SATURDAY: Light, Full-Bodied & Screwed (Hookup Café Book 6) Read online

“I get it,” I moaned as her hand squeezed and stroked. Fuck! Her mouth was un-fucking-believable.

  “Oh,” she moaned, circling the head of my dick with her tongue. “Mushrooms.”

  I shook my head and grinned down at her on her knees in my new office space as she continued murmuring a variety of items that I could definitely grow until she took me to the back of her throat. After that move, I heard nothing but my own groans and pants and even they faded away once she had me releasing down her beautiful throat. The private quarters above the bistro were definitely a benefit with Darla nearby. The more I was close to her the more I wanted her, it seemed that it was never ever enough, and each time seemed better than the one before. She had me on high alert and looking forward to the next sizzling session with her in my arms. It was a wonder that things ever came together with her around.

  Chapter Nine…

  Everything did seem to come together right on schedule and without too many problems. I was even lucky with my condo sale and so was Darla—something I had not anticipated but she insisted on being an investor. One of my buddies said I was crazy, but it was Deacon who said, “When you know you have a dream you gotta go with it, dude.”

  He liked Darla and he saw that we were good together and that seemed totally sincere. His words made me feel like I was doing the right thing and they also gave me the name for the restaurant. It was almost the same way I gave him the name for his dream gym, D’Gym. My dream bistro… my dream barn… D’Barn Bistro. I loved it!

  Taking over and finishing the abandoned barn together, I found myself falling deeper in love with Darla. The more I got to know her, the more I found that we were so similar and sometimes she shocked me. I was stunned mostly to find out that she was a hundred percent fluent in Spanish both formally and slang. As she rattled off instructions to some of the workers from her grandparent’s vineyard when they came to help with prepping and tilling the soil for the organic garden I had envisioned.

  “I guess you knew everything that I said about you since the first night you entered the café?” I asked, moving up behind Darla, wrapping my dirty arms around her, and whispering in her ear.

  She giggled, leaning her head back on my chest, “Maybe a little.”

  I could see that life with her was going to be one surprise… one fucking awesome surprise after another. That was if I lived as her grandfather had gone back to giving me the evil eye when he saw any public display of affection between us. I had a feeling he wasn’t happy with our living arrangement; first in her condo and then above the bistro. When I worked up the courage, I needed to man up and speak to him, and tell him that I was not taking advantage of her. We were constantly busy and when the time was right, I would eventually make things right in his eyes so that he didn’t think I was just looking for a good time.

  We did have a lot of fun times working the land. Damn! It was a lot of hard work and had me collapsing in bed after a long, hot intense shower with Darla—her back up against the tile, legs wrapped around my waist, sliding her up and down on my hard length. I had just enough gas left in my tank to satisfy us. Digging holes for fence posts, installing fencing, chicken wire, sawing and chopping wood was almost as good as my arm and back workout days at the gym.

  I had absolutely no idea what I was doing with gardening, I only knew what I wanted to grow. Never thought I would be a farmer chef, but I loved the idea of using fresh, pesticide-free produce in the bistro. I could picture vine ripe tomatoes, lettuces, chili peppers, onions… and fresh herbs; cilantro, basil, chives, rosemary, dill, sage, parsley, and more. Adding fruit trees really appealed to me and there was definitely enough acreage available to plant them; peach, apricot, plum, loquat, lemon, lime, orange, grapefruit, apples, melons… and even an almond tree.

  Help came in a few different ways; a connection with the Bay Breeze Nursery for any and every kind of vegetation I desired, and a landscape designer named Magnolia Bellesol who put it all together.

  I had the list of green items to be installed and where I thought they should go. It was Magnolia’s drawn out plans that thoroughly had me loving the whole outdoor dining next to a garden experience. She was brilliant and I was beyond thrilled that I had kept her business card from a charitable yearly event where indoor and outdoor designers came together to transform a huge mansion with extensive grounds. I remembered her area vividly, it was an organic garden adjacent to an amazing outdoor kitchen.

