Beast of Burden

The apartment was clean. Those Sunday mornings spent tossing cushions back on the couch – he wasn’t deep enough into bachelor territory that he hadn’t spent a little of his patrol office pay on throw pillows and drapes – making sure the sink was entirely emptied, not cherry picked for what was needed, the vacuum run around the place often enough that they weren’t choking on dust bunnies. No dirty laundry left in heaps on the bedroom floor, no scum gathering in the bathroom sink.

No scent of home cooking wafting over him when he got home from a shift. No woman greeting him in a t-shirt worn thin enough that it draped like some Greek Goddess’ toga. No real heart.

Chase got hit with the holy trinity as Roxxi opened the door and beamed at him. All warm and damp from the cooking, hair curling in that way women’s did when the humidity got to it and left you wanting to tug on those little curls and let them spring up around your fingers. He gave in to it, palm coming up to settle warm at the back of her neck as she palmed his face to kiss him. The sort of warm welcome that would’ve led into one of those cheesy porn videos that teenagers had always been passing back and forth. The handyman turning up at the door to find a bored, lonely, totally freaking hot housewife looking for a little tending too. ”Walk in without knocking? I think my guys call that breaking and entering.” Chase played innocent, like his ma wouldn’t have given him hell for doing it. You kept your manners, especially when everything put that pinch of worry on her face after Mikey had gone.

If it hadn’t been for Roxxi’s overly friendly neighbour he would’ve been buzzing her from downstairs anyway. Sliding his hand down to the small of Roxxi’s back, Chase shrugged, a little smug pulling at his lips as they parted from hers. ”One of your neighbours half tried. I think she booked me in for next weekend. No pipe cleaning but …” He winced apologetically, like a five foot nothing old woman with concrete permed grey curls and soup chicken skin had stolen him away. Chin dipped, regarding those fingers plucking at his shirt to draw him in, Chase grinned slowly. ”Which set d’you want taken care of first?” he asked, his voice rasping out rough. If she was anything like his ma there’d be slapped hands to keep everything on schedule with dinner. God forbid the chicken burn or the potatoes turn out like bullets.

There were little dishes on the table, pretty little things his ma would’ve liked. If it had been his place the olives still would’ve been in the plastic tub from the grocery store, same with the salami and the cheese, if he’d even managed to get that fancy. Chips, dip, left over take out warmed up if you were lucky. There was that glint of mischief in Chase’s eyes as he watched the way the olive slipped into Roxxi’s mouth and out again. He imagined her lips would carry that hint of brininess now. ”Priorities first huh?” he asked, that thread of humour to his voice. ”You’ve really got it all set up. Guess we both prepared.” He hitched the tool box, shrugged the shoulder with the belt on it. Both of them making a complex task look easy maybe, although he was way more impressed with everything she’d done.

Setting the tool box down next to the sink Chase hummed, the way his old man always had done when he was looking at a problem – dark eyes squinting, that faint repetitive cluck of his tongue, the canny way his lips would curl when he realised he could justifiably up the price. ”Sounds like a pretty unbalanced deal to me.” Those dark eyes slid over, up, running over the line of lean muscle up to the bottom of those pyjama shorts and then higher. The curl of his lips became a full on grin. Chase’s tongue slicked his lower lip and then he was chuckling, nodding. ”I guess not so unbalanced after all. Not gonna ask if you’re gonna take your shirt off. Might get a little painful.” Mock grumbling, Chase peeled off the plaid shirt he’d thrown over the old t-shirt he was fully prepared to toss if he got rank pipe guts all over him when he got the u-bend free. He tossed it over the back of a chair, paused with his fingers curled into the hem of the t-shirt. ”Am I gonna get a coffee starter here?” Tit for tat, one added amendment in the deal leading to another.

Tagged: ROXANNE BRASCHI * Word Count: 788

Had the request been floating around in Roxxi’s head while she’d been cutting things up and arranging them in their little dishes? Scales tipping back and forth in her head, counting up who was gonna owe who what for this. A plate, of what he was sure was gonna be some stellar pasta, more than enough payment for the U-bend, the nuts and salami, now they were gonna cost him extra, even if he did just steal every bite of them from those fingers that were plucking through the bowls while he considered if he was ready to pay them. This was how guys got in trouble, the back and forth on who owed who until suddenly you realised someone you literally owed your shirt. Chase gave a little huff through his nose, his lips tipping up for a second as his eyes grew sly for a second. Least it wasn’t someone so bad to owe his shirt to.

