Chapter Two (R)

Elizabeth arrived early the next day to open up Kelly's, and was surprised to see that the sign had already been turned from Closed to Open.

"Hello?" she called, pulling open the door and stepping in. "Anyone around?"

"Yeah," came a gruff reply from the kitchen.

"Jason?" she asked, not sure if it was him or not.

He poked his head out from above the double doors. "Oh, so you're using my real name. That's a welcome change."

She smirked and hung her tweed coat on the coat rack, then looped her crimson scarf over it. "Yeah, well, I got tired of Cookie. But don't worry – I'll have a better nickname for you soon."

"Oh, wonderful," she could hear him toss back from the kitchen. "Something to give my life meaning."

Elizabeth rolled her eyes and turned on the coffee pot. She swept a quick gaze over the counter. Everything seemed to be clean and in order. She might as well get a head start with the food.

She pushed through the double doors and was greeted to the sight of Jason standing at the stove, making pancakes with a spatula in his hand and an omnipresent scowl on his face.

"Morning, sunshine," she chirped gaily, twirling over to the large freezer in the back.

Receiving nothing but a grunt in return, she set to work making the bacon. It didn't take long before she had a whole platter full of sizzling strips done and sitting on the heater. Then she mixed the batter for the muffins and scooped it into the trays. Soon, two trays of cinnamon apple muffins and one of blueberry were sitting on the top shelf of the oven.

All that was left to do was get out the orange juice. Elizabeth did just that and quickly ducked out of the kitchen to place the large pitcher on the counter before fluttering right back into the back room to join Jason.

And despite the fact that he did his best to focus on his damn pancakes, the older man was watching her every movement. How she was so cheerful so early in the morning, he just didn't understand. Hell, how she was always so cheerful was something that he didn't understand and doubted that he ever would. What could one person always be so happy about?

He just didn't understand it, and what was more, could hardly relate to that sort of attitude. His mornings were rarely that happy. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that his bike shop and garage had burned down a couple months ago due to some freak electric fire and he hadn't bothered to get anything insured.

That was why he was stuck working for his Aunt Bobbie at her crummy little diner. Well, to be fair, it wasn't really crummy. It was just the last place that he ever pictured himself working. Since he would rather do anything than ask any of his relatives for money, he had hit the classifieds hard after the fire. His aunt had seen him one day and, remembering how great a cook he was during his younger years, mentioned that she might have a job for him at Kelly's.

He had done his best to refuse, but persistence on the old woman's part and a lack of any bites on the job line had forced him to put on a Cookie Monster apron and pick up a spatula. He scowled at the image of it all – Jason Morgan was a mechanic, not a god damn cook. He belonged in a garage with oil and grime under his fingernails, not in a Mom-and-Pop diner with grease spots on his t-shirt and a social butterfly of a waitress on hand.

He heard her humming to herself as she scrounged around for something to nibble on while she worked. It sounded like an old Broadway musical show tune of some sort, and he wasn't surprised. The woman kept the original cast recording of My Fair Lady on permanent rotation in her car stereo – why wouldn't she be singing something from Aida as she checked on the muffins?

But he'd be lying if he said that it annoyed him. Quite to the contrary. Her unique taste had always intrigued him – it was like he had her all figured out, and then she'd start rambling and he'd discover that she knew how to play the bassoon. And he liked it – he liked the random and frequent little glimpses into her personality and her life.

He knew a lot about her, he dared to say. He knew that she was an aspiring ballerina and although he had never seen her dance, it didn't mean that he didn't want to. She was nimble and delicate, with a swan-like neck, perfectly toned arms, a narrow waist, and slender legs that looked, well, endless despite her diminutive frame. She had been working at Kelly's for one and a half years, a year longer than he had. In her spare time, she painted and sculpted, and she'd often come to work with dried spots of paint or clay on her dainty little hands.

Crimson was her favorite color – he had learned that as well. She'd always come into work with colorful outfits and the perfect accessories, and although Jason never noticed those things on other women before, he certainly noticed them on her. He had a hard time picking which outfits he liked best on her – there was that skimpy cream colored dress with the pink flowers that she had worn to the town picnic at Vista Point last summer, when he had still been working in his garage and didn't know her that well. Then there was that long scarlet skirt she'd worn with those tall brown leather boots. He was a sucker for women in leather – always had been, and he had a feeling he always would be.

