Hot Buttered Yum (24 page)

“When are you going to admit you miss playing?” he asked suddenly.

The music paused but then one hand began rolling through a
series of scales. “I thought you weren’t going to push about that?”

That had been the agreement. They would try this
relationship thing, but he wouldn’t push about the piano. His large shoulders
shrugged. “I changed my mind,” he said.

“Shouldn’t we agree on that first?”

“Okay, then we’ll talk about something else. Admit I was
right last night. You want more from this too.”

Damn. He had gotten out of bed prepared to push her buttons
today.

“Because
I
do,” he said. The words were spoken
without a trace of uncertainty. “I want a lot more. I want to dig under your surface
and learn what hurt you. And I want to help you through it. I want to share my
hurts with you too.” His voice slowed, softened, and Roni’s heart raced as she
watched him. She couldn’t look away. “And I want you to come home with me and
meet—”

“Fine,” she raised her voice, interrupting him. She held a
hand up in the air between them. She didn’t want to hear him say that he wanted
her to meet Gracie. Not yet. She wasn’t there yet. “I miss playing,” she admitted.
“Are you happy? I miss it every day. Every single time I sit down and put my
hands on the keyboard, I want to be in front of a crowd instead of here in my
house.”

She refused to admit out loud that she wanted more from them.
Not until she had some idea of how much she wanted.

She lowered her head and went into a symphony she’d known
since she’d been in elementary school, and she refused to look at him while she
played. The notes rang out loud and hard. Her fingers throbbed from the
pounding. Several minutes later, she pulled her hands back, out of breath, and looked
up at him with a scowl. The ferocity of the music hadn’t seemed to faze him. He
merely watched her calmly.

He set his plate, now holding only two apple cores and a
fork, on the windowsill with his coffee cup and crossed his arms over his wide chest.
“Do the concert Saturday night,” he urged. His voice was soft and coaxing. Not
demanding. Yet it still hit her wrong.

He was pushing and she wasn’t ready for it.

She stood from the piano and headed across the room. She reached
for the coffee cup she’d left on the counter earlier but it was gone. When she
found it clean and upside down on the side of her sink, she shot him a dirty
look.

“Roni,” he said calmly.

She shook her head. “I can’t do it yet.”

But she wanted to. She’d been playing with the idea of telling
Kayla to set up the concert since she’d talked with her friends on Sunday.
Nothing major. Maybe just the contestants and the business owners. She longed to
sit in front of a packed auditorium, all of them waiting breathlessly. For her.

But then what?

She couldn’t go back out on the road. She didn’t want to be
the person she’d been before Zoe. She didn’t want to ache every time she
played, remembering that she’d been chasing a career while Zoe had been alone
and dying.

No. She couldn’t be the person she’d been before. That
person had existed with one goal. To be the best. And Roni had no clue how to
combine the person she was now with the person she was then. Especially when
she looked into Lucas’s eyes and saw not only him and his feelings for her, but
the knowledge of his little girl.

The knowledge that Roni had those feelings as well.

She could see herself in their lives. She wanted that.

She shook her head as Lucas came around the piano and reached
for her.

“I’m scared, Lucas.” She held up her hands as if to ward him
off. “I’m not sure what I want. I agreed to play with the band Friday night,
but that’s all I can do right now.”

“What happened?” he whispered. He ignored her feeble
protests and pulled her to his chest until she rested her cheek against the
strong beat of his heart. His skin was warm and comforting beneath hers. “Tell
me,” he pleaded. “Let me help.”

She nodded and snuggled closer. “I will,” she said. “But not
this morning. Mrs. Rylander is coming over and I don’t want …” She let her words
trail off and her shoulders sagged. She didn’t want to be sad today. Not for
her neighbor. But mostly, she just didn’t have the energy right then to rip
herself open. Again.

Lucas pulled back and looked down into her face. “Let’s go
out tonight,” he urged. “After we finish at the convention center. Let me take
you to a late dinner. Maybe a little dancing. I want to give you a fun night.
Then we’ll find a quiet corner, and we’ll talk. I have things I need to tell you,
as well.”

Fear crept around the edges of Roni’s vision. Could she
really tell him how much she’d loved Zoe? That she’d wanted to die in her place
when she’d come home to find her already gone? His warm eyes never left hers
and she knew that she could. And she wanted to.

Like she’d told Andie and Ginger, it was time to move on.
She needed to do what she’d never done before. Grieve. Say her good-byes to the
child who had touched her world for such a short span of time. And then she
needed to see if she could make a new world with Lucas. And his gorgeous
Gracie.

