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  A jumble of thoughts flitted through my mind as I let the water wash over me. Class. Ethan’s outburst earlier. Ethan’s jeans as they rode lower on his hips when he leaned over to grab a beer from the fridge on Friday night.

  Images of Ethan’s leanly muscled back flashed behind my closed lids and I imagined pulling him into the shower with me. With his dark hair slicked back, the water glistening over his pale skin, he was everything I’d dreamed of and more. I drew in a deep breath and reached for the soap, squirting a generous amount in my palm. I smoothed it over my neck and shoulder, wishing my hand was Ethan’s. It had been too long since I’d felt someone else’s hands on my body.

  My soap-slickened palm slowly slid down my stomach and curled around my length. I groaned as I slowly stroked. Images flashed through my head of taking what I wanted for once. I pictured shoving Ethan up against the wall of the shower. With him I wasn’t polite, emotionless or quiet, or any of the things ingrained into me since birth. With him I could be as needy as I wanted. I’d never just let go and taken what I’d wanted before, but with him I craved it. Closing my eyes tighter, I imagined pulling his mouth to mine and plundering his lips.

  As I braced myself harder against the shower wall, I stroked faster. I slid my free hand down to cup my balls, squeezing gently as I imagined Ethan dropping to his knees, his eyes dark with lust as he stared up at me. He’d lick his lips, his smirk firmly in place as he leaned in to take the tip of my dick into his mouth. My ragged moan echoed in the shower as I let my head fall back.

  My strokes sped up as I imagined Ethan’s own desperate moan around my length, sucking hungrily as he slid his hands up my soapy legs to cup my ass. My grip grew rough as I felt my muscles tense and tighten and I imagined his touch on my skin. I stroked faster, my breathing choppy as I pictured sliding my hand into Ethan’s wet hair and cupping the back of his head as I thrust into his mouth. I groaned, low in my throat, the sound echoing in the shower, the idea of being in control of the always unpredictable Ethan Martin beyond sexy. Pleasurable plain flooded my body and I let out an anguished cry, stroking myself roughly as I felt hot spurts cover my hand.

  I leaned against the wall, panting hard as I let the water wash away the last of my tension. My body was finally loose but my mind was tired and fuzzy. Actual cleaning in the shower took five minutes as I hurriedly soaped and rinsed. After shutting off the water I toweled off and left the bathroom, tugging on boxers.

  I sat down on my bed feeling drained but finally relaxed enough to go to sleep. I grabbed my cell phone to set it on my nightstand and noticed I’d missed a call. All the tension I thought I’d worked out in the shower suddenly came back with a vengeance when I saw my dad’s name on the screen. If I ignored him, it would only make whatever he wanted to talk to me about much worse. If I called him, there was no telling what he would try to force me into.

  Sometimes dealing with my parents was like dealing with a bandage. Better to rip it off with one quick tug. I pulled up my voice mail and heard my dad’s familiar, overly formal voice through the earpiece.

  “James. It’s Dad. I just got off the phone with Daniel Jacobs, head of Human Resources. He wants to talk to you about setting up a meeting to discuss your position in the company. The sooner we can get all the paperwork taken care of, the sooner you can finally take on the responsibility of being a Lassiter. Your mother also wants me to remind you we’ll see you at the house for family dinner next month. I’ll be in meetings all day tomorrow so call me back tonight with your schedule and we can get this taken care of.”

  I heard the telltale click signaling the end of the call, followed by the computerized voice asking me if I wanted to save or delete the message. I deleted it without even having to think about it. Nothing I hadn’t already heard before. But now instead of my parents talking about an internship, my dad had actually said a position in the company. My parents knew I had one more year of culinary school left. There was no way I could take classes and hold down a full-time job at the same time. Either I was missing something or my dad was up to something and it didn’t bode well for my plans for the future.

  As much as I didn’t want to call him back, I had to. If I ignored him completely it would only make him more demanding. I dialed my parents’ home phone, hoping my mom would pick up, but unfortunately, the deep voice that answered wasn’t hers.

