Fire Me Up (17 page)

Teagan made a face. “What if I hate it? Then I won't want to make it a part of me.”

Adrian put the bag of flour he'd retrieved from the pantry on the counter and nudged the boiling pot, watching the potatoes gently rock and nestle together. “If you hate it, that's fine. But you should try it the right way before you decide.”

She ran a finger around the base of the glass. “I guess I never thought of wine, or any food, really, as something to take my time with.”

“Don't feel bad. A lot of people rush through what they eat and drink—they don't take time to smell it, to feel it in their mouths, to really
experience
it.” He drew his wineglass up to his face, letting it brush against the rough stubble on his chin before inhaling. “Taste is the last sense you use on the things you eat and drink, although everyone thinks it's the only one.”

Her expression softened, surprising him. “Okay, I'll humor you. You want me to just pretend I'm taking a sip, only smell it instead?”

“It's not milk with a questionable expiration date.” He gave in to his satisfied smile and leaned in closer, until only a scant stretch of Formica countertop and his dwindling willpower separated their bodies. “Don't just smell it. Breathe it in. Experience it.”

Teagan's laugh caught him like a sucker punch to the sternum, but she didn't pull back to reclaim the space between them. “‘Experience it,'” she repeated, dropping her eyes seductively to the glass.

“Yeah,” Adrian managed, trying to right himself. Damn it, she was killing him with those endlessly long legs parted over the bar stool just wide enough to make him wonder what else she could do with them. “Let it take care of you a little.” He motioned to her glass, knowing his words would hit home.

“Screw you,” she muttered, but he caught the twist of her sardonic smile as she raised the rim of her wineglass and inhaled. Her eyes shuttered closed, cinnamon-colored lashes sweeping low over her face, and even though his self-protective instinct screamed at him not to, he impulsively moved closer.

“See? You can smell the flavors before they even hit your tongue. This merlot is rich, complex. And it tells you all about itself before you drink it.”

Teagan kept her eyes closed and breathed in again, her bottom lip pressing slightly against the rim of her glass, and she gave a small nod and sigh combination that shot straight to his cock.

“Breathing it in enhances the experience. It makes you want it more.” Adrian braced himself against the narrow stretch of countertop between them, palms hot on the cool surface. He leaned in close enough to feel the heat coming off of her, to smell the earthy scent of rosemary where her neck met her ear. The irony of it hit him full-on.

Just like the wine, when he breathed her in, it only made him want her more.

“So go ahead,” Adrian said. “Drink.”

She raised the glass, tipping the ruby liquid along its curve until it reached her lips. Adrian watched her, completely entranced by the newness of the experience on her face, as she took a sip and cradled the glass in her palm. A drop of wine lingered on her bottom lip, staining it a perfect, sensual red. God, Adrian wanted to have that bottom lip for breakfast, to trace it with his tongue and relish the flavor of her in his mouth. He didn't just want to kiss her, but to taste her, to savor her.

To
have
her.

But then her eyes blinked open and she lowered the glass.

“I'm not sure about the whole deep experience thing, but the wine is nice,” she admitted, taking another sip.

“Told you.” Adrian scooped the potatoes from the stockpot with a slotted spoon, letting the heat from the steam wash over his face. He'd been fighting the desire to kiss Teagan again ever since he'd botched things that stupid morning he'd first taught her to cook, only this time, he wanted to dive into her and never come up for air.

This time, if he kissed her, he wasn't going to stop.

Without fanfare, he scooped one of the potatoes into a tea towel on the counter. After a second's worth of awkward fumbling, he got a decent grip on it with his left fingers, although his incapacitated thumb itched to get in on the action. Keeping the towel-wrapped potato steady as best he could by cradling it between his fingers and chest, he started to peel it with quick precision. Long ribbons of light brown skin, thin enough to see through, snaked over the tea towel as he worked, and the task helped him focus.

“How come you didn't peel those before you boiled them? I mean, isn't it easier that way, so you don't burn your fingers?” Teagan leaned forward on her elbows, watching him start on the second potato with an inquisitive stare. Damn, she didn't miss anything.

“It changes the starch content if you boil them that way. Plus, when they're hot, the peels slide off easier. Pretty helpful when you've only got one and a half hands.”

“Oh. That was probably a stupid question, huh?” Teagan didn't look sheepish very often, or, okay, ever, but hell, if it didn't light him up like the Fourth of July right now.