She nodded. “Tomorrow night, though. I told Andie and Ginger
we’d go out tonight. We have a pregnancy to celebrate.”

His gaze zeroed in on her bare stomach.

“Not me, you big goof.” She slapped him on the arm and he
grabbed her by the wrist and pulled both her hands around behind his back.
Suddenly all his nakedness was mashed up with all her nakedness, and all she
could think about was him and her and how neither of them had to be anywhere
for a while.

He put his mouth just below her ear and whispered, “I can
picture you round with my child.”

She sizzled in his arms. She could picture that too.

She sought out his mouth, and his touch scalded her. Before
she could protest, he had her around the waist and was lifting her up to her
countertop. She squealed at the chill of the granite under her bare rear.

“For someone who’s such a clean freak, you’d think my bare
ass on this countertop would bother you,” she complained.

He chuckled. “I’ve already had breakfast.” He put his hands down
on either side of her and his mouth slanted hard across hers for five
heart-stopping seconds. When he pulled back, she wasn’t breathing steady. “But
I will be sure to wipe it down before I eat anything else from your kitchen.”

She reached for him, wanting his mouth back on hers. She
didn’t care about dirty kitchens or anything else at the moment.

He held back. “Were you finished playing?”

“No,” she groaned. “But kiss me, will you?”

“I don’t want to throw off your routine,” he said, then
leaned in and bit her on the shoulder. “Too much.”

“Too bad. You’ve already screwed it all up. It’s not bad
enough you’ve been prancing around naked all morning. Now you’re—”

“I never prance,” he stated flatly. His hands remained flat
on the counter on either side of her, but he pulled back. The look of disgust
on his face had her laughing.

“I didn’t mean ‘prance,’” she said. “Just … you know … you’ve been in here, bothering me with all these yummy muscles and—” She slid
her hands over his hard chest and groaned before lowering one hand to wrap her
fingers around the very thick, large part of him that she liked so much. She
stroked him from the base to his head. His jaw twitched with a clench. “—hardness,”
she finished in a whisper. “That kind of prancing.”

He shook his head. “I don’t prance,” he repeated. “Of any
kind.”

She giggled. Men and their egos.

She still had him in her hand so she stroked again. Up and
down. Up. And down. She lowered her eyes to watch her movements and teased him
by poking her tongue out just a tiny little amount. She let out a throaty laugh
when his chest rumbled with an anguished sound.

“Roni,” he growled.

She rubbed her thumb over the drip of liquid spilling from
him. “Yep?” she chirped.

“Say that I don’t prance.”

Her eyes slowly lifted from where she held him, literally
trapped in her hand, to crawl up and over his heated flesh. Before she moved on
from his chest, she pressed her mouth against him and swirled her touch around
the dark nipple tucked in the middle of the slight patch of hair. He throbbed in
her hand. She stroked him again.

His fingers gripped her hips and tugged her forward,
spreading her legs wide around his hips. She shifted her gaze up past his
strong neck, and over his hard-as-steel chin.

Blue eyes burned into hers.

“Say it,” he demanded.

He tugged again and the head of his penis grazed against the
most feminine part of her. Her hand squeezed him involuntarily before she forced
herself to let go. She put both palms on his chest and thanked her lucky stars
that he’d come into her life. Finally, she felt like she was beginning to live again.
And she hadn’t even known she wasn’t.

“I have never,” she began. She wiggled on the counter a
little and he slipped a bit closer to where she wanted him to be. “
Ever
,”
she stressed. She pressed in to plant another kiss on his chest. As she did, his
swollen head slid just past her waiting lips. He was now positioned right at
her opening. She felt as if her entire body was vibrating, but wasn’t sure if
it was only hers, or Lucas’s, as well. “Seen. You. Prance.”

Lucas pushed forward with her last word and slid deep inside
her in one smooth motion. He closed his mouth over hers and cut off the air
she’d been trying to pull in.

He devoured her.

His hands on her rear held her where he wanted, and he
plunged deep. He pulled back and drove in again. He was a machine.

“Oh God,” she moaned. “It feels so …
Crap
—” Her
words bit off as she stiffened. “You don’t have on a condom,” she breathed out.

He paused, still buried in her, and she saw the indecision
pass across his face.

“
Shit
,” he whispered.

Her legs crossed behind him and held him tight. “Don’t stop
yet,” she pleaded. “In a minute.”