  “James, I spoke with Daniel Jacobs earlier and he wants to get the ball rolling on your paperwork. We both know the meeting in June will simply be a formality, but he wants to have everything in order so you can immediately step into the company. I need you to contact him tomorrow and fax over what he needs.”

  I clenched my phone tightly and closed my eyes. “Hey, Dad. Good to hear from you. Sorry I missed you and Mom at dinner last weekend.”

  I heard papers shuffling in the background as my dad’s annoyed voice huffed in my ear. “Don’t play games with me, James. It’s been a long day and I told Daniel you’d get all the necessary paperwork to his office tomorrow. Can I trust you to take care of this?”

  Rage and frustration boiled inside me. Did neither of my parents have any clue what I wanted? “Dad, you do realize I have one more year of school, right? And I entered the scholarship competition. I don’t see how I’ll be able to work and go to school full-time.”

  The paper shuffling stopped and was replaced by silence. After what seemed like an eternity my dad’s voice grew eerily calm. “James, we’ve humored you with this little foray into cooking school, but enough is enough.”

  My skin felt cold and clammy and I could taste the bile rising in my throat. “Dad, this is what I want to do with my life. This is what I’ve always wanted to do.”

  “James, you’re twenty-two. You have no idea what you want to do with your life.” The sound of papers being shuffled returned. My desires, my needs and my wants had already been relegated to the back burner as unimportant. “Your mother and I have decided it’s time for you to end this little experiment after this semester. You have Daniel’s number. I expect you to give him a call tomorrow and start the ball rolling so you can head into the corporate side of the business where you belong.”

  “Dad—”

  “Good night, James. We’ll see you soon for dinner.”

  I turned my phone off and threw it on my nightstand. A throbbing began to settle behind my eyes. I’d have to call Mr. Jacobs with some kind of information, but maybe I could stall any talk of meetings and commitment until after I found out about the scholarship.

  The scholarship. It was exactly what I needed to get away from my dad’s version of the restaurant business. All my parents had to do was point to the financial statement every year to prove how successful his business was. For me? I needed more. I wanted to create and make dishes people could lose themselves in. If I went to work for my dad, I knew a part of me would shrivel up and die.

  I hated how they had never understood what actually made me happy. All my father saw were dollar signs. All my mother saw was her perfect family and the perfect Lassiter image. Being gay, culinary school, my desire to have my own restaurant one day? None of those fit with the perfect image and career path they had all laid out for me. They all added more incentive for me to win the scholarship and get out from under their ever-controlling thumbs.

  I rolled onto my side and tried to push all thought of my dad and the family business aside. I was kidding myself if I thought the only thing I wanted after graduation was the scholarship. I wanted Ethan Martin. I just wasn’t sure yet how big a price I was willing to pay to get him.

  Chapter Twelve

  Ethan

  I slipped into the back of the lecture hall with seconds to spare. Communication and Restaurant Management made working in the school’s restaurant under the hard-ass chefs look like a walk in the park. I’d take knife cuts, sore arms from lifting heavy pots and grease scars any day over
having to “communicate” with others in class.

  The professor walked up to the podium in front of the lecture hall and set his notes down. He scanned the class of about twenty-five students with the same sour expression he always wore. We all knew he came from the corporate sector of the restaurant business and had little patience for chefs.

  As I looked over the students seated in front of me, a familiar shock of sandy-blond hair five rows ahead of me caught my eye. As soon as the professor cleared his throat and turned on the projector screen behind him, Lassiter turned in his seat and glanced around the room until he saw me. He was wearing one of his stupid pink dress shirts that shouldn’t have made him look so damned edible. My fingers twitched as I imagined popping the buttons open one by one as I stripped it off his body. He nodded at me, then turned back around.