Then there were those miniskirts – Dear Lord, she nearly gave him a heart attack every time she walked in sporting one of those mod minis. There were the short black ones, the short white ones, the short red ones…but his favorite were the short denim ones. There was something so rugged and yet sweet about a woman in denim.

As he flipped the pancakes with an expertly executed swivel of his wrist, Jason found himself offhandedly wondering if she owned any leather miniskirts.

If she did, he was in major trouble.

It was hard enough working with her as it was – if she showed up sporting leather, he was as good as done. That would be the last straw for whatever shred of his control that remained. Jason did his best to keep their "relationship" – or whatever it was – professional. And that meant barely speaking three sentences daily to her, scowling whenever she talked to him, and making himself scarce in general. Because he knew that if he gave in to what he really, truly felt like doing, they'd be upstairs in her bedroom above Kelly's and going at it while the pancakes burned to a crisp.

Speaking of pancakes, he knew that she loved them. She normally didn't have time to eat breakfast but whenever she did, she sat down with a tall stack of the ones he made every morning and fairly drenched them in syrup before devouring them. That was another thing about the woman – she ate and ate and ate, yet never seemed to gain a pound. She wasn't like all the other women he had known, as Jason soon learned – she wasn't vain, she wasn't vacuous, and she wasn't constantly fretting about the way she looked. She preferred the more important things in life – her friends, her artwork, and her schoolwork.

Jason also knew that she was a senior at PCU and would be graduating with a degree in Music Theory that coming June. That put her well ahead of him, of course. Despite the fact that he was seven years her senior, Jason hadn't ever finished college. His mother had died from breast cancer during his freshman year and school just didn't seem important afterwards. He had quit and started up his own successful garage, and things had been going great until that damn fire.

And now he was here.

Making pancakes.

While nimble ballerina Elizabeth Webber pranced around him on legs that he wanted to hook over his shoulders as he-

"You want some orange juice, Morgan?" Elizabeth asked, suddenly appearing at his side with a couple of ripe mandarin oranges in her hand. He gaped at her in surprise as she opened the cabinet by his head and pulled out an old fashioned juicer. "I'm about to squeeze myself some. You want it or not?"

"No," he answered with a rough shake of his head. "I'm good."

"OK," she chirped gaily as she pulled out a knife from the nearby drawer. He expected her to retreat to the counters on the opposite side of the kitchen to prepare her fresh juice, but she remained at his side. "So, what's new in your life, Morgan?"

He frowned. What was this – Oprah? Why did the woman have to ask him that every day? Why was she never able to take 'nothing' as an answer?

"Nothing."

Elizabeth snorted. "Oh, come on. You always say nothing – do you mean to tell me that nothing worth mentioning has happened to you recently?"

Jason shook his head, keeping his gaze down. "Not all of us lead exciting lives like you, Webber."

He heard her giggle and her forearm brushed innocently against him. "This is true," she conceded with a bright smile. "I do lead a rather charmed existence, don't I?"

Jason smirked at her sarcasm but knew better than to say anything.

"After all," she grinned, looking up at him as she placed half an orange on the juicer and began to press down as she turned it. "I have a lovely bedroom apartment right above where I work, a simply charming studio where I can paint and work on my sculptures, a wonderful circle of friends, and I get to work alongside the most cheerful and invigorating fry cook in the world. Clearly, it doesn't get any better than this!"

Jason flipped the last pancake over and turned to stare down at her. Though his expression was serious, she could see the twinkle in his blue eyes – the same twinkle that turned her knees to water.

"Are you making fun of me?"

Her grin grew despite her best efforts to keep it in check, and Jason was pulled in by her dazzling sapphire orbs.

"Would I do that?" She was laughing, but her laughter turned into a cry of surprise as Jason flipped off the stove and grabbed her waist, neatly depositing her on the counter where she had been working on her fresh orange juice.

"Jason-"

"Yes, you would, Webber," he replied, his blue eyes narrowed playfully. Elizabeth's heart beat out a drum solo in her chest – Jason Morgan was rarely playful. And he was just oh-so-sexy when he was. His crooked little smirk and the mischievous glint in his eyes when he teased her were enough to make her forget her own name.

"And I've been pretty good about it," he conceded, tilting his head just so as he studied her. "But if you're going to keep at it, then maybe I should get in on the action, too."

She crinkled her nose in that cute little way he loved, and he could see the wheels turning in her head as she tried to process his new behavior.

