Free Cooking up a Storm by Emma Holly

her personal history any more than he wanted to spend the night. He shifted slightly, letting his weight rest on his side. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t know.’
    ‘That’s all right. Dad was a great father.’
    Storm debated the merits of silence. Clearly, her father was dead as well. By keeping his mouth shut, he could end the conversation here. There was one fact, however, which might be useful to know. ‘You father left you the inn, yes?’
    ‘Yes, me and my sisters. When he first got sick, I came to help him in the kitchen. I was the only daughter who didn’t have a family at the time. When he died, it seemed natural that I take over as manager.’
    She wrinkled her nose, which forced him to ask yet another question. ‘You don’t enjoy managing the inn?’
    Given his purpose in coming to the Cape, he would have welcomed an affirmative. But she merely shrugged, a gesture that made her breasts shift under his chest. ‘I could do without the cooking, but I love talking to customers, especially when the tourists come. I like decorating, too, and doing accounts — though they’ve been nothing to smile about lately. Dad wasn’t the most businesslike man.’ She clasped her hands behind his waist and tugged him closer. ‘What about you? Are your parents alive?’
    ‘No,’ he said, because that was simplest.
    ‘Mm,’ she said, her tone thoughtful.
    He tensed, fearing she’d turn sentimental or expect him to supply more detail. Women often wanted a man to turn himself inside out for them, especially after a good fuck. But Abby just continued stroking his hair around his skull until the caress made him want to close his eyes and sleep in her arms.
    Fighting the urge, he pushed on to his elbows. ‘I should be going. I want to get an early start tomorrow. I have to make a list of supplies we’ll need for the new menu.’
    ‘All right,’ she said, releasing him without protest.
    She watched him in silence as he gathered his clothes and dressed. Her face was calm, even fond. Had he wanted her to be disappointed? Perhaps he had. He knew he would have stayed if she asked. He was capable of saying no to certain women, but not the really nice ones. As he backed towards the door, a funny ache bloomed in his chest. She held the flowered coverlet to her chest, modest again, her golden hair hanging in a cloud around her shoulders. The deep-pink walls cast a glow on her as she sat in the rumple of satin roses, as though she were a fairy and this was her bower. She looked so sweet and feminine — and as far removed from his life in LA as LA was from his childhood.
    Had she really begged him to come on her breasts? Had she really said, ‘Touch me with your cock?’
    ‘Good night,’ she said.
    Good night, he tried to answer, but the words stuck in his throat. He set her bonbon on the chair and left with nothing more than a wave.

4
    Marissa pedalled her bike to Wellfleet Harbor on the bay side of the Cape. This was not the wisest thing for a woman to do in the middle of the night, even during the off season, but the trip was a matter of sanity.
    She’d seen Abby at the window. She’d watched tension take hold of her body at whatever she saw in the stranger’s room. She’d read the hunger in her eyes, as if she wanted to leap across the space between the buildings. The shock had kept Marissa from sleep and so she’d seen him, too, in his all-black outfit, creeping across the yard and up Abby’s rose trellis like some secret ninja Romeo.
    She should have called the police, but she knew why she hadn’t. She was afraid this particular home invasion would be welcomed — and it was.
    She’d heard nothing for a while, though she strained towards the window and bit her nails. The cries came later, first hers, then his. His were louder, hers more heartbreaking. They were deep cries: groans, pleas, moans of pleasure she doubted Bill had ever inspired, the sort of sounds a woman would be embarrassed to have anyone but her lover