“No such thing as a stupid question.”

Teagan eyed him over the rim of her wineglass and smirked. “Does this make me look fat?”

Adrian finished peeling the last potato, shooting her a disapproving look even though he knew it wouldn't stick. “Okay.
Almost
no such thing as a stupid question.”

He scooped just enough flour into a soft mound on the counter, giving it a gentle roll with the backs of his knuckles to create a well. Going through the familiar motions, even without the full use of his left hand, sent another wave of calm through his chest.

“You don't measure anything,” Teagan noted, more statement than question, and Adrian nodded in agreement.

“After a while, you start to recognize when things are right. A lot of it is by feel and taste. But I've made this enough to know it by heart.”

Holding one of the still-steaming potatoes in the thinly textured weave of the tea towel, Adrian hooked his left fingers beneath the handle of a bell grater. Slowly, he worked the potato over the holes, watching as the cream-colored flesh left a trail of steam on the stainless steel. He moved in brisk, even strokes, watching the curls of yellow-white potato drop into the well like confetti. “So even though we don't have a whole lot of ingredients here, we still have to make sure that they play nicely together.”

“Playing nicely doesn't seem to suit you.”

“And yet that doesn't bother you,” Adrian flipped back, working the second potato into fine shreds.

One red-gold brow lifted. “I don't play nicely either.”

Right. Because just what he needed was another reason to want her.

“Well, you'd better learn quick, because you're up.”

Teagan's shoulders lifted in a slim line of surprise, and she pulled back from the counter to stare at him. “You can't be serious.”

“When it comes to food, I'm always serious.” Adrian tipped his head at the counter, dividing his expression between
trust me
and
I dare you
. Damn, she was full to the brim with tension and tired, and all he wanted was to get her to relax. “Come on. I can't do this part alone, and I'll walk you through it. I'm a chef. It's not like I'm going to steer you wrong.”

For a second, she didn't move, and hell, maybe pushing her had been a bad plan. But then she gave a barely perceptible nod and slid from her bar stool to round the corner into the kitchen.

“Fine. Let's do this before I change my mind.”

Adrian turned to get an egg and some butter out of the refrigerator, trapping his satisfied smile between his teeth. “The trick here is to get the ingredients incorporated just right, and the best way to do that is to go by feel.”

Returning to the counter, he closed his fingers around the smooth contours of the egg, giving it a one-handed tap-and-break into the flour well.

Teagan scoffed. “Show-off.”

But Adrian kept steady with the food, nice and easy so she would, too. “It's important to go slow—you don't want to maul it, or else the dough turns out too tough.” He reached forward for a pinch of salt from the covered bowl on the counter, sprinkling it over the well before stepping back to gesture her into the space.

Her lips parted. “You want me to use my hands?”

“Yup. It's just like the wine, only instead of breathing it in, you're letting it talk to you by feeling it.”

“I hope you have the pizza guy on speed dial, because I'm totally going to screw this up,” she muttered, but she sank her fingers into the mixture anyway. Her brow tugged down in fierce concentration, but Adrian countered it by stepping in behind her.

“You're not going to screw this up.” Caging her body gently with his own, he put his right hand over hers to guide her through the motions. He worked his hand—and hers—over the mixture, first one pass, then another. “Take a breath. Relax, and let the food do its thing.”

“Like that?” Teagan asked, her back melting into his chest with each move of their hands. She tipped her chin toward her shoulder to look up at him in question, and he sucked in a breath full of rosemary and total, undiluted want.

“Yeah,” he said. “Like that.”

Slowly, the ingredients began to find their way together, and a ball of dough the color of spring sunshine began to take shape between Teagan's palms, smooth and pliable. Her shoulders rolled, low and easy against his body, her breath coming in soft pulls as she looked down at their entwined hands. “God, that's amazing.”

Adrian threw every last shred of his focus into the food. “Isn't it? It's only a few ingredients, yet when you bring them together without forcing them, they just find their way to where they belong.”

“So now what?”

“Now all we have to do is roll it out and cut it,” he said, stepping back from her even though his body screamed in protest. He skimmed a thin layer of flour over the countertop, reminding himself that this was about taking care of
her
. Without quite meeting her gaze—God, he was such a selfish bastard—Adrian gestured for her to place the dough on the flour-coated counter and pressed a rolling pin into her hands.