  I was working the event, assisting a chef on his guest day in a tent that was not far from her design space. I never knew her business card would come in handy for my own business ventures as I had initially took the card because she was just fucking hot—nowhere near as hot as Darla. When I found it as I was packing up my condo, something told me to hang on to it, and I ended up putting it in a binder with other business cards and notes for the bistro. I had actually forgotten about it until Darla found it while looking for a sheet of paper to write down some ideas. Of course, it was also our first little fight, if you could call it that.

  “Is this an old girlfriend?” She held up the fancy garden gate card with the words “fuck yeah, must call!” handwritten on the back.

  Stupid me said the wrong words, “It never got that far, but I could sure use her now.” Wrong, wrong, wrong words. Thankfully, Darla was pretty levelheaded and sure about my love for her that she listened to my explanation and as to why Magnolia could be beneficial to both of us.

  We were elated when we looked out from the deck of the bistro to the raised garden beds extending from one end of the barn to the other. Magnolia had gotten everything right, she saw my vision and had implemented them even better as she improved where I had lacked in my scribbled ideas. I liked that she let us be a part of the process, giving us a few hands-on projects, it was awesome to help bring it all to life, literally. It was so cool to see how everything was growing and fucking fantastic to clip produce straight from my garden to prepare a dish. It was nice to be able to supply a good majority of the bistro’s produce from my own land.

  What we didn’t grow or needed in abundance, I hit the local farmers’ market. And I looked locally to find other supplies as well and found an actual butcher’s shop on a nearby cattle ranch, a new fish market closer, a new smelly cheese store recommended by my usual go-to shop, local breweries for beers, and of course, the wine was all from Temecula vineyards. With the wood burning oven, I hired a fellow alumni from my culinary school who specialized in the art of baking artisan breads. Everything lined up, all stocked up in the kitchen, and furniture in place, it was time to open the doors.

  Setting up for the grand opening party with Deacon and some of our buddies mixed with seeing three foosball tables—gifts from Deacon—placed in the bar area, had me thinking about our old party days. Crazy times. We were kids back then, surely the adults at the celebration would behave better, but you never knew—parties with booze are parties with booze.

  Our parties were pretty much standard: Same old crap watery beers—no pilsners, craft beers or imported dark ales. Drunks yelling, being pains in the ass. Sick ones always falling, having to be carried out, puking in bushes preferably instead of in the party. Then there were the fufu lames that just came to be seen, I guess, since they rarely drank and seemed to turn their noses up at anything that rubbed them the wrong way—that crowd stumped me. And I was always surprised to see old friends from my high school show up at parties where I least expected them. The best parties were at the house I shared with Deacon and a couple other college students. We always made up a killer punch—Midori, triple sec, vodka, sweet and sour, and limes—in huge ice chests, and I didn’t need to worry about driving home. And to keep our place from being wrecked, we locked everyone out of the house since we had one bathroom that had a door out to a pool area and then another one in a game room out back that was basically an oversized garage we converted into our man cave.

  Our ping pong tournaments usually were interrupted; confiscated for beer pong. You know, the ba
sic game where ten beers (or other alcohol) filled red plastic party cups—that most people are familiar with, at least in the US—arranged faced up in two pyramid-like formations on each side of a ping pong table. The game always turned into the main event of the party and always got people fucked up as teams of two took turns throwing a ping pong ball into the other team’s cups. A ball in a cup, the cup was taken away and the opponent drank the contents of the cup or as we usually did it, took a shot—not from the actually cup that the ball landed in. The team that successfully hit all of the opponent’s cups won the game and winners usually took on the next team—games seemed to vary from party to party. Shots seemed to be the norm as people always brought bottles of something—vodka was my preference, although I often stuck with the foosball table, where I was king! It also kept me relatively coherent to be able to kick any idiot’s ass out.

