Kiss the Cook (17 page)

Finally her
sobs tapered off into juicy hiccups. When she finally lifted her tear-streaked face, he cupped her face in his hands.

"I'm sorry," he whispered. "Whatever I said or did to make you feel so bad, I'm sorry. I swear I didn't mean it."

Her damp eyes widened, and to his amazement, she laughed.

Utterly bewildered, he shook his head.
"Now you're
laughing?
Women! If I live to be a hundred, I'll never understand them. Groaning in passion one minute, crying their eyes out the next, then laughing." He eyed her warily. "I think I know what made you groan. Care to fill me in on what made you cry and why you're laughing now?"

She reached out and stroked his face, her eyes filled with tenderness. "You," she whispered.
"You
made me groan by the incredible way you touched me-- like I’ve never been touched before.
You
made me cry-- but they were happy tears. Emotional tears. Because of how you made me feel. So... wanted.

"And
you,"
she continued, "made me laugh because you were so sweet and concerned that you'd done something wrong, when you'd done everything so right. So wonderfully, totally, completely, perfectly right."

Relief swept through him. He brushed back her tangled hair. "I have one request, okay?"

She bumped her pelvis against his. "Only one? Bummer, dude.”

He chuckled. "All right, maybe two. Hmmm. Maybe two dozen. But definitely one."

Tickling her fingers over his butt, she whispered, "Your wish is my command."

Chris sucked in a breath. "No more tears," he said, his concentration deteriorating at an alarming rate. "Next time you're happy, please smile. Don't cry."

"That sounds simple enough. Is that your
only
request?" she asked, arching a single brow.

"Absolutely not." He rolled them until she sat astride him. Fisting his hand in her hair, he dragged her head down and kissed her hard.
"You ready for request number two?" he asked against her lips.

"Are you kidding?" She moved against him and his eyes glazed over. "I can't wait for request number two. Or three or four."

Excellent. He couldn't wait to see what she thought of requests five and six.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Melanie lay back on the rumpled sheets and cov
ered her eyes with a limp forearm. Chris lay next to her, equally breathless.

"I read somewhere," she said when she could speak again, "that every time you make love, you burn about a hundred and fifty calories." Turning her head, she looked at him, sprawled out in satiated, naked male glory. "There's about three thousand calories in a pound. You're the math whiz. How much weight have we lost?"

He didn't move. "About forty-two pounds each."

Melanie would have laughed if she'd had the strength. She peeked at the clock. Seven forty-five A.M. They'd been at it the entire night
.

"Good grief," she said. "I thought making love all night long was something that only happened in the movies."

"Clearly that is a misconception."

"Clearly," she agreed. "Well, one of us is going to have to get up and find us something to eat and drink before we shrivel up and die of starvation and dehydration."

He still didn't move. "Yeah, I guess one of us is going to have to do that."

Her lips twitched at the
husky note of utter exhaustion in his voice. Summoning up what little energy she had left, Melanie rolled onto her side, propped her head up on her palm, and gazed down at her lover.

Her lover.

Those two simple words echoed in her mind, inundating her with a kaleidoscope of feelings she'd never before experienced. She'd spent the night with Chris,
her lover,
doing things she'd never done before. But they hadn't only made love. They'd talked and laughed, explored and discovered. Until last night she'd honestly thought sex consisted of thirty seconds of optional foreplay, several minutes of moaning, followed by eight hours of sleep. Chris had certainly disabused her of
that
notion.

By the time they'd reached "request number three," all Melanie's previous inhibitions had faded into oblivion. The words
shy
and
retiring
no longer resided in her vocabulary.

H
er gaze drifted over him and she heaved a sigh of pure appreciation. Christopher Bishop was seriously, ridiculously sexy. Lying next to her, naked, one arm flung over his eyes, the other upraised to pillow his head, he was most gorgeous man she’d ever seen. And in the lover department-- well, he was definitely a ten. More like an eleven. Okay, he was a 2,435.

Now
here was
a candidate for cloning, she decided, her gaze drifting down, over his muscle-ridged abdomen, lingering momentarily on his relaxed but still impressive manhood, then continuing down over his long, strong legs. Why the hell waste time cloning
sheep
when there were guys like Chris around? What a misuse of medical science.

