Beautifully Sinful Read online

  Beautifully Sinful

  A STEAMY ALPHA ROMANCE

  Sinful Series (Book One)

  Blazie James

  Contents

  Title Page

  Forward

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Coming soon

  Why authors LOVE Your amazon reviews

  Copyright

  Forward

  ◆◆◆

  Hello Darling,

  Thank you for grabbing my book. I promise to keep you in the loop on my latest releases, contests, Advance Review Copy, teasers, and freebies.

  Grab a glass of wine, sit back and enjoy the book!

  Love,

  Blazie

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  Chapter One

  Hillary

  The old wood bar was charming. I thought it had to be the most charming thing I’d ever seen with its surface polished so perfectly that it shone despite its age. Thousands of drinks had been poured behind that bar. Thousands of men and women had sat on the stools right in front of it. Actually, it might be measured in hundreds of thousands. That bar had shone exactly where it was for more than eighty-six years. I could feel tears welling up in my eyes and Sharr’s eyes narrowed with concern. “Are you okay, honey? What happened, Hillie?”

  I smiled and shook my head. I couldn’t tell her The Mill was sold, that one of the conglomerate foodservice companies we’d spent almost four years trying to fight against had finally persuaded Rich and Toni Worthy to sell. I couldn’t fault my bosses. They were well past retirement age, and all of their kids were off in other industries. With Toni’s cancer, they made the right decision. I would have loved to be able to buy the place but I needed another year or so before I’d have enough cash to put up with the bank financing. What was I supposed to say? Gee Toni, I know chemo’s expensive but if you could suffer from that for eighteen months, I'll buy the restaurant and you can start enjoying what time you have left with your husband of forty-three years after that, okay?

  But I couldn't tell Charlotte about any of that. Officially, it was part of my contract as the general manager of the restaurant. There were things I had to keep secret, especially when those things were going to be announced by the owners in a meeting, in this case, by the old owners and the new owners at the same time. Best friend or not, I wasn't allowed to tell her. She eyed me suspiciously and said, “Did they fire you? Is that what this meeting is about?”

  I shook my head and I could feel the tears threatening to break through, so I pointed at the glassware. I couldn't risk forming words but Sharr got the picture and a moment later, there was a shot of something right in front of me. I downed it, not really tasting it but enjoying the way it burned down my throat and the momentary courage it gave me. "You never drink on the job, Hillary," she said. "What's going on?" The use of my actual name indicated just how worried she was.

  Emboldened by alcohol, I found my voice. "I'm not officially working today, Sharr. Just helping with something.”

  “But what’s wrong?”

  "I promise we'll talk about it later," I said. I knew if I started talking about it now, by the time the meeting started, I would be nothing more than a blubbering idiot. It wasn’t healthy to dwell but I couldn’t keep my mind from focusing on the damned asshole who would be representing Fieldscom in the meeting. Fieldscom? What kind of egotistical jerk names their company that way. It wasn’t even the founder’s last name! That was Andrew Kensington, and he’d founded it almost a century before. It was still in his company five generations later, and the latest not-Fields who would be arriving was Robert Kensington the Third or maybe the Fourth.

  This Robert was just another stuffed shirt corporate bastard who would sanitize everything that made this restaurant special and turn it into another in a long line of slick locations designed by slick marketing agencies to appear authentic. Yeah, about as authentic as an amusement park vendor. When a committee tried to determine what temperature soup ought to be served to convince someone it was grandma's recipe, the results could never work. I had tried to broach the subject on the phone two days before and the jerk had cut me off, curtly reminding me Fieldscom owned the restaurant now, and my job would be to implement the company's vision just as my job had been to implement the Worthy's vision before.

  Toni and Rich had always valued my feedback, even when it diverged from a path they intended to set for the restaurant. As far as hoping for that kind of relationship with Fieldscom, I was disabused of that idea right away. The self-righteous, cold-hearted and entitled heir apparent/vice president of new acquisitions had been very, clear.

  "Oh my God," Sharr said. Her eyes grew wide and I turned my head to follow her gaze. Oh my God, indeed. The man by the hostess station was perfect, absolutely perfect. He wore a beautifully tailored suit much closer to charcoal than grey. His broad shoulders could have made a lesser man look brutishly powerful and even dangerous but with him, they just made him a perfect specimen of manhood. His eyes, though—dear God, his eyes! Even at this distance, they were piercing and deep, somewhere between steel and cloudy blue. They somehow made his neatly trimmed goatee not look pretentious but perfect. Sharr winked at me and said, "We don't open for another two hours but if you'd like a drink, I'll make an exception for you. Just don't go around telling anybody because I wouldn't do that for just anyone."

  It didn’t surprise me that Sharr would be flirtatious. With his amazing body evident even through the expensive shirt and perfect jacket, he was everything a man should be. Then he opened his mouth and ruined it. “That won’t be necessary,” he said. “My name is Robert Kensington. Let Hillary Fletcher know I’m here.” Even without the conversation from the night before, I would have been pissed off at his almost dismissive tone of voice. This was just great. The perfect specimen of manhood was also the self-righteous, cold-hearted and entitled heir apparent/vice president of new acquisitions. Fucking perfect.