His skin didn’t pebble with goose flesh as that inch of tan skin appeared beneath the hem of his t-shirt and the waistband of his jeans at least. He stood his ground, eyeing Roxxi steadily in challenge until, without an inch of damn hesitation she peeled her t-shirt off, leaving just those pyjama shorts hanging on her hips and his mouth hanging open. Chase thought he huffed again but, fuck, it was more pant than puff. He swallowed hard, his laugh rolling out low and dirtier than any joint on Bourbon Street. ”I had to get something out of the bargain other than the five extra pounds I’m gonna be carryin’ when you roll me outta here,” he crooned. Chase peeled his t-shirt off slowly, still lazily eyeing her as she started work on his coffee. When he left – once all the pipes in the place had been tended to.

He tossed his shirt aside, reached for an olive and had it between his teeth just as Roxxi stretched up over the counter and almost inhaled it as he sucked in his breath. Chase convulsively huffed a breath out and had it rolling back into his mouth. He crushed it between his teeth, grinning around it like he hadn’t come close to choking himself at the sight of a goddess right there preparing him coffee. ”Yes ma’am,” he managed roughly. The stone appeared, gripped between his front teeth as he slipped the belt around his waist. It hung low around his hips, drooping low enough to almost pull his jeans with it.

Hand on the belt, eyes flicking between the steamiest brewing he’d ever seen and the sink situation, Chase dipped down for a moment, checking the tightness of the nuts on the pipe – both tight enough that nothing should’ve been leaking. He plucked some kitchen towel from the counter top, wrapping it around the joints and turning on the faucet to run for a moment while he leaned back against the counter. Roxxi slid in, coffee set aside without any burns sustained. All warm skin, heating up further as she wrapped her arms around him. ”Careful with my coffee,” he warned lightly. ”Wouldn’t wanna be wasting the kisses all of this is getting on burns.” It wasn’t the bare line of her torso his lips ended up pressed to though. She kissed him hard instead, lips salty with the cheese she’d nibbled on, hands greedy as she pulled him towards the table.

Dark eyes flickered open to narrow dark slits, something sly in the grin that was half stifled against her mouth. Chase clucked his tongue against the roof of his mouth, his hand a chiding pat against her hip that stilled and pressed as Roxxi began to work his mouth open. ”Us huh? I’d say I was pretty focused til…” Til his voice trailed off entirely as Roxxi was licking her way in and out of his mouth and over his top lip cutting off all logical thought. Maybe in both of them. His head dipped a little, maintaining the distance between theirs as he tried to catch his breath. Dinner was gonna be a cold banquet eaten in bed at this rate.

Chase hummed low, hands flexing on Roxxi’s flannel covered hips as he considered boosting her up on the table. The nuts would scatter all over the floor like marbles but they could just clean up later right? ”I dunno, she seemed pretty racy to me. A total flirt. She didn’t have these though … hers were a little scrawny.” He trailed his hand down her hip, fingertips finding the groove between the muscles of her outer thigh, a teasing mapping of where he was gonna explore later. Onyx eyes peered between the twin fans of long, equally dark lashes, dropping to that quick and talented mouth. ”What does that mean? You dirty talkin’ me Professor?” He clucked his tongue again, nuzzling his face into those dark curls he wanted wrapped around his fingers – shit the sink. Grumbling, Chase did as he’d half planned, boosting Roxxi up onto the table and breaking away just long enough to flip the faucet off and avoid that pot under the sink spilling over like his libido was gonna at any moment.

Tagged: ROXANNE BRASCHI * Word Count: 871

If she kept it up with that side of their bargain here and the meals she brought by the station for their lunches, he was gonna end up more than five pounds heavier. He’d seen it when guys had gotten hitched in the neighbourhood, quick meals picked up on the way home from work and drunk off at the local bars giving way to those home comforts, dinner cooked for them every night, couples eventually becoming families and those guts that had been lean, skinny, a couple years before were suddenly bulging out over belts as those guys went soft. Chase had seen his old man’s getting there, that softness that left him hitching his pants up to under that shelf on the job … until Mikey had been sentenced. Everything had boiled down, boiled away then, grief did to you. That was in the past now though, Mikey was back and hell, maybe it was time they got a touch of the soft.