"I wasn't aware that you…had any gripes with me," Elizabeth teased. The physical contact initiated by him was quite surprising and caught her completely off guard, but the fact that maybe – just maybe – he was flirting with her made the blood hum through Elizabeth's veins.

And if he was going to be flirting with her, she'd be flirting right back.

Jason unconsciously sucked in a breath when Elizabeth's leg came in contact with his torso as she crossed her legs between them. He was standing very close to her – she was seated on the counter, his hands on both sides of her thighs, and barely an inch or so of space separating her legs and his thighs. Added to the fact that Jason was leaning into her and she into him, and he suddenly didn't think that this little routine would come off as playful as he had originally intended.

Damn.

"Are you tired of me, Morgan?" Elizabeth teased more, cocking her head to the side. Her chocolate locks, wavy this morning, fell by her temple and Jason resisted the urge to reach out and sweep them back. "Do I annoy you?"

He fought to keep his voice serious. "Yeah."

"What is it about me?" she persisted, knowing full well that he was just teasing. "What makes me so…intolerable?"

She moved her legs again, this time uncrossing and recrossing them the opposite way, and Jason did his best to keep his gaze steady. It certainly wasn't easy, as the simple brush of her bare knee against his tee-shirt sent tingles of awareness straight down south. And on top of that, she was wearing one of his favorite skirts today – the stone washed denim one with the frayed edges. It had two slits on the side, revealing her creamy thighs, and that was exactly where Jason's thumbs were headed as if of their own volition.

Damn, that woman had a sexy voice. He had barely been able to keep his eyes from glazing over while she talked – how the hell did women do that? They knew just how to make their voices sound to turn the men in their lives to mush. Those low, sexy, sultry notes were perfect music to his ears.

"Well," he began slowly, experimenting with his own voice in an attempt to see if lowering it had any affect on the playful minx before him. "See, you have this habit of singing…"

Her eyes widened innocently. "Don't you like my voice, Jason?"

His grin spread, slow and sexy, and Elizabeth batted her lashes at him. "You've never complained before."

"OK, fine," he conceded smoothly. "But what about the hysterics?"

"What about them?" she shrugged innocently. "I'm an excitable person."

"You're a noisy person," he corrected, leaning closer. His eyes were level with hers and bore into Elizabeth's darker orbs. She crinkled her nose at his mild insult and smacked him lightly on the chest with both hands. But she surprised him greatly by not removing her hands as he thought she would, but smoothing them up his shoulders until her hands were loosely clasped behind his neck.

"Maybe I'm just trying to make up for the fact that you're a living block of frozen concrete."

"Frozen?" he frowned.

"Mm-hmm," she nodded with a small smile. She passed the pink tip of her tongue over her full lips, leaving them glistening, and Jason had to bite his own to keep himself quiet. "Because not only are you silent – you're cold."

Jason stared sharply at her. "Cold?"

"That's what I said, Morgan," she replied smugly. Her nails scraped lightly against the golden hairs at his nape. "You're a – uh, a-"

His thumbs had found her skin, resulting in Elizabeth's sudden lack of brain activity. Jason watched her eyes darken, the pupils blazing, as he swept the rough pad of his thumbs against her soft skin.

His nose was a scant distance from hers when he leaned closer still. "I'm what?"

Jason's thumb slid under the denim fabric of her skirt and Elizabeth's mouth went as dry as a sock. Her dark eyes narrowed into dangerous slits when Jason's twinkled; the bastard knew exactly what reaction he was causing.

"You're a cold, unfeeling Borg," Elizabeth whispered, resisting the will to let her eyes flutter shut as his thumbs continued to elicit wonderful sensations from her lower body.

His nose bumped into hers, and she could see his eyes crinkle as he flashed one of those ultra-sexy slow, crooked grins at her. "Careful." Jason's breath was warm against her flushed skin as his lips brushed hers for the first time during their playful little routine. "That's just the mask I put on for everyone else."

Elizabeth sighed softly when he kissed the corner of her mouth, and her hand found his jaw as he angled his head to kiss the other corner. Her long fingers trembled against the rough stubble on his cheek in anticipation as Jason swept his tongue over her lips, uniting the path of his kisses.

And that was when Elizabeth just couldn't take it anymore – she kissed him.