  I should have felt bad about the way things ended on the phone last night, but the more distance I put between me and Golden Boy, the better. I was getting my notebook out when the professor cleared his voice again to get the class’s attention.

  “For the next few weeks, we’ll be focusing on the marketing side of the restaurant industry. This business isn’t all about creating new dishes and great menus. It’s about restaurants selling an image to the public so they can generate enough capital to create dishes to win over their clientele. Repeat customers represent repeat income and it’s your job as chefs to keep them coming back. To reinforce a lesson many fail to understand and therefore see their restaurants close within the first year, this project will force you to focus on the restaurant concept and design aspect of the business.”

  He turned on his computer and the screen behind him illuminated with charts and graphs. As he lectured about the maintenance costs of running an independent restaurant, I zoned out and began to doodle on the page in front of me. Restaurants were a money pit. Without financial backing and an owner with a good mind for business, a lot of independent places went down in smoke before they even hit the one-year mark.

  “As you can see, selling yourself is a huge draw for the industry these days. Look at Bobby Flay, Wolfgang Puck, Emeril Lagasse. Their talent in the kitchen is indisputable, but it’s how they’ve marketed their name that’s made the difference between being good chefs and being profitable chefs. The project you’ll be working on will underscore this concept. How will you market your cuisine? What steps could you undertake to get your restaurant’s name out to the general masses? And once it’s out there, how will your menu highlight the differences between your restaurant and the one down the street? What will make your patrons want to come back for a second and third visit? You and your assigned partner will develop a marketing strategy for a fictional restaurant you create and present it to the class.”

  Several new slides scrolled across the screen depicting different well-known chain eateries and a several famous independently owned cafés and restaurants.

  “The notes and guidelines are in the packet I’ll be handing out shortly. Now, to assign your partners.”

  My head whipped up the mention of the words partner and presentation to the class. Group work and cooperation with others was not my strong point.

  Fucking fantastic.

  The professor began calling out the names of students in the class and pairing us up in alphabetical order. As I looked around the class, my eyes settled again on Lassiter’s shock of blond hair. I drew in a breath. “No way.”

  “Frederickson, you’ll be working with Hendley. Jackson, you’ll be with Kinsey. Lassiter, you’ll be with Martin. Pham, you’ll be with...”

  Of course. I turned my head in time to see Lassiter’s blue eyes find mine, his expression either disgust or resignation. Either one would have been appropriate after last night’s phone call. After a moment of sizing each other up, he looked down, gathered his things and left his seat to make his way to the back of the lecture hall to join me.

  When he approached my chair, I slid my notebook out of the way and gestured to the empty seat next to me.

  “Lucky me. I get to work with the golden boy in not one but two classes on top of tutoring this semester. The culinary gods must hate my ass so much they’re bent on torturing me.”

  His face fell as soon as the words left my mouth. I was being an ass but I couldn’t seem to stop. My unwilling attraction to him made me feel vulnerable and if there was one thing I hated more than being a failure at something, it was giving someone else power.

  He sat down next to me and looked me directly in the eyes. “Look, I know I’m the last person you want to work with. I get it. I’m not sure what I’ve done to piss you off, but I’m hoping we can focus on this project. I need a good grade on this and if you can’t be professional enough to work with me, I’ll have to ask Professor Flannigan for another partner. I’ve worked too damn hard to let your mood swings jeopardize my grade.”

  His watched me steadily. I felt shitty when his words sunk in. Lassiter had never been anything but nice. He’d gone out of his way to help me, despite my attitude. He’d treated my sister with kindness and had the balls to stand up for himself when I’d been nothing but a total asshole to him. I drew in a deep breath and looked down at my notebook.

  “I’m sorry for being such a dick. Again. I’m used to working alone or with Claire. She always tells me my social skills suck. Sometimes I don’t know how to say shit without sounding like a total asshole. So, yeah. I seem to be apologizing a lot around you.” I paused to make sure he understood I was serious. “But look at it this way. At least neither of us has to be with Reed Jerkoff over there.” I nodded over at the jackass who was rambling on about himself while his bored partner doodled on her notebook.