  There might still have been idiots at the party for the D’Barn Bistro opening, but I had Darla’s brother Sutton and some of his bodyguard buddies handling crowd control along with security detail for some of the high profile guests that had confirmed their reservations. Owners from neighboring wineries, Miss Temecula, the mayor, and even a state senator. The last one shocked me even more when I saw him grab a hold of Vixen’s arm. She didn’t seem too happy to see him and jerked her arm away. It looked like things were about to get a bit ugly when Darla appeared to be telling the senator off and then Sutton stepped up just as I was about to charge over. Crisis averted, I went back to chatting with my guests and making sure that food was circulating and that bottles of wine, compliments of the fabulous Beauclaire Vineyard next door, were being poured. For the most part, people seemed to be having a great time entertained by some acts Evie set up from her musical connections.

  The entertainment was a gift for my opening, and I was fucking floored that Evie sang and had brought rock royalty, Raine Winters and Lonnie Shores along to perform—how she pulled that off, I had no idea. Truly, I had no idea how some of the celebrity status people on the guest list had even heard about my bistro. I needed to look more closely at the people I was surrounding myself with as it appeared they were well connected to society because I definitely wasn’t.

  Maybe I didn’t know the café girls as well as I thought as they seemed to be quite friendly with so many people. Especially Marzi, but that could’ve been because her mother was a reality star in the baking world, she was chatting away with film star Lola Loren. Looking at Vivienne—who had been instrumental in getting me custom Jade Cassidy landscapes for my walls—in the midst of the event, I was sure that she was spouting “la la” throughout the night gawking at the celeb crowd. Pansie was the quietest of the night sitting next to a man—I had recently gotten to know when I started gardening—that seemed to have captured her full attention. And I had to laugh when I saw Deacon getting his ass whooped by Saylor in foosball—good for her. It looked like everyone was enjoying themselves and I got the feeling that D’Barn Bistro had been the right move for me and it was going to be a success. Then I saw Darla strutting toward me with her curvy hips swaying and I knew I was living my dream.

  Chapter Ten…

  With guests driving off or being driven off to neighboring hotels, it was just Darla alongside of me and the cleanup crew who were doing a great job under the supervision of an ex-sous chef of mine who decided to join me once again after realizing that cruise ships weren’t for him. Felipe was the first guy to chat with me about Darla when she perched her fabulous ass down in front of us working side by side. With him back, I quickly let him know that Darla understood pretty much every word of Spanish—good thing our prior conversations were filled with nothing but exceptional words even if they were a bit crude about her anatomy. She obviously wasn’t too offended since I ended up with her in my bed every night and morning.

  “Good turnout,” she said, wrapping her arms around my waist and cozying up to my chest.

  “Except the brief confrontation between you, Vixen, and the senator, it seemed to run smoothly.” I wrapped my arm around her, turning her body, and started to walk her outside after asking Miguel to finish up, that we were heading out.

  “Well, that whole thing is a mess with Vixen but Sutton is going to help her out. You know she quit the café this week. Apparently, it’s been in the works for a while. Pansie knew and her parents are helping Vixen with a project in Palm Springs. She bought a house there to get away from her crazy ex-hub Rupert and his equally crazy bitch new-ish wife Ada.”

  Darla knew more than I did in one evening of speaking with Vixen—I never even knew her ex’s name, let alone his wife’s. I did know that he was pulling a lot of shit on her and she is so sweet. She and her son deserved to be happy and safely away from him and I wished her the best knowing that it looked like she was on the right path.

  Speaking of paths, I was about to lead Darla up one that I hoped would bring her great joy… and her grandfather. He had finally stopped with the threatening looks and in its place he started filling my head with words: “Darla deserves a home, children but first you make it legal. I might come from France where they often take mistresses, but I am an American now and that doesn’t fly with me. She needs stability. A home.”

  He was relieved when I told him that my intentions were honorable and our living together was temporary. I also let him in on a few secrets that seemed to make him happy. He did still once in a while say two words, “follow through.” He had nothing to worry about, things were in full swing since I took ownership.

