“They all know.” Angelica looked up, meeting Hope’s eyes. “Why haven’t I seen you?”
“We haven’t…” Hope frowned. “Can I treat you like I love you on set?”
Angelica dashed her tongue across her lips. What would that mean, exactly? Because she wasn’t sure she could handle everyone staring at them like they were clowns or something. “You do love me, every day.”
“Angel…” Hope snorted. “Can I kiss you? Touch you? Take care of you?”
“I don’t…” Angelica paused and shook her head, clearing the cobwebs. “I don’t know.”
“Then let’s start here, okay?”
Angelica nodded slowly, but the thoughts from before plagued her. Her mother, her family, her bosses, the show, Josef—everything came bounding back into her brain in an instant. Hope stepped forward and touched their lips together.
“Stop thinking,” Hope whispered.
Angelica breathed her in, the scents of the kitchen, the warmth of her touch. “I don’t know what to do.”
“And that’s okay,” Hope answered. “I’m not here to tell you what to do.”
“Then why are you here?” Angelica asked, her eyes fluttering shut.
“Because I love you,” Hope responded, pressing her lips to the corner of Angelica’s mouth. “And this is what I do for the people I love.”
“Hope…”
“Let me take care of you,” Hope whispered with another kiss.
Angelica relaxed. She turned into Hope’s kiss, pressing their lips together lightly and fluttering her eyes shut. She just breathed in this woman, the person she should have been relying on before now. Angelica wrapped her arms around Hope’s middle and pulled her in, planting her forehead in the crook of Hope’s neck and just stilling.
Everything had been spinning out of control lately.
Every which way she turned, something else was going wrong, someone else was needing her or yelling at her, some other major decision weighed on her shoulders. And yet here… here she could find a stillness she’d craved.
Angelica eventually pulled back slightly, her lips curling upward as if the weight that had been on her shoulders was already lifted. She looked up into Hope’s eyes and trailed her hand down the front of Hope’s chef’s coat.
“You smell like fish.” Angelica dropped her gaze to the path her fingers had blazed.
“I was teaching Trey to break down flounder. Here.” Hope immediately moved to undo the buttons on her jacket and pulled it off, tossing it to the side.
Angelica froze then, the thin wire of Hope’s microphone a stark black against the white of her tank top. Her chest constricted. They hadn’t turned them off. Fuck. It didn’t matter if everyone knew about their relationship, it was the fact that she still didn’t need the entire crew to be aware of the details of what went on behind closed doors. Hope must have caught her gaze, because she immediately reached down to the mic pack and turned it off, pulled out the microphone and set it on top of her chef’s coat.
“Yours?” Hope asked.
Angelica could barely function. The microphone she wore was taped to her skin underneath her dress, the back underneath the fabric with the belt that was specifically made for these kinds of clothes to hide the damn thing. She turned her back to Hope, sliding her hair away from the top of the zipper on her dress.
It didn’t take long for Hope’s fingers to move against the zipper, sliding it down. Cold air brushed against Angelica’s skin as each inch was bared. Hope brushed her knuckles down Angelica’s spine until she reached the belt Angelica wore withthe mic pack. The weight of the pack lifted, but Hope’s hands stilled.
“Do you want to take it off entirely?” Hope asked.
“Yes.” Angelica glanced over her shoulder, making eye contact. “Takeallof it off.”
Hope bit her lip as she pulled at the Velcro, tugging it from around Angelica’s body. Helping, Angelica pulled the top of her dress down to her waist and pulled the tape from her skin. She balled it up and threw it onto the top of the desk along with the mic pack that Hope had set there. Instead of pulling her dress back up, she turned around and looked into Hope’s eyes.
“I’m sorry,” Angelica murmured, once again trailing her fingers across Hope’s collarbones and between her breasts.
“For what?” Hope seemed genuinely confused.
“For not relying on you.” Angelica lifted her chin to look into Hope’s eyes. “I’m sorry. I should have.”