Her aggressiveness startled Jason, who was planning on making the first moves himself. But the older man had absolutely no problem turning all the control over to the nimble young woman before him. The same nimble young woman whose crossed legs now opened to accept his hips between her knees. Jason removed one hand from the slit in her skirt, as hard as it was for him to do so, and splayed it low against her back to effectively pull her toward him.

Elizabeth's hands framed his face and she purred into his mouth as she deepened the kiss. She pressed her tongue against his lips and that was all the invitation Jason needed. He quickly parted his lips and her tongue slithered in to mate and duel with his. The one hand that remained under the slit of her skirt pulled her forward slowly, the carefully-worn denim sliding over the smooth countertop.

Her low, sexy moan, hovering between them, spurred Jason to take control. Elizabeth gasped for breath as he kissed her fiercely, his force causing her to melt in his arms. One hand fisted in her wavy hair, the curly ringlets spilling over his callused fingers, and Jason wrapped the other around her bottom and quickly brought her forward, against him.

Jason growled into her mouth, pulling back for one slight moment to catch his breath before diving right back in for more. She tasted sweet and spicy – warm cider on a cold day, melting marshmallows on a muggy summer night – and bright colors exploded against the dark curtains of his closed eyes – gold, crimson, burnt orange. Jason drank Elizabeth in like a man dying of thirst and stole her breath away in the process.

His hand on her rear tightened, those long fingers digging in to her soft skin. Elizabeth's hands trembled before she speared her fingers through his wheat-colored locks and she easily lifted her legs and wrapped them around his waist, crossing them at the ankle.

Jason had almost pulled her off the counter completely at that point, and as he supported the entirety of her weight with his arms, Elizabeth could feel his arousal pressing up against her most intimate parts. Her breathing quickened – if that was at all possible – and became shallower. No man had ever gotten her this excited, this quickly. But then again, she shouldn't have been surprised – very few things about Jason likened him to any of the other men she had ever known. He was a far cry from the immature guitar player she dated through high school, the self-righteous liberal she had protested with during her first year in college, or the yuppie investment banker that had been after her a couple months ago.

Jason was completely different from all those men – he was in a league of his own. He was rugged and self-sufficient – and besides that, he obviously knew how to handle himself. His right hand was already working its way under the hem of her skirt, eliciting the most delicious sensations and hums while he made love to her with his mouth. Hopefully, she'd be getting more of that later, too.

He was strong and hard, and nothing about him suggested weakness or incompetence. The tender way he had teased and flirted with her at first spoke volumes for the attention and care he obviously bestowed on the object of his affections, and the animalistic way he was kissing her – as if he'd like nothing better than to take her against the refrigerator at that very moment – told her all she needed to know about his sexual prowess.

A knot low in her belly formed, winding tighter and tighter as Jason's strong fingers kneaded her thigh, and Elizabeth had to press her lips firmly to his to stifle her moan of pleasure. She didn't succeed, and Jason's grip on her tightened when he heard her. He was holding her in his arms completely now, and was pressed intimately against her.

Elizabeth whimpered into his mouth and fisted her hand in his hair as the fingers of the other one dug into his broad shoulder. That coil at her center was knotting itself into tighter and tighter coils and was emanating trembles and shivers throughout her slight frame. Jason let loose with a primal growl when she tightened her legs around him, bringing them even closer together.

"Jason."

Her husky voice, though only a whisper, was a gunshot in the silent kitchen. Jason pulled back and breathed deeply, resting his forehead tenderly against hers as his eyes fluttered shut. He still supported her in his arms, and any slight movement on Elizabeth's part was felt acutely.

"Now. Here."

He sucked in a breath when she pressed her lips desperately to his and kissed her back with equal intensity. Elizabeth arched her back, the movement causing Jason to stumble back a step. His chuckle was low and raspy as he angled his head and bit her lip, only to soothe it with a sensual swipe of his tongue.

"You sure?"

Her insides melted at the sound of his husky voice, as smooth as silk, and she nodded. That was all that she could remember to do, what with the way his hand was slowly creeping up to the junction of her thighs. Jason's heartbeat was erratic under her palm, and each breath was shallow and quick. Her hand snaked between them and made its way south to the buckle of his jeans, and the anticipation made Jason's head swim. He was about to loosen his grip on her for just a minute to do it himself when a certain voice had him scrambling to set Elizabeth down completely instead.