They could try the pull-out method, she supposed. Though
that was the last thing she wanted. She tightened her legs and he looked at her
in disbelief.

“My mother would kill me if I brought home another pregnant girl.”

Dry laughter escaped her. She dropped her forehead to his shoulder.
“It wouldn’t be my first choice either,” she confessed.

Though the idea didn’t scare her like she thought it should.

She lifted her head and looked at Lucas, suddenly wanting to
tell him that she loved him. Because she did. But how in the hell she’d fallen
in love with this man in less than two weeks, she had no idea.

Before she could figure out whether to blurt out the words,
whether to ride him bareback until both of them were raw, or whether to run and
hide and forget she’d ever met him, she noticed something on her deck.

Roni burst out laughing.

“Uh …” Lucas began. He turned her face to his.
“Problem?” he asked.

“Our decision has been made for us,” she said. She nodded
her head to the window and Lucas followed her gaze. “We’ve been caught,” she
said.

Two pale hands were cupped around a scrunched-up wrinkled
face. Pressed to the window on the other side of her piano.

Cheers rang out in one corner of the
crowd as contestant number one, Gus Thompson, and his partner presented their soup
to the judges’ table.

They were at the
senior center on Wednesday afternoon, and though the out-of-town turnout was
down for the day, the numbers had been more than sustained by those who lived
on the island. Hordes of women had come out to see these men cook. They were
now crammed into the senior center, some spilling out onto the wraparound deck.
It was a gorgeous December day, and though a chill was in the air, no one
seemed to mind.

Lucas and the
other remaining five men were working diligently with their partners in the
center’s massive kitchen to get their French onion soup just right. Roni was
just glad they hadn’t been directed to make French
hen
soup since they were down to day three—Three French Hens—of the
contest.

She looked
across her table at Ginger and Andie sitting with her and smiled when Andie pressed
a light touch to her stomach. Roni still couldn’t believe one of them was going
to have a baby.

They were
keeping the secret for her, but given that Andie had spent hours every week
with the seniors on the island before she’d moved away, some of the older generation were giving her a shrewd eye every time she
turned a little green. Apparently her morning sickness was working well into
the afternoon hours.

“You doing okay
over there?” Roni asked her friend.

“I’m fine.”
Andie nodded. “Just … a little …” She put a hand to her mouth as if
holding something back, and finally finished with, “
Ugh
.”

Ginny Whitmore, Andie’s
aunt, squeezed in beside Roni. Ginny’s red curls were tied loosely at the back
of her neck and she wore an armful of bright, jingly bracelets. They clinked
together as she reached an arm across the table to Andie. “I brought you some herbal
tea.”

“Thanks, Aunt
Ginny.” Andie smiled wanly and took the cup. “Where’s Mom?”

Andie had told
her mother and Aunt Ginny about the pregnancy, and surprisingly, her mother had
been a total mother hen the last few days. More so, even,
than Ginny.

“She’s handling
something or another with the contest.” Ginny waved a hand in the air as if she
didn’t have time for the details. Andie’s mother had moved to the island
earlier in the year and had essentially stepped in to cover Andie’s absence
from Seaglass Celebrations. It was a business decision that fit better than
anyone would have ever guessed. Kayla ran the business now, but Andie’s mother
was the epitome of organized. She was turning out to be essential in growing
the company.

From across the
room, another round of cheers went up as contestant twelve finished his soup.
It wasn’t a race to the finish, merely to make the best soup. But these men
didn’t seem to know how to do anything but race. Every competition over the
last week and a half had turned into either a show of brute force or a show of who
was the fastest.

Lucas was
working with a fifty-year-old today, and from the looks of things, the woman
had never seen a kitchen, much less knew what an onion was. They were most
definitely not in the lead for fastest today. Earlier, when Lucas had been at
the grocery store to get their supplies, he’d texted Roni since he knew she
liked to cook. He’d asked about the best onions and cheese to use, and whether
they should make their own croutons or go with the store-bought kind. Baguette
slices were her favorite to use in the soup, but she’d held the information back.

Going outside his
partner for help wasn’t against the rules, but given Roni’s position with the
contest, she’d felt uncomfortable answering him. Instead, she’d texted him back
a couple of links to recipes for making the soup. Anyone could Google the same results,
so she hadn’t felt like she was crossing any lines.

Roni watched him
work, unable—as usual—to take her eyes off his über-hot body, and wondered if
this would be the final day for him. She hoped not. Though granted, if she were
selfish she’d want him kicked out. He had to stick around for the parade on
Saturday no matter what, and if he wasn’t in the competition for the next two
days, then they would have more time to spend together.