Chase smirked as he glanced over at the table, teeth nipping at his lower lip near the corner. Soft after all that, and the chef wouldn’t be so bad, even if it meant the next time he was back here, fixing a pipe or hanging a picture, those love handles mighta sprouted. Hers were … perfect, a full curve under his hands, no sign that eating her own cooking on a daily basis – or what they had going on – was packing five extra pounds on. His fingers flexed on them, her mouth working on him … his just plain working to get her worked up with talk of her neighbour. He woulda said he wasn’t doing a bad job of it, not when the Italian started spilling out. It was hot as the steam rising off the pans on the stove, working its way under his skin until it was ready to steam out of his ears. Five seconds more and it might’ve done but this thing of theirs … that was fucking cursed.

First the comic book store and her job pulling her away, then a dozen more tiny little things, each time they took a micro-step forward but it had been just that, like they were dancing around the edges of it, getting a toe closer with each new tune but then they were spinning away, that need left burning in the pit of his stomach. This time he’d been the one to cause it, the fucking sink that he’d turned on about to spill over.

He cursed as he boosted Roxxi up onto the table and broke away, wanting to avoid flooding the kitchen for the sake of his burning libido. Teeth caught around his tongue, Chase flipped off the faucet, bent to study the pipe. Wet at the joint, like he’d thought it would be. Either something had blocked it at that point, or more likely the seal had just gone. An easy fix, not worth anywhere near as much as the dinner and … her. Looking back, he looked sheepish at least, rubbing his knuckles under his bottom lip. ”Nah,” he rumbled on a chuckle. ”That wasn’t a swipe about the sink. That was … hot, sexy.” A slap on the wrist sure as hell wasn’t that and he wasn’t about to take tone over feel.

Dark eyes dipped to where she plucked up the olive, the muscles in his jaw twitching as he watched it pop past her lips. Now he knew what was wrong with the sink they could … shit. Chase grumbled low in his throat as he heard her slip down from the table. ”I was gonna say stay put…” he grouched, but Roxxi wasn’t heading back to the stove. She was pressing in close behind him, dragging her – jesus. He paused, hands curled over the edge of the sink as he started to straighten, her arms going around his waist and that steamy heat drifting rapidly south again. Roxxi’s lips were against his ear, those words spoken in that same tone. ”I knew it,” he said smugly, letting out a small sound as it rolled out in Italian to be punctuated with a nip of her teeth. Swallowing hard, he reached back, settling his hand warm against her hip against as he laughed. ”Keep questioning me and I might just drag this out. A seal’s come loose, left the pipe dripping. I think I know how it feels.” The heat reflected in his eyes as he turned himself, suddenly bereft of that heat against his back.

Watching her with one hand still propped, he grumbled under his breath, shaking his head. She really was gonna be the death of him. The sink could wait til later, the fix probably likely to take him all of ten minutes as he rewrapped the pipe and screwed a new fixing in place. His pipes, however, they were in danger if Roxxi kept up. Get it over with, man. The warning to himself pinballed around in his head. Chase dropped to his knees, working the fixings loose to pop the U-bend off. He set it in the pot, squinting into it just long enough to see it was pretty much clean as a whistle. ”You’re talkin’ dirty again,” he sing-songed, watching her setting out the pasta. The menu was reeled off in a way that was a hundred times easier to understand than the one at the restaurant. ”This makes my ma’s stuff like a beginner’s.” He was being spoiled, oh he knew that.

The pan caught the dribble of water as he stood again to wash his hands off. Before he had them half dry, Roxxi was there, pasta winding around the fork, lifted to his mouth. Chase held his hands out, keeping them off of her as he plucked the pasta from the fork with his teeth and tongue. The salt and the bite of the cheese and pepper filled his mouth before that creaminess washed in. Mmm. The sound was more a groan than actual words. Chase licked the sauce from his lip, nodding. ”Damn good, my ma’s a rank amateur.” She’d have swatted him at that but sorry ma, gotta talk the truth. Eyes narrowing, Chase shook off his hands and finally settled them at her waist. ”For?” His voice was a low drawl, another rumble in his chest. He had an idea but this was the dance and he wasn’t about to leap a step ahead without drawing her with him.

Tagged: ROXANNE BRASCHI * Word Count: 1086