  Sharr found nothing wrong with his tone of voice at all. She smiled and, sensing she'd lost the opportunity, passed the baton she didn't want to me. "Here you go," she said, gesturing to me. "Hillie, Robert Kensington is here."

  I stepped toward him. “Mr. Kensington,” I said. “It’s good to—”

  "We don't have any time for pleasantries," he said. "The meeting will start in a half-hour. Just take me to the office. Are the Worthys here yet? Where’s the office?” He scanned the walls, caught sight of the employees only sign and said, “Past there?” Sharr nodded and he walked off. I just stared after him.

  "God, he's sexy," Sharr said.

  I turned to look at her and shook my head in wonder. “He’s a pompous ass.”

  “Really nice ass,” Sharr said. “Aren’t you going in there?”

  “He just asked where it was. He didn’t ask for me.”

  Sharr didn’t respond for a moment and then finally said, “Come on. He’s beautiful. What’s wrong with him?”

  I just shook my head. “I don’t need some spoiled silver spoon…” I pushed my shot glass toward her. “Give me another.”

  “No way. One is one. No way you get another shot until after this meeting. You’ll thank me later.”I let out something I intended to sound like a frustrated growl but it came out more like a frustrated squeak. “Is this meeting what has you so upset?”

  I nodded. “But I can’t tell you why. Yet.”

  “Because Toni and Rich sold the Mill?”

  “No! Because they sold it to him, that asshole and his com— Hey, how did you know they sold?”

  Sharr smiled. "Toni told me yesterday. She said everybody was going to
keep their jobs, so what's the problem?"

  “You really want that guy in charge?”

  “I could stare at him all day.”

  A few of the employees arrived and I gave up trying to explain things to Sharr. How was I supposed to talk about how the restaurant was going to change, how everything about it would be reduced to image and flash? She was too wrapped up in Mr. Kensington’s sculpted body and perfect eyes.

  Perfect eyes? What the hell?

  It only got worse as the day progressed. Toni and Rich showed up for the meeting and there were plenty of tears but they were just tears of goodbye. None of the cooks or wait staff seemed to understand that the restaurant was going to change, that things would never be the same. Frankly, I could have strangled the waitresses. There were eleven of them and two waiters.

  Every single one of the women seemed enamored with Mr. Kensington. It was like they didn’t give a damn about anything he said. They just wanted to moon over him, to act like silly schoolgirls listening to a hot professor. They whispered, giggled and looked googly-eyed at everything. It was like they didn’t hear that there would be changes.

  It was like one hot guy with eyes like dreams could make them forget about the destruction of a restaurant that had history, importance and charm. They let thoughts of running their hands over his broad shoulders or feeling him hold them so tightly that their bodies would melt against his powerful chest and the sound of his breathing would be like some kind of magical music that—

  Damn it! What the hell was going on in my head?

  I wasn’t a child, for Christ’s sake. I wasn’t some idiot kid who didn’t know the difference between a man’s appearance and his actual quality. I was behaving like some kind of kid with a crush. I didn’t even like him, either! This had to end. When a lull came in the dinner rush, I made my way to the back and slipped into the alley behind the store. This was where employees who smoked typically escaped for a break. Thankfully, nobody was there but there was a cigarette burning in an ashtray on a milk crate.

  I turned over another milk crate and sat down. All of this was going to change. Hell, the milk crates might not even be there soon. Fieldscom would probably switch it all to some giant factory dairy farm and, of course, I would have to be the one to call Francis at Eastlake Dairy to tell her they were out. Jesus! All of my attempts to implement a farm to table menu were gone.

  I walked back inside, grabbed my bag and my phone and told everyone I was leaving. I got a few looks, of course, because in the four years I worked at The Mill, I had never gone home early. Everything was changing, and that meant my long hours, too. In fact, it was time to get out my resume and start polishing it up.

  An hour later, with my laptop open and my resume filling the screen, I found I couldn’t bring myself to edit it. I had to fight, didn’t I? Maybe I could roll over and die but I couldn’t let that happen to The Mill. I’d taken on worse assholes than Robert Kensington. I saw him with his dismissive expression, almost a scowl and thought about how he didn’t give a damn about the years that went into building that place. I imagined him efficiently and effectively directing everyone with new policies that would utterly destroy all The Mill stood for.

  And those eyes!

  They were so deep and so blue and I imagined how they looked when he was angry and lost control or when he was in the throes of passion and lost control. I slipped my hand into my pants and imagined his eyelids half-closed and his breath coming in short. Oh, how he would try to maintain composure but he couldn’t because the sensations running through him would drive him mad. He’d do all he could to stay in charge, to stay in control but he wouldn’t be able to. That perfect body of his would tense and shake and he’d cry out my name with a hell of lot more enthusiasm than when he coldly barked out orders.

  My orgasm hit with images of Robert seared behind my eyes, and I screamed for a moment before I covered my mouth, afraid of the neighbors hearing. I sat there on the couch, my eyes gradually focusing through the mist of arousal until my resume came into perfect focus.