“Nice and even, Red. It's all about feel.” He fixed his eyes on the dough as she rolled it out, her movements tentative yet efficient. “Good. Use your fingers to check for ripples in the surface. Missing them with your eyes is easy, but you'll catch them if you go by touch.”

“Oh.” The word rode out on a sigh as she skimmed the pale yellow disc of dough with one hand, then the other. “It really
is
all about feel.”

“See? You're a natural.”

Adrian palmed a dough cutter, the handle smooth in his palm, and he edged in next to her to begin cutting the dough with one-handed movements. Teagan watched as if in a trance, and he watched her face the same way, drinking her in as she stared.

“If you know how to listen, the food tells you everything.” He ran the gleaming tines of a fork across each little bead of dough, imprinting the supple surface with the trademark triple slash of gnocchi.

“The way you do that is really incredible.” Teagan swung her gaze upward to meet his, her face as open and pure as sunrise, and in that moment, Adrian knew the difference between just wanting someone and being hungry for someone.

He was fucking
starving
for her.

Heat pulsed through Teagan clear down to her bones as she watched Adrian's big, capable hands sweep over the pasta dough. Each of his movements showed such quiet power, such attention to detail, it was as if the dough simply belonged in his hands and his hands belonged in the kitchen. The natural way his fingers coaxed everything into place was pure, sensual magic, and she couldn't look away.

What could those hands do to a woman? To her?

Teagan flushed and clamped down on the thought, but not before she realized that Adrian wasn't looking at the pasta dough on the counter.

He was looking at her. And he was definitely hungry.

“You want to do the honors, then?” His raspy voice found the pit of her belly, low and deep. She'd hated the kitchen on principle for so long that her gut instinct was to shoot back a
no
. But cooking with Adrian was different, easy in a way that she'd never felt around food before, and instead of giving the
no
any airtime, she just nodded.

“Okay. What do I do?”

“Just scoop them up and lay them into the water, one batch at a time.” Adrian handed her what looked like a wire mesh ladle, its intricate, spiny web branching out from the handle like a gaudy silver cloak.

Teagan narrowed her eyes on him. Okay, fine, so the dark-edged stare that most people would probably find arrogant was turning her on like Christmas lights, and yes, the more he did it, the more she wanted to do something wild like, say, rip his shirt off right here in the kitchen. But come on, she wasn't exactly wallflower material. She opened her mouth to give him a little attitude when it hit her.

He was pushing her on purpose just to watch her push back.

“Okay,” she answered, and from the look on his face, she wasn't the only one surprised at the concession. Doing her best to keep a steady hand, Teagan filled the ladle thingy with gnocchi. She eyed the boiling pot and exhaled.

She could do this.

It might not have been the prettiest thing going, but Teagan managed to get all of the gnocchi into the pot without scalding herself or ruining the pasta.

“Now go ahead and grab the butter.” Adrian looked at her, hazel eyes glittering in the golden overhead light of the kitchen, before he brought another burner to life and situated an empty saucepan on top of the grate with a faint clang.

The odd request distracted Teagan from her urge to balk, or at the very least, make him say
please
. “What's the butter for? Don't you normally put sauce on pasta?”

“Yup. Which is exactly why we're not doing it. Not tonight, anyway.” Adrian took the butter from her and dropped it into the saucepan without elaborating, then skimmed the gnocchi from the steamy froth of the stockpot while it melted into slow swirls of yellow and white.

“Okay, so what
are
we doing?” Patience had never really been one of Teagan's virtues. Subtlety? Even less.

Adrian shrugged, his muscles rolling beneath the snug black cotton of his T-shirt as he popped open a cabinet. “Bucking tradition. You don't really strike me as a purist.”

Oh, no way was she leaving that one alone. “Really? What do I strike you as?”

“Someone who wants to grab the sugar from the pantry.”

She took the few necessary steps to the pantry, examining its contents while trying to focus. No junk food for this cowboy, although it was hardly surprising. There were canned organic tomatoes, a half-empty box of saltines that looked as if it had seen better days, containers of chicken stock, something called Panko—which looked like plain old bread crumbs, but what did she know—all sorts of things lined the shelves and set Teagan's curiosity on fire. And instead of asking for a jar of pasta sauce, he'd asked her to get the sugar, of all things. Not that there was any jarred sauce in sight.

