Can't Stand the Heat - Louisa Edwards [28]
The bustle of the Market kitchen was familiar, comforting. As long as Jess kept his head down, maybe things could be good here.
Jess looked around for Miranda, a tentative curl of hope warming his chest.
Until his gaze snagged and he stopped dead in his tracks, barely noticing when Grant bumped into him with a startled curse, because the Market kitchen was not just like every other professional kitchen Jess had ever seen.
No other kitchen had a cook like him.
Tall, lanky to the point of being skinny, except his upper body was clearly too well developed for that—long, wiry muscles stood out along his forearms as he hefted a hotel pan laden with several whole silver-scaled fish on ice onto a gleaming work surface.
Black hair stuck up in tufts all over his head like he’d head-banged his way to work, and damn, maybe he had, because he wasn’t wearing a white chef’s jacket like the other cooks. Instead, he had on a skintight black T-shirt with ripped sleeves, showing off a tattoo of a lean, dark-haired figure in a collared shirt and suspenders on his upper bicep. He moved with an economical grace that wasted nothing, every action utterly intent and focused. But his face . . .
Jess gulped and felt his heart race. That face. Lean and angular, pale skin darkened with stubble along a sharp jaw, high cheekbones. His eyes were dark, too, set under a pair of wickedly curved eyebrows that gave him such a devilish look, Jess half expected him to be wielding a pitchfork instead of a cleaver.
The guy standing next to him—shit, it was Adam Temple, Jess hadn’t even noticed him—said something Jess couldn’t hear, but the tall cook threw his head back and shouted a laugh to the ceiling. Jess caught his breath at the sound. Totally free and uninhibited.
“Oh, mercy.”
Grant’s mutter broke Jess out of his trance, and he felt heat sear his cheeks and neck. He dropped his eyes to the floor while everything in him ached for another look at the tall chef.
But Grant was watching him, Jess could feel it, and he willed the blush to fade so he wouldn’t make a complete dickhead of himself on his first day at work.
Ignore it. If you don’t react, it’s not happening.
Jess made himself meet Grant’s eyes. Grant was staring at him. Jess could practically see him putting two and two together and coming up with the easy answer. Jess felt his pulse go into warp drive.
“Oh, look, there’s my sister,” he chirped. “Hey, Miranda!”
She was leaning over a stainless steel countertop writing furiously on her notepad, but she looked up when Jess called her name.
Her smile was a little strained, but still a welcome sight as Jess made his way toward her. He studiously avoided looking to the left or right, and breathed out a soundless sigh of relief when he made it to Miranda’s side without any mishaps. With his luck, he was amazed he hadn’t tripped over his own feet and busted his ass on the floor.
Jess gave his sister the biggest, perkiest smile he had in him and hastily shored up his mental defenses. He couldn’t afford to mess up this job the way he’d screwed things up in Brandewine.
Even if temptation incarnate was standing just behind him.
The moment the kitchen door swung open, letting in Grant and Miranda’s kid brother, Adam knew he should’ve fought harder against even letting the kid have an interview.
A soft, low whistle in his ear pierced even the Sex Pistols’ raucous beat. Frankie zeroed in on the new kid, who was a younger, masculine version of his pretty redheaded sister, like a starving man at a feast.
“Well, if that isn’t a bit of all right.”
Frankie actively encouraged his rep as resident Bad Influence. In the last two restaurants he and Adam had worked together, Frankie had regarded the wait staff of both sexes as his own personal dating pool. Anything as fresh-faced and innocent as Jess Wake was exactly the type he liked to corrupt.
As if Adam didn’t have enough problems already.
“Off-limits, dude. I’m serious.” Adam attempted to inject a note of steel, but Frankie just turned