Her emotions had bubbled to the surface several times during the night, but she'd ruthlessly beaten them back. This was an affair. A temporary arrangement with no regrets. Yet one emotion had refused to be bludgeoned into submission. This man,
her lover,
who was as beautiful on the inside as he was on the outside, had made her feel something she'd never thought she'd feel again toward any man.

Trust.

She trusted him. Completely. How could she not, given the tenderness and care he’d shown her? When their affair ended, she could at least thank him for restoring her faith in the male species. He'd proven beyond all doubt that not all men were like her scumbag ex.

She wanted to reach out and touch him, but his deep, even breathing suggested that he'd
dozed off. Besides, the mundane-- mainly the need for food and drink-- was intruding. Moving carefully so as not to wake him, Melanie scooted to the edge of the bed. She stood and stretched, noting the tingle in muscles she hadn't used in a long time. A warm tenderness throbbed between her legs, and a blush washed over her entire body as images of the previous night flashed through her mind. It amazed her that she still
could
blush. Heaven knew she didn't have any modesty left.

Instead of bothering with the wrinkled, lumpy mess that constituted her clothes, she opened Chris's closet and pulled out one of his dress shirts. Slipping it on, she made her way to the kitchen. The first thing she did was
send Nana a text to let her know she wouldn’t be home until later in the day or maybe even late that night. She’d texted Nana around midnight to let her know she was spending the night at Chris’s place. Nana had responded with a text that read:
Yee-ha! Have fun with the hunk! Don’t you dare rush home!

After sending the text, she o
pened the refrigerator. True to bachelor form, there wasn't a whole lot on the shelves, but at least nothing appeared to fall into the science-experiment category. Humming softly, she set about preparing breakfast, her hands automatically chopping peppers and whisking eggs while her mind and her heart commenced a heated argument with each other.

Well, th
at was certainly a great night,
her mind com
mented.
Great idea, using him for sex. Couldn't have
picked a better lover. Hey, heart! You stayed in the other
room, right'?

Her heart pumped with indignation.
No, I did not
stay in the other room. I was right there, the whole time.
Falling more and more in l--

Whoa! Hold it right there!
Mind interrupted.
Don't even think of saying the “L” word. We had a deal. This is my gig. You 're not supposed to be involved.

Too bad,
said Heart.
I'm involved. Big time.

Mind rolled its eyes.
Oh, that's just great. Well, I sug
gest you UN-involve yourself. Right now. Before you get hurt.
Chris is a great guy, but you know he's not looking to settle
down. He wants to lead the bachelor life. Besides, look what
happened the last time you got all mushy. You broke into a
thousand pieces. Why don't you just take a nice, relaxing
vacation and leave Chris to me?

Heart shook its head.
It's too late.

No!
Mind yelled.
It's never too late. You don't want a
serious relationship anyway. I'm not going to let you ruin
my fun! Go away!

I wish I could,
said Heart.
Dear God, I wish I could.

Pull yourself together and just do it.

I'll try.

‘
Atta girl.

Strong arms encircled her waist from behind, jerking her from her reverie.

"It sure smells good in here," Chris said, nuzzling the back of her neck with warm lips. "Whatcha' cookin'?"

A parade of tingles marched down her spine.
"Your cupboard was sort of bare-- "

"I
am
a bachelor, you know," he broke in, kissing the sensitive skin behind her ear.

Mind stuck out its tongue at H
eart.
Nah, nah, told ya.

Melanie shook her head to shut M
ind up. "What we have here is my version of
huevos rancheros."

"Wow. I love it when you talk French."

Melanie chuckled. "That was Spanish."

He turned her around and laid one of those toe-curling, knee-weakening, slow, deep kisses on her.

"How long before breakfast is ready?" he asked, nibbling on her bottom lip.

"Why?"

He rubbed himself against her and Melanie realized he was naked. And fully aroused.

"Why do you think?" he asked.

Laughter bubbled up in her throat. "You can't be serious.”

He leaned back and looked pointedly downward. "Do I look like I'm joking?" He started unbuttoning her shirt.

Melanie peeked down and gulped. Holy smokes. He
was
serious. "I thought you were hungry."