“I've got to admit, you've piqued my interest. What's with the sugar?” She slid it across the counter, studying his reaction.

“A lot of times, the best dishes are the ones we don't expect. Could we put this gnocchi in a red sauce and have a spectacular dish? Sure.” Adrian paused to give the saucepan a shake, and the thick muscles in his forearms flexed under the inky black outline of the tattoo running from elbow to wrist.

“But lots of people can do that,” he continued. “If you want to create something really memorable, you have to pay attention to the flavors. Think outside the box. You've gotta keep it fresh.” The cockiness that seemed to surround him like an aura would've irritated the hell out of her if it didn't make her so hot.

“Okay. So how do you do that?”

“By giving people what they're least expecting, that's how.”

Adrian pulled the saucepan from the burner, and Teagan leaned forward to watch the melted butter curl into golden eddies like a Picasso. He sight-measured some sugar into the pan, then handed her a wooden spoon. She started to protest, and he brushed a finger over her lips, so lightly that for a second, she couldn't be certain he'd done it.

“Stop panicking, Red. All I want you to do is stir.”

Every one of her nerve endings wept with joy.

“O-okay.” Teagan commanded herself to stir with rapt concentration so as not to spontaneously combust. The sugar began to melt into the warmth of the butter, the granules softly scraping against the bottom of the pan, and Adrian grabbed the small jar of whatever he'd pulled from the spice cabinet.

“So now all we need is one more ingredient.” He flipped the shaker top on the container in his hand, and the familiar spice of something as wicked and good as sin itself wafted out to greet her.

“Cinnamon? Are you kidding me?” Teagan's lips fell into a tiny O as she caught a breath from the pan, then inhaled more deeply.

His grin one-upped the cinnamon in both the
wicked
and
good as sin
categories. “I don't kid about food, remember?”

Teagan couldn't do anything but stare as he measured enough cinnamon into the saucepan to darken the mixture, and the heady, almost forbidden scent wrapped around her as if it had bad intentions.

“And now we plate it. This dish has simple ingredients, and the colors are warm, beautiful. So we want to show them off.” He reached for the pot with the gnocchi, skimming them into the bowls with a series of little flips before adding the cinnamon mixture on top.

She frowned. “But the bowls are plain white.”

“Exactly.” Adrian gave each shallow bowl a gentle shake to coat the pasta, explaining as he went. “The dark cinnamon plays off the white dishes, and look. Under this light, with the sugar only partly melted, the gnocchi actually shines. With the way the pasta is ridged, it adds even more texture, depth.”

Teagan didn't even try to rein in her surprise. “Oh my God. It really does. How did you even think of that?”

“I listened to the food.” He scooped up both bowls and jerked his head at the breakfast bar, his eyes shining with a mischievous gleam. “You hungry?”

Her stomach jerked in an involuntary response that didn't have anything to do with eating. “Yeah, sure.” She scooped up her wineglass from the counter, and took a sip more for courage than anything else. The flavor of the wine, bold and more lush than Teagan wanted to admit, lingered in the back of her throat, making the skin on her neck tingle. Adrian gestured to the bar stool, and she sat down, suddenly nervous.

It had been embarrassingly long since she'd been on a date. Not that this
was
one, mind you, but still. Adrian had cooked dinner for her, and now they were about to share a meal together. The odd intimacy of the scenario struck her, unexpectedly deep, and she shifted against the bar stool.

“You don't have anywhere to sit,” she said, hitching forward to let him have the lone chair, but his glittering stare pinned her into place.

“You really don't ever take care of yourself, do you?”

Rather than dodge the question or lie outright, Teagan opted for changing the subject. “So, uh, now what?” she asked, focusing on the dark brush of five o'clock shadow over his angular jaw. The quick, hot memory of how surprisingly soft it felt when he'd kissed her last week flooded her circuitry, and she knew her Irish coloring was broadcasting the flush on her face in Technicolor.

“Now we eat.” Adrian dipped his gaze to her plate, but didn't move otherwise.

“But you're not eating,” she protested, and his smile caught her off guard.

“I'm waiting for you.”

Good God, she wanted him to kiss her again.

“Oh,” she managed, her belly going tight with something far, far different from hunger. In an effort to distract herself from the simmering heat of his smile, she stabbed her fork into the pasta and took a bite.