  “You know, I am looking forward to setting up wine pairing dinners. Like the ones at Cafélicious… thank God for that café for so many reasons but most importantly the fact that it brought me you,” I said, guiding her out the door. “It will be better than the old ones since I will be able to get you alone before and after with a quickie upstairs.”

  “I might have to report you for fraternizing with the staff.”

  “First, you don’t work for me. Two, I don’t have a fraternizing policy—I simply ask that the drama stop at the door—I don’t care what they do beyond that. And lastly, I don’t think you can report your husband to the labor board… I’m pretty sure they wouldn’t even listen to a word you…” her fingers came up and covered my lips.

  “Husband? Is that your proposal?” I laughed and kept walking her into the darkness of night, lit only by the full moon, up a hill. “And where are you taking me in the dark?”

  “You’ll see,” was all I would say until we reached the top of the hill and I quickly spun her around so she was facing in the direction of the bistro down below. “What do you see?”

  “D’Barn Bistro and part of Beauclaire Vineyard.” She was in front of me with my hands on her shoulders.

  “It’s your new view since your grandfather wouldn’t give up his hill. He told me that I had my own, make use of it.” I laughed, thinking about our whole conversation with its highs and lows which finally ended in a handshake and pat on the back—followed by lots of wine.

  “You talked to my grandfather? Brave of you.” She laughed.

  “Yep, and he wouldn’t budge. So you’ll have to settle for this…” I reached behind my back and pulled a pretty big folded piece of paper out from under my shirt, tucked in the top of my pants. I was surprised that she didn’t notice it when she wrapped her arms around me earlier.

  “That looks too big to be the ring to go with your poor proposal.” She took the paper and I laughed as she began to unfold and look at a colorized house plan by the light of the full moon.

  “I can’t see this very clearly, but it looks a lot like a ranch style house with a mix of French farmhouse. Looks like neutral colored plaster and stone with cornflowers blue shutters similar to my great grandfather’s vineyard in the south of France.” I smiled, with my chin resting on her shoulder. “I love the multi-paned glass doors that opened onto to a… is that a huge deck?” I nodded. “To the valley below?”

  “Not as good as the one from the Beaucla
ire property but similar. I wanted you to remember our picnic and our first kiss for the rest of your life, but I think you’ll have to settle for another memorable kiss.” That was my cue to spin her and lead her the rest of the way and seal the deal—hopefully—with that kiss I had just mentioned.

  I heard her gasp as we stepped up on the deck that had been installed in front of a framed out shell. “When? How did I not notice?” She kept walking up and down the deck and looking in every direction.

  “While you were at your book extravaganza last weekend. They framed it all out in one day—it was amazing to watch it go up. Deacon has been working on the project since day one when your grandfather gave me the final approval to purchase the land and take over the abandoned barn project. He was shocked to see the framing when we had our most recent talk up here.” I walked to where she had stopped as I spoke.

  “Recent talk?” She looked up at me and I wrapped my arms around her.

  “Yes. The one where I asked him if I could marry you.”

  I didn’t let her respond as I was ready to claim her as mine forever and took the opportunity to crush my lips to hers. Unlike the day of our picnic, there was no chance of being caught by groundskeepers, workers or her grandparents. We had the prime spot all to ourselves and I planned to take full advantage of it as I already had things set up. Breaking our kiss, I took her hand and gently tugged her in the direction of an opening at the far end of the deck.

  “Our bedroom,” I said, smiling as she started to stroll into the dark room carefully as it was pitch black except for a small area near where doors would hang. Halting her stride, I walked ahead of her and flipped the switch on a camping lantern which lit the room dimly. Enough though for her to see that I had set up a mattress in the middle of the room and that rose petals spelled out the words, “Marry Me.” Totally not original, but I think she liked it as she turned around, jumped up into my arms, and threw her arms around my neck. I caught her and held her legs hugging my waist. “Is that a yes?”