But he was
passionate about winning. She saw that every day as he worked with whatever
partner he was given, and through whatever random contest the committee had
thought up. He wanted to take that money home to his charity. Clearly it meant
a lot.

Vanilla Bean and
Chester Brownbomb, two regular attendees at the center, walked by, Vanilla’s arm
wrapped tightly through Chester’s. Vanilla’s blue-tinged hair caught the late-afternoon
sun as she smiled broadly at the other gray-haired women in her midst. Chester
was the catch to be had for that generation, and Vanilla had apparently had him
for going on six months.

“I can’t believe
those two are still together,” Andie murmured. She lifted her cup and took a
sip. “He was such a horndog before I left.”

Ginger leaned in
and whispered, “I think he’s seeing somebody else behind her back.”

“Oh no,” Andie
said.

“From what I can
tell,” Aunt Ginny added, “it isn’t behind her back. It’s Judy Sevier, and
Vanilla knows all about it. They play bridge together on Monday nights and Judy
makes sure Vanilla knows when she’s been with Chester. Vanilla merely pretends
she doesn’t know anything about it so she can go on acting like she has her a
man. Chester even knows that she knows.”

Roni laughed
lightly at the gossip. The senior center was the place to learn things. “Then
why does he put up with it?” she asked.

A pencil-thin
red brow lifted on Aunt Ginny’s face. “Because she makes the
best pot roast on the island, my dear. And Chester is a red-meat man.”

A third round of
cheers slipped into the air for number fifteen, Scott Grainger. This one was given
with far less animation than the others. The audience didn’t like Scott as
much. Yet day after day, he’d managed to bring in the votes. He’d even been in
the top two a couple times.

Roni returned to
Lucas. He still looked nowhere near close to being finished. He did look cute,
though. His hair was standing on end in a couple places, and the elf apron he
wore over the front of his jeans had all manner of smears. There was even a
tiny white streak of flour just above his left eye.

Cooking wasn’t
his forte, apparently. But he did have other talents in the kitchen. Like taking
her clothes off and setting her up on the counter.

She held in a groan
as she remembered Lucas pushing into her that morning. He’d been bare and big,
and so hot she’d about died when she’d remembered they weren’t using a condom.
She also thought about the fact that she hadn’t wanted him to stop.

He had, though.
Rather abruptly.

He’d pulled out
of her and left her house in a fat hurry after Mrs. Rylander had interrupted
them. Roni suspected his opinion of “her lovely neighbor” had changed a bit
when he’d discovered she was also a Peeping Tom.

Roni’s opinion
had teetered as well. But she had invited the woman over, after all. As Mrs.
Rylander had explained when Roni let her in, she was only looking through the
window to see if Roni was fixing breakfast yet or not. Roni hadn’t gone down
the deck stairs to get her when she’d quit playing, and Mrs. Rylander didn’t
want to be late.

Like the woman hadn’t
been aware that Lucas was still at the house. She seemed to know everything
that went on there. But Roni couldn’t hold any hard feelings about someone wanting
to arrive before Lucas left. He was a potent man. Anyone would want to spend
time in his presence if they could. Even eighty-year-old
women.

So she’d
forgiven her neighbor, kissed Lucas before he’d run out the door—while he’d
been carefully
not
looking Mrs.
Rylander in the eye—and then made eggs Benedict and had a lovely time chatting
with her neighbor. Roni hadn’t gotten anything out of her concerning her family
or why no one came to visit her, though. But that hadn’t kept her from trying.

Instead, Mrs.
Rylander had been more interested in seeing the house and what Roni had changed
about it since she’d moved in. So they’d had their breakfast at the kitchen bar,
had taken a slow sweep through the house—ending with the Christmas tree—and then
Mrs. Rylander had offered a quick hug and headed home. Roni had helped her down
the back steps, but Mrs. Rylander had refused any additional help beyond that.

Roni could
understand the need for independence, so she’d backed off. But she had watched
from her living room window, just to be sure she made it home okay. The woman
had grown on Roni over the months, and she’d hate to see anything happen to
her.

Kayla suddenly appeared
at the table at Roni’s side, jerking her back to the present. Andie and Ginger
shifted their attention from watching the men cook to eyeing Kayla’s tight
expression.

She looked back
and forth from Roni to Andie. “I need to talk to you two,” she said.