And then everything changed.

Teagan closed her lips around the tines of the fork just as the deep, hypnotic flavors exploded on her tongue. “Oh!” The word escaped from her full mouth, and she pressed her fingers to her lips, but whether it was to cover her bad manners or hold the flavors in, she couldn't be sure.

The spicy cinnamon, heady and rich, hit her first, but the sweetness of the sugar and the hearty perfection of the pasta were there too, and it all felt so perfect and right on her taste buds. And oh God, it got even better as she chewed, moving the flavors around, as if they were exploring the best places to be in her mouth and then setting up camp there, blissfully refusing to leave.

“Oh my God,” Teagan mumbled, fighting the urge to shovel as much in as possible as she scooped another bite into her mouth. More flavors, more texture, more
everything
filled her up, and she wanted desperately to both have the meal and save it for later, to be in the kitchen so she could eat it again and again and never stop.

Teagan covered her mouth with the back of her hand, unwilling to stop eating even to speak. Under any other circumstances, the way her voice came out on a breathy little moan would've probably made her ears burn, but as it stood right now, Teagan didn't care. Another forkful went in, heightening her awareness of every taste bud, and she tried to slow down to savor it, but she couldn't. She dug into the bowl again, inhaling the seductive scent of cinnamon over her ear-to-ear smile. “Really, Adrian. You should—”

Both her words and her movements jerked to a stop, and Teagan lowered her fork to the table. Adrian hadn't moved anything but his eyes since she'd sat down, the stormy green gray piercing right through her to penetrate every tough defense she'd ever cooked up in her life.

“I like it when you say my name.” His gravelly voice rippled down the ladder of her spine in slow motion, teasing the base of her hips before settling in. Suddenly, the food, the kitchen, everything in the universe except for the two of them, was very far away.

“Adrian.”

His eyes flared, pupils black and gleaming, and all Teagan could think about was daring him back. “What else do you like?” she asked.

“You sure you want to do this?” He'd been pushing her since she'd walked in the door, but as dark and suggestive as his expression was right now, Teagan still knew that if she said no, he'd let her walk away.

“Yes.”

Adrian moved toward her in one decisive motion, and she rose to meet him, just as fast. Their bodies crashed together with force, stinging and hot and so good, Teagan wanted to cry.

“I like the way you taste,” he rumbled, slanting his mouth over hers, brushing her lower lip with the softness of his tongue. “And I definitely like cooking with you. You're so beautiful with your hands on the food.” He kissed her with surprising gentleness, and she arched up greedily, wanting more.

“Slow down and let me listen to you.” Adrian smiled into her mouth, curving his lips over hers before he slid them to the angle of her jaw, nuzzling her neck with excruciating care. “I think you have a lot to say.”

Her hands curled over the cotton on his hard shoulders, and she bit back a groan. “Aren't we past talking?” Oh God, if he slowed down, she wasn't going to make it.

Again, his lips parted over her skin, and his wicked smile sent heat flooding to the furrow between her legs.

“It's figurative.” His tongue swept over her earlobe, and just the one tentative pass brought a moan from her chest, unbidden. “And lucky for you, I'm very observant.”

Refusing to be completely outdone, Teagan dropped one hand to the tight space between them, running her hand up the corded muscles of his denim-covered thigh. “And lucky for
you,
two can play at that game.”

Adrian exhaled a hard breath onto her neck, bending low to trail feather-soft kisses into the hollow of her throat. “Christ, you're beautiful.” He lowered his free hand to her hip, cradling her with tight fingers, grasping her close before dipping his mouth to hers again, sampling, tasting. Her answer was bold, and she pressed her tongue against his, seeking more.

“And impatient.” Adrian released her hip and slid his hand beneath the thin cotton of her T-shirt, pressing his fingers into the curve of her lower back. A current ran through Teagan's body, moving like a live wire under her skin.

“Oh God, that feels good,” she murmured, the words spilling from her lips. Before she could even register his movements, Adrian had snaked one massive arm around her and used the other to swing her around. He fit his chest to her back, sliding the hard planes of his muscles against her with the friction of the clothes between them.

“Let me take my time with you, Teagan.” He paused to sweep her hair over one shoulder and place just the breath of a kiss at the base of her neck. “Slow down and let me in.”