen of her skirt, pressed into the curve of her ass.She gasped. A sharp, quiet intake of air.But she didn’t jerk away. She didn’t elbow him in the gut, or spin around and slap the smirk off his face. Her fingers, resting on the cool granite, curled inward, nails scraping against the stone.
Emboldened, he leaned in, his body molding to the shape of her back. He was hard, had been since he walked in and saw her stretched out like that.He ground against her, a slow, firm circle.
A sound escaped her then.A low, stifled moan, swallowed by the hum of the appliances. It wasn’t a sound of protest.It was a release.
Her head dropped forward, a curtain of dark hair falling to hide her profile. Her hips pushed back, meeting his pressure with a slow, deliberate roll of her own.
“That’s it,” Lee breathed, the words raw and grating.All his crude jokes, his bravado, fell away.This was stark, simple hunger. One hand came up to cup her hip, the other fisting in her hair, not gentle, pulling her head back just enough to expose the long line of her throat. He pressed his mouth there, not a kiss, but a hot, open-mouthed claim against her skin. She tasted of salt and that expensive perfume.“Lee…” His name was a whisper, torn from her.
“Tell me to stop,” he growled into her neck, his hand sliding from her hip to her stomach, pulling her tighter against him.“Say it.”
She was silent. Then her hand came up, not to push him away, but to cover his where it splayed across her belly. Her fingers laced through his, gripping tight. Her answer was in the arch of her back, the way she ground herself against the hard ridge of his denims, seeking friction.It was all the invitation he needed. With a rough shift, he spun her around to face him. Her eyes were wide, black pools, all that icy composure shattered into something wild and frightened and wanting. He hauled her up, her weight nothing in his arms, and set her on the edge of the cold granite island. The platter clattered to the floor.
He stepped between her legs, his hands rough on her thighs, pushing the skirt up around her waist.She didn’t help, but she didn’t resist. She watched him, her chest rising and falling in rapid, shallow breaths.
“You’ve been watching,” he said, his voice a low thrum.It wasn’t a question.
Her gaze dropped, for a second, to the prominent bulge in his jeans, then dragged back up to meet his.A faint, defiant smile touched her lips. “So have you.”
He undid his belt with clumsy, urgent fingers.The buckle clinked loud in the silent, sunlit room. When he freed himself, her eyes locked on him, and that look—a mix of shock, hunger, and a deep, unsettling ownership—drove the last of his hesitation away.
He wasn’t gentle.There was no finesse. He pushed her back onto the hard stone, a hand clamped over her mouth to stifle the cry as he drove into her in one brutal, claiming stroke.Her body tightened around him, a hot, shocked vise.
He leaned over her, his breath hot against her ear. “Not so fucking stuck-up now, are you?”
A tear leaked from the corner of her eye, tracing a path through her perfectly applied makeup. But her legs came up, locking around his lower back, heels digging into the muscles of his ass, pulling him deeper. Her muffled moan vibrated against his palm.
It was fast, and furious, and profoundly ugly in its honesty. The only sounds were the slap of skin, the grating rhythm of his belt buckle against the granite, her choked gasps beneath his hand. Lee lost himself in it, in the conquering, in the furious release of years of resentful want. He saw the cityscape behind her, blurred and tilting.
When it was over, he slumped against her, forehead pressed to her shoulder, breathing ragged. The silence rushed back in, louder than before, now filled with the echo of what they’d done.He pulled back, disentangling himself. He avoided her eyes as he fastened his jeans, the simple act feeling foreign and clumsy. She slid off the counter, her legs trembling as her feet hit the floor. She smoothed her skirt down with unsteady hands, not looking at him either.A strand of hair was stuck to her damp cheek.
He picked up his toolbox, the metal now cold and alien in his grip.He needed to be gone.Now.
At the doorway, he chanced a look back. Anna was standing by the shattered platter, her back to him, staring out at the vast, indifferent skyline. Her shoulders were straight, her posture already recomposing into its familiar, impenetrable line.
He opened his mouth, but no words came.Nothing that wouldn’t sound cheap.
He left, closing the front door softly behind him.The afternoon sun hit his face, blindingly ordinary. In his truck, his hands shook on the steering wheel.He’d been right.All along, he’d been right.
But the victory tasted like ash, and the hollow in his gut yawned wider than ever. He started the engine, the roar drowning out the memory of her moan. He didn’t know where he was going. He just drove.