The shirt hit the floor. He bent his head and fastened his lips on her nipple. "I'm starved," he murmured.

The spatula slipped from Melanie's fingers and clattered on the floor. She somehow had the presence of mind to reach behind her and turn down the stove before he scooped her up and carried her back to the bedroom and deposited her on the rumpled sheets where she landed with a bounce.

"I woke up and you were gone," he said, kneeling between her splayed thighs. He ran a single finger between her breasts down to her navel. "I missed you."

Melanie watched him, her heart speeding up as his finger continued on its lazy journey and played with the sensitive skin of her inner thighs.

"I thought you wanted breakfast," she murmured, hot desire
shooting to her every nerve ending.

"I do. Later." He
leaned forward to kiss her stomach then dragged his tongue downward. "Right now I want you."

"Oh, well, all right," Melanie managed to say, her eyes drifting closed when he caressed the moist, swollen flesh between her legs
with his very talented tongue. "If you insist."

~~~

Thirty minutes later, once again clad in Chris's dress shirt, Melanie poked at the congealed mess in the frying pan.

"How do you like your eggs?" she called. "Black or brown?"

Chris walked into the kitchen, dressed in a clean T-shirt, a pair of khaki shorts and Topsiders. He looked over her shoulder and whistled.

"Yuck," he said, shaking his head. "That looks like stuff you scrape off tires. Good thing I'm heading out to grab us some grub."

Melanie cocked a brow at him. "This would have been a perfectly respectable breakfast if certain people hadn't distracted the cook."

He patted
her behind. "Couldn't help it. The cook was mighty distracting."

She turned to face him.
Dark stubble shaded his jaw, and his hair looked as if someone-- namely her-- had been running her fingers through it. He looked deliciously rumpled, as if he'd just rolled out of bed, which, of course, was precisely the case.

"I think," she said, wrapping her arms around his neck, "that
you
are just easily distracted."

"Funny thing is, I'm usually not
."

"Could have fooled me. As far as I can tell, you get aroused by a strong breeze. Not that I'm complaining.
”

A frown bunched between his brows.
"I get the impression that you think what happened between us last night is a normal and frequent occurrence for me."

"Isn't it?" Melanie shook her head in disbelief at her own question. She held up her hands. "No, never mind. I don't want to know. It's none of my business anyway."

"None of your business?" he repeated, an incredulous note in his tone. "Oh, boy. Listen, we are going to talk about this. But later. I'm in serious need of sustenance. Why don't you put on some coffee while I'm gone." He dropped a kiss on her nose. "I'll be right back."

"I'll be right here."

A slow smile curved his lips. "Then it seems I have you right where I want you." He grabbed his keys and left, whistling slightly off key.

Standing in his kitchen, Melanie heard the front door click shut.

He was gone.

But definitely not forgotten.

~~~

When
Chris walked into his condo half an hour later, he was greeted by the heady aroma of fresh brewed coffee, the soft sounds of Jack Johnson on the stereo, and the woman of his dreams wearing his favorite dress shirt-- and he was pretty sure nothing else, setting his table.

He stood in the archway
leading into his kitchen, feasting his eyes on the sight of Melanie giving his counter a swipe with a sponge. From the top of her curly head to her bare feet, she looked disheveled and well loved.

And by God, that's what she was.

Well loved.

She satisfied him more completely, fulfilled him more absolutely than any woman ever had.
More than he’d believed was even possible.

The thing that surprised him was how calm he felt about loving her.
Surely after waiting so long for his freedom he should be panicked-- find himself in a frenzy to escape and cling to his bachelorhood. But no. Even though they hadn’t known each other that long, didn’t know every detail about each other, his heart knew she was The One. The One he wanted to spend his life with, wake up next to every morning, live with, love with, laugh with, and share everything with. His plan hadn't been to find The One for another few years, but what the hell, he was flexible.

Now all he had to do was convince
her.

She was understandably gun-shy of relationships, and he didn't want to scare her off. Yet, his pesky inner voice yelled that persuading her to continue their relationship
so she could realize he was her The One would be damned hard to do if he screwed up her chances of getting her loan. And unfortunately he knew information that would most likely do that very thing. If he told what he knew.