  Chapter Two

  My alarm rang and I opened my eyes. God, it sucked to wake up feeling happy and pissed at the same time. I was pissed, of course, because what the hell went through my head that I would masturbate while thinking about the biggest bane in my existence at present? Who could tell why arousal worked the way it did. It had been almost two years since I had any action and even if Sharr told me at least once a week that I needed a one nightstand with a boy I'd never see again; I didn't miss a regular sex life.

  I was happy because I had the silly schoolgirl stupidity that irritated me so much yesterday out of my system. Maybe happy was too strong of a term because I still had to go to work and see if there was any way to salvage things and perhaps I would feel a bit awkward when interacting with Robert. That would make it more difficult to get anything done. I didn't have a lot of confidence that I could save The Mill. I could only hope to delay things, to fight off the corporate sanitation for a little while. I felt like a soldier at one of those famous impossible battles like the Alamo or the Spartans at Thermopylae.

  "Well, some of us are called to be doomed heroes," I whispered and rolled over. The alarm on my phone was still ringing, so I grabbed it and swiped it angrily. That was when I saw the text. "Who the hell does he think he is?" I growled.

  Forty-five minutes later, I walked into the restaurant and stared at him. He had a cocky smirk on his face, and I felt grateful because as soon as the smirk registered, it washed away my first thought, which was that he looked damned good, even at 7:30 in the morning. Any residual attraction disappeared when he said, “When I say 7:00, I expect you to arrive at 7:00.”

  My face probably looked like an angry caricature though I was going for vicious as I snarled, "Get used to disappointment if you're going to send late-night texts announcing surprise meetings six hours before we open." He looked almost stunned like he couldn't comprehend anyone standing up to him. That was gasoline on an inferno already raging. "So what the hell is so damned important that you felt the need to expend the least possible effort to make it happen?”

  “This is hard enough without you acting crazy!” He snapped, and I almost slapped him right across the face.

  “Hard enough? What's hard enough? Destroying everything that makes The Mill beautiful so you can replace it with some stupid, watered-down crap feeding trough?"

  He was already ticked off but that one seemed to really get to him. It made sense, given I had called him out on his business. Maybe it wasn't exactly unethical but it sure as hell wasn't noble. The anger in his face reminded me of an old boyfriend I'd caught cheating. He got angry when I called him on it but the anger had a lot to do with knowing I was right. Part of me wanted to take pity on him but that part of me was very, very small. “Nothing to say? Too busy planning a drive-through or a delivery service?"

  “All I want to do is get through this damned week and get home!” He shouted. “Why the hell are you like this?”

  “Why am I like this?” I stepped right up to him. As much as I hated to admit it, the step that brought me inches away from him was almost like stepping into a fog as arousal swirled around me and memories of the images that flooded my head the evening before came back in force. That only made me angrier. "How exactly should I be? What the hell do you want me to be like?"

  His eyes narrowed, and for a brief second, I thought maybe he would slap me. A big part of me hoped he would because that right there would mean a lawsuit and I was pretty sure I’d end up with the Mill and it wouldn’t turn into a silly duplicate of a hundred other restaurants.

  A bigger part of me realized how sexy his remarkable eyes looked when he wore that expression. Anger was still far more prominent, though. “Well?” I said coldly. “How do you want me, Mr. Tough Company Man?”

  And then suddenly, his mouth was on mine, the kiss crushing and almost overpowering and things felt dreamlike like I was carried along by the events and not an act
ive participant. That was how they felt, of course, and not reality because my hands immediately came up and one held tightly to his shoulders while the other took hold of the back of his head and held him tightly to me.

  I always made fun of romantic movies or television shows with those climactic scenes where two people are kissing and groping their way into a motel room and then screwing each other senseless. I always made fun of it but Robert’s hands moved down and grabbed hold of my blouse, pulling it up from my pants and I responded by moving my hands down to fiddle with his belt buckle. He got frustrated with the shirt and just pulled it apart, sending buttons flying.

  I could understand his frustration because I felt the same way about his belt. I backed up a bit and unbuttoned my pants. He reached forward and yanked them down until they gathered at my knees. I started to bend over to push them to my ankles but he was back on me by then and lifted me, so I had to throw my arms around his shoulders as he swung around and deposited me onto one of the tables.

  It occurred to me that we were mid-conversation and I said, “This is what you want me to be?” even though I couldn’t manage much vitriol.

  "Shut up," He said and just in case, covered my mouth with his. His hand slid over my breasts, squeezing through my bra and then slipped down through the waistband of my panties, his fingers going right to work on my clit. I noted he wasn't showing any finesse but any satisfaction I might have felt didn't last because the situation didn't call for finesse. The way he pressed and rubbed had me helpless, aroused beyond expectation.

  Of course, all of this was beyond expectations!

  His tongue wrestled with mine and I lifted my hips against his touch. In the back of my mind, the fact that I didn’t like this guy tried breaking through whatever wall it was my body erected to keep me from behaving rationally but it stayed in the back. He explored my folds and I felt a finger slip in and then another. The way he worked his fingers while simultaneously engineering slight movements with the heel of his hand to keep up the stimulation at my clit—well, my early thoughts about his lack of finesse were unfounded.