Seeing that
Andie still sported a nice green hue, Roni scooted over on the bench and patted
the space beside her.

Kayla tucked a
piece of dark hair behind her ear and her toe began to tap. “Can we—”

“Sit,” Andie
said. “Whatever has you worried, we can talk about it here.”

Ginger and Aunt
Ginny would eventually hear about it anyway, and Kayla had to know that. So she
sat. She leaned over the table, putting her face toward Andie’s, and Roni
followed suit, her rear coming up off the bench as she leaned in. With all
three of their heads together, Kayla whispered, “We have a problem.”

Roni almost
laughed. She’d already figured that out from Kayla’s boardlike posture.

“I’m sure we can
work it out,” Andie soothed. “Just tell us what it is.”

Kayla flicked
her gaze toward Roni’s and the line of her mouth went flat. “There’s been an
accusation.” She swallowed and wet her lips before continuing. “There have been
complaints that Roni’s relationship with Lucas has kept him in the contest. She
can afford a lot of votes.” She shrugged. “So the theory is that she’s buying
his way through.”

Not that that
would be against the rules, either. But still …

Roni sat back
with a thunk.

“I just knew
this would cause problems,” Kayla muttered to herself.

Roni trailed her
gaze across the room to watch Lucas once again. She’d worried that her being
with him would impact things, but until today she’d heard of no issues. In the end,
she didn’t care what was said about her. But she did worry about risking his
chances.

She brought her
gaze back to the women and reached for Kayla’s hand, which was now clenched
into a tight fist. “I haven’t participated in the voting since I handed that
man all my money during his tabletop striptease,” she admitted. She had donated
a chunk of cash every day, though. Worry for Lucas wouldn’t make her shortchange
the local charities that were benefitting.

“But you’ve been
seen at the voting booth every day,” Kayla questioned. “With your checkbook.” Large,
panic-riddled hazel eyes surrounded by extra-long lashes blinked at her. Kayla
really did have gorgeous features. She just needed to chill out.

“Not a single
vote,” Roni reiterated.

“But …”
Kayla trailed off. She pursed her mouth and suddenly looked disoriented. “Why
not?”

Because she loved him.
But Roni wasn’t about to blurt that.

Instead, she
grabbed Andie’s cup and took a sip. Bleck. Peppermint tea was not her favorite.
She made a face and handed it back. “In case something like this happened,” she
said. “I’ve been making donations, but not casting a single vote.”

Andie eyed them.
Her coloring wasn’t as green as it had been. “Can we prove it?”

“As long as Owen
tells the truth.” Owen worked in the kitchen at Gin’s. He was barely legal and
had a major crush on Kayla. Kayla had exploited the fact to talk him into
manning the voting booth every afternoon.

“Whew.” Kayla blew
out a breath and the lines on her faced eased. “Of course Owen will tell the
truth. Thank goodness.” She chewed on her lip for a few seconds and a single
line came back across her forehead. She looked at Roni. “It would help settle
things down, though, if you’d just stop seeing him,” she pleaded. “Surely
you’ve had enough.”

A huge grin
splashed across Roni’s face, as well as Andie’s and Ginger’s. No one at that
table would walk away from sleeping with Lucas before they had to. Kayla
blushed to the roots of her hair.

“Okay, fine,”
Kayla muttered. “If it was me, I wouldn’t have had enough either.”

“Not even
close,” Roni clarified. She watched the man in question as he slid the bowls
for the tasting into the oven. “And if I have anything to say about it, I won’t
be done come Saturday, either.”

Her friends’
eyebrows rose. Ginger and Andie couldn’t be too surprised by the fact after
their Sunday-morning conversation, but no doubt the words shocked Kayla to her
toes. No one had seen Roni serious about any of her island flings. And certainly not serious enough to keep seeing him after he
returned home.

Aunt Ginny slid
an arm through Roni’s and squeezed with affection. Andie had spent the summers
at Ginny’s house when they were kids, and both Roni and Ginger had spent hours
each day there, as well. She might as well be an aunt to all of them.

A series of
tones began playing at Roni’s side and she gasped as she made a quick grab for
her Gucci purse. Embarrassment flooded her as she searched inside for the
phone. Everyone was asked every day to keep their phones off or on vibrate
while the contest was playing out. Roni could swear that hers had been silenced.

She got hold of
the thing and yanked it from her purse, only then remembering that she had
Lucas’s phone. They had the same models, and he’d grabbed hers in his hurry out
of her house that morning.