  He snorted at my words. “I’m glad you’d rather work with me instead of Reed the Suck-Up Jackson. Trust me, if he was any farther up my ass I’d be walking funny.” His face flushed and he looked away embarrassed. I chuckled under my breath, thinking inappropriate thoughts that had nothing to do with Jackson and everything to do with Lassiter’s ass.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Jamie

  I cursed my choice of words as I willed away the flush I knew had spread across my face. Hanging around Ethan and his sister had rubbed off on me in more ways than one. Mentioning my ass to the guy I was attracted to was mortifying. I sat down in the chair next to him and cleared my throat. “Can we pretend I didn’t say anything awkward and move on to planning our project?”

  Ethan chuckled and rolled the sleeves of his T-shirt up over his elbows. He leaned forward, watching my face intently. “Anything to make this project less painful, Lassiter. What are your thoughts on what our mythical restaurant should be like? Should we throw some ugly tacky shit on the walls and call it decorations?”

  I watched him, a sinking feeling settling low in my stomach. Nothing could be more disappointing than Ethan Martin sitting close enough to touch while he expected me to confirm I was a soulless marketing drone. I knew he despised my dad, but I had hoped he’d realized I wasn’t my father. Last night’s conversation with my dad came crashing back and I let out a deep breath.

  “No. Actually, I was thinking more organic, farm to table with creative dishes based on daily local availability. We could hit the farmers’ market for ingredients and suppliers. Maybe do the same thing they do, hand out samples? Something outside the box with the flexibility to design menus around the deliveries we’d get daily. People like fresh and new cuisine and the regulars could always request their favorites off the standard menu. Or is it too much coming from a soulless wannabe like me?”

  Ethan stared at me, slack-jawed with shock. I sighed and leaned back in my chair.

  “I’m not my dad, Martin. I’m trying to get far away from his chain restaurant equivalent of a big box store. I want people to ask where the ingredients in my dishes came from and be able to give them the name of a local farmer. I want my meat supp
lier to be able to show me their animals actually ate grass and didn’t fester in some filthy, overcrowded feedlot. I want to support the local economy and have better-tasting, healthier food. I want to create dishes my dad’s chains could only dream about and never replicate.”

  I took a deep breath and slowly let it out. He was still silent. He sat there, silently appraising, his expression unfathomable. I sighed, almost ready to throw in the towel and ask Flannigan for a change in partners. At this rate even Reed would be more helpful than Ethan.

  “You know, for this project we’re supposed to work together, Ethan. Any ideas, or should we part ways now and call it a day?”

  He leaned forward in his chair, rubbing the back of his neck as he said sheepishly, “Actually, it sounds like the perfect plan to me. I love the farm-to-table concept and I have a few friends who have booths at the market we could talk with for more ideas. I know I want to focus on farmhouse cooking that’s fresh, seasonal, simple and local with my own creative spin on it.”

  “Careful, that sounded way too close to a sound bite.” I laughed as he turned red this time. “Write it down.” When he actually did as I asked and scribbled some notes, I commented, “I do have good ideas every once in a while, Martin. We may have different backgrounds but we’re not that different as chefs, you know.”

  He chuckled and made a few more notes without looking up at me. “Don’t get all touchy-feely on me, Lassiter. I can’t handle the after-school-special shit. And yes, I will admit we do have similar ideas. But—”

  Reed’s nasally voice interrupted us. I turned to catch the last of what he was saying to his partner, Stacey, as he spoke loudly. “I don’t think you get it, Stacey. Flannigan asked us for a brand, for the marketing side of the restaurant business. Restaurants need money. A lot of money. The brand we pitch needs to be about more than just the food; it needs to project a memorable image. What I’m envisioning is giving the world more Reed Jackson. Flannigan will love it. Think of the marketability, think of the sales and profits we could rake in with my brand.”