“What do you recommend?” she asked, chewing on her bottom lip as she started at the top of the menu and worked her way down again, obviously wary of her first real taste of gluten-free cooking.

He hadn’t actually tried anything here, because of the obsession he had with dissecting recipes and recreating them for his restaurant, but his brothers had. As far as he knew they’d given every item on the menu the Bradford seal of approval so he pointed at the first item on the menu.

“The baked macaroni and cheese is pretty good,” he said, praying that his brothers hadn’t made him a liar, otherwise he was going to have to hunt them down and beat the shit out of every last one of them.

Chapter 19

“Would you stop doing that?” Lucifer snapped as he was once again forced to pluck an ice cube out of his glass and place it on the back of his hand.

“Probably not,” she said, taking her time to scoop up another spoonful of that delicious beef stew and dumplings that she’d let him talk her into ordering after she’d devoured the baked macaroni and cheese.

“You could share,” he pointed out, on the verge of pouting as he sat there looking from his empty bowl to hers and then back again.

“I could,” she agreed, pausing long enough so that she could enjoy that perfect spoonful of beef, gravy, vegetable and dumpling before adding, “but I’m not going to.”

His eyes narrowed dangerously on her and she knew that look well enough to know that he was seriously considering stealing the rest of her food, but lucky for him, he didn’t try. She really hated the idea of sending him to the ICU after everything he’d done for her, but if he tried to steal another bite of her delicious food she wouldn’t have much of a choice.

“You’re mean,” he grumbled, signaling to the waitress for another bowl.

“Yup,” she agreed as she scooped up another spoonful, already planning on stealing his bowl of beef stew when it came, “that’s me.”

“And it doesn’t bother you?” he asked with a curious tilt of his head as he studied her.

“Not at all,” she said with a shake of her head as she reached for the hot roll that she’d noticed Lucifer eying. “Does it bother you that everyone thinks you’re an asshole?”

He chuckled as he grabbed the roll before she could. “No.”

“Seriously?” she asked, not because she didn’t believe him, because she did, but because she was honestly just curious.

“Why would it bother me?” he asked with a careless shrug as he broke off a piece of his roll. He dipped it in her bowl and soaked up some of the gravy.

“Because most people would have a problem with everyone believing that they’re an asshole,” she explained as she watched him.

“Most people are fucking morons,” he said unapologetically as he took the bowl of stew from the stunned waitress, who practically ran away as soon as she placed an extra basket of freshly baked rolls on the table.

“And why’s that?” she asked, grabbing a gluten free roll, still surprised at how good it tasted. It didn’t taste exactly like a regular roll, but it was close enough that she didn’t care.

“Because they care what other people think,” he said as he stole the roll out of her hand.

Sighing, she reached for another roll. “And you don’t?”

“Not one fucking bit,” he said as he dug into his stew, leaving her to wonder how that must feel.

It was definitely a tactic that could have come in handy for most of her life, she thought as she picked up her spoon and-

“Did you want me to kill you?” the selfish bastard asked with a cold glare that had her sighing as she continued with her mission to steal a large chunk of dumpling out of his bowl.

“Yeah, because you really scare me,” she said, making a show of stealing that large delicious bite of food and eating it all while keeping her eyes locked with his.

A small smile touched his lips. “You’re not scared of me, are you?”

“Not in the least,” she admitted with a wink as she put her spoon down, pushed her chair back and decided that it was time to check out the large selection of gluten free baked goods for dessert.

So many pretties, she thought wistfully as she tried to decide between the cheesecake brownie that had caught her eye or the vanilla cupcake with buttercream frosting.

“Get it to go,” the harsh whisper teased her ear as she felt Lucifer’s arms wrap around her and pull her closer.

She opened her mouth to ask him if something was wrong when she felt it, that very large and very hard bulge pressed against her lower back. She licked her lips as she tried to come up with a witty response, but all she could manage was a nod as Lucifer released his hold on her so that he could grab his wallet and pay the bill.

As she stood there, waiting for the waitress to figure out what was wrong with the credit card reader, she couldn’t help but wonder if she should give him her two weeks notice before she pinned him to her bed and stripped him naked or after.

*-*-*-*

“Where are we?” she asked, breathing heavy as she finished climbing onto his lap and straddling him, barely giving him a chance to throw his truck in park.

“Don’t know. Don’t fucking care,” he said, breathing just as heavy as he shifted them towards the middle of the seat and away from the steering wheel that had absolutely no chance of surviving this encounter.

Although he couldn’t say with a hundred percent certainty, he was pretty sure that they’d made it to the Fire & Brimstone’s back parking lot before she’d stopped rubbing his cock through his jeans and started to climb onto his lap. He should put a stop to this and carry her inside where they could finish this in his bed, but that would mean that he had to stop kissing her and there was no fucking way that he was going to stop kissing her.

The needy little moan that she made when she sat back on his legs only guaranteed that he wouldn’t be leaving this truck until he found out what other noises he could get out of her. He wouldn’t fuck her, not until she gave him what he wanted, but he would do absolutely everything in between and probably a few things that could be considered sex instead and he would make sure that she enjoyed every last fucking second of it.

He wanted her so fucking badly that he didn’t care that he had strict rules about this sort of thing. Never in public, never lose control and never with a woman that drove him out of his fucking mind. He liked being in control of his life, his career and his future and women like the one threading her fingers through her hair as she sweetly suckled on his tongue made that fucking impossible.