"Hey, Elizabeth, instead of orange, do you think I could get some apple juice in-"

Elizabeth's gasp echoed through the silent kitchen, accompanied by an identical gasp from the intruder. Two pairs of blue eyes flew open to find an equally stunned pair of green eyes by the door.

Emily Bowen, one hand on the swinging wooden door and the other covering her mouth, wanted to crawl into a hole and die. That was at least much better than what her best friend would have in store from her if Jason Morgan ever got his hand out from under her skirt.

"Oh, my freaking-"

Elizabeth's porcelain skin flushed scarlet and she scrambled down to the safety of the dark tiles. Jason let her go quickly and turned on his heel, intent on regaining his composure and not daring to let Emily glimpse him in his current…state.

"Emily-"

The redhead's eyes were squeezed shut as she waved a hand at her friend and tried to back out of the kitchen. "Oh, my God, I am so sorry," she stammered. "I-oh, man, I can't believe I – holy shit. I am so sorry."

She finally dared to peek out at the couple; Elizabeth's gaze was averted and the blushing brunette was rubbing her neck, trying to calm herself down. Jason, on the other hand, seemed more composed but still wouldn't meet her eyes. "I am so sorry – pretend I was never really here – well, I don't know if that'll work – but I am so sorry. I promise that I'll knock next time, I just-"

Jason silenced her with a wave of his hand. "It's fine," he replied gruffly. The older man didn't even spare Elizabeth a second glance as he strode past Emily for the door. "It's, uh, probably better this way."

With that, he stepped out into the restaurant and disappeared into the cold February air in only his t-shirt, leaving a humiliated Elizabeth and an equally flustered Emily to stare at each other in confusion.

"Elizabeth-"

The brunette held up her hands, effectively silencing her well-meaning friend. "Please, Em," she whispered, her eyes closed. "Not now."

No, now was definitely not a good time for whatever Emily had to say. Especially not after what Jason had said – what the hell did he mean that it was better this way? That was precisely what Elizabeth was so determined to find out.

Emily bit her lip as the petite brunette quickly left the small kitchen, following the same path as her co-worker. She found him standing right outside Kelly's, his eyes closed and his strong arms crossed over his solid chest as the cold wind howled about him.

"Jason?"

He didn't turn at the sound of his name, but Elizabeth knew that he heard her by the way he bowed his head. After waiting a moment, the brunette just couldn't take it anymore and stalked forward, turning in front of him so that they were standing face to face. The wind was cold against her bare legs, and she wrapped her arms around herself in a futile attempt to at least preserve some of her body heat.

"Jason."

A muscle in his jaw ticked and he forced himself to meet her dark gaze.

"Jason, talk to me."

His brows furrowed as Jason fought to keep himself detached. "About what, Elizabeth? What's there left to talk about?"

She stared at him in disbelief. "Excuse me? How about what happened in there? How about-"

"That can't happen again."

The words were quick and terse, leaving little room for argument. And they certainly were more characteristic of the scowling, sullen Jason she had known for months than the one that had been on fire as he stroked her own flames of passion. But it was the finality of the words that cut Elizabeth to the quick, even worse than the wind that cut straight to her bones.

"W-What?"

"That – that was a mistake. It can't happen again." Jason frowned off into the distance, as if unable to meet her perplexed gaze, and that only caused Elizabeth's anger to grow and rise up. She stalked forward a step, ignoring how her legs felt frozen and her toes felt as if they'd fall off.

"Listen, Morgan-"

"No," he cut her off quickly, this time meeting her gaze as he backed up a step. "Look, Elizabeth, it was a mistake. I didn't mean to do any of it, and I'm sure you didn't, either. We were just two people that got caught up in the heat of the moment, and I'm sure we both would have regretted it if we had continued. That's all it was – just two people that didn't know what they were doing. It shouldn't have happened, and thankfully, someone put a stop to it. And it won't happen again – so let's not make it into anything more."

That was the most he had ever said to her, and that was the most he had ever hurt her. All his terse replies, his omnipresent scowls and dark moods, none of them compared to the way he shut her down on that cold February morning. And what was worse was that he didn't even stay to make sure she agreed – he just turned on his heel and pulled the door to the diner open.

She didn't hear the merry little way the bells tinkled when the door opened. She didn't hear the Perry Como song that Emily, the lone customer, was playing on the jukebox inside. All Elizabeth heard was what Jason had said.

And the frost in his tone was colder and more painful than the frost that shrouded the ground where she stood.