Feel the Heat (Hot In the Kitchen)

chapter Nine


Jack was living in a world of hurt. With each swallow beneath the golden skin at Lili’s throat, a corresponding beat kicked up at every pulse point of his body. With every whimper of approval, he had become unbearably aroused. Lili was so turned on by food, was so turned on by his food, it was driving him insane. When a woman moaned like that and his fingers, tongue, or anything else wasn’t already buried inside her, it got his attention. It got his dick’s attention.

And he was finding it impossible to hide, salivating all over her like a dog tethered six inches from a T-bone. He needed to dial it down. It wasn’t fair to either of them. He’d already cocked up royally when he lost all control and mauled her in that bar, bringing shame on her family and probably some gypsy curse on himself. Now she’d made it clear his advances were as welcome as sand in Blue Point oysters.

Hastily, he targeted a more neutral topic. “So, do you cook yourself?”

She shrugged. “Sometimes, but when you have a bossy master chef around, it’s usually best to let him do his thing.”

“Tony’s a bit of tyrant in the kitchen?”

“Aren’t all head chefs? Their way or the highway?”

“Not me. I’m more the nurturing type.”

One of her eyebrows flew up, and he laughed. “Nah, I’m a tyrant, too, though it’s been a while.”

He wondered how the brigade at Thyme was getting on and felt that twinge of guilt in his gut, a far too common feeling these days. Clarence, his garde-manager who made the best duck-liver pâté Jack had ever tasted. Derry, his poissonier, telling dirty jokes while he filleted a trout in thirty seconds flat. Marguerite, his pâtissier, who’d just had her first child. She’d asked Laurent to be godfather, and while every irreligious bone in Jack’s body should have been fine with that, his heart keened at being passed over for his sous-chef. His kitchen crews were as close to family as any man could ask for, but lately, those relationships had been tested as his life became increasingly centered around the TV shows and all the crap they entailed.

“I miss it,” he said under his breath. He chanced a glance and found Lili staring at him. “I could do with your help,” he tacked on quickly.

“Oh?” She tried to smile but it was as if the effort might do her some injury.

“Show me how a real Italian makes pasta.”

She lasered him with an acute look that said she wasn’t buying what he was shoveling. Any chef worth his salt knew how to make pasta, and she knew that, but her lovely shoulders sank in resignation.

“I’m nowhere near as good as my father, but my Italian genes can probably conjure up some noodle magic.”

Within minutes she had assembled the ingredients—flour, water, salt, an egg—and spellbound, he watched her elegant hands as she expertly worked the dough in a startlingly erotic clench and unclench. The rolling and kneading action also did other things. Wonderful things. It made her body undulate in a sexy wave that plumped her breasts and rocked her hips. He gawked, fantasizing about how her fingers might clench a particular part of his anatomy. The one that was stiffening with every passing second.

Keep it together, idiot.

She took his hand and pressed it down on the dough. He almost had a heart attack.

“This is the consistency you’re looking for.” Her palm covered his knuckles and her slender fingers intertwined with his. “Sort of smooth and elastic. Better to knead too much than too little.”

“Uh-huh.” He had his doubts about the effectiveness of this two-handed strategy, but now wasn’t the time to bring it up. Throwing a sneaky glance sideways, he found her staring at their joined hands, her lips parted, a watercolor pink bloom on her cheeks that was in no way attributable to the heat of the kitchen. So, not that pissed after all.

Her long fingers worked, but the dough was no longer getting the treatment. Their flour-covered hands hovered an inch above the countertop, fingers lacing, unlocking, exploring. Critics on three continents had described his food as sexy and sensual, and in his younger days he had banged more women against refrigerators than he’d had hot dinners, but this was, without a doubt, the most arousing experience he’d ever had in a kitchen.

I love your hands, and as she jerked away, he realized he’d spoken aloud. She wiped her brow, leaving a streak of flour that he longed to attend to.

“That was all you,” he said, annoyed that he couldn’t go ten minutes without running his mouth off about his attraction to her.

A smile threatened, but the blush suffusing her cheeks overcame it and spread across the exposed skin of her neck and, no doubt, to the other parts hidden by her clothing. Parts that pulsed and pinked, parts he wanted to kiss and lick. The nipples now straining against the unholy thinness of her blouse would be a dusky rose, maybe darker in keeping with her Mediterranean coloring. Across the curve of her belly, his mouth would suck while his hands would shape those tweeting globes of perfection. Moving to the southern trail, he would find her pretty pink, succulent sex begging for his tongue to taste and own.

Woman needed her own section in the Michelin guide.

“Jack.”

“Hmm?”

“Are you okay? You look a little dazed.” Her lips parted, revealing more luscious pinkness that would look so good wrapped around his— Dazed. Yep, dazed, confused, head-over-nuts in lust. He shook his head to clear it. If only a quick shake of his dick could have the same effect.

“We should finish this,” he said inadequately.

They returned to the original plan—she kneaded; he stared longingly. It wasn’t a bad plan.

“What do you miss about your restaurant?” she asked.

He hesitated, unsure how to answer because he missed too much. That first thirty minutes of service when he gauged the mood of the brigade and how each piece of the machine was operating that night. The haul-arse-hustle as everything came together like a symphony of gliding motion. Even the nights it all went wrong and the only option was to get wasted at the basement dive on Tenth while the postmortem was argued over well into the wee hours.

“The swearing,” he said. “I miss the swearing.”

Their gazes met. Held. She nodded, and relief that she got it drenched him.

“Kitchen crews tend to be close,” she said. “Like family.”

Yes, exactly like that. For someone who didn’t have much in the way of family after his mother’s death when he was barely in his teens, the camaraderie of the kitchen was the next best thing. Jealousy tweaked him that Lili enjoyed the best of both worlds—the restaurant and her big Italian clan.

“Everyone’s in everyone else’s business, that’s for sure,” he said lightly. “Weddings, kids’ soccer games, who’s banging who. My crew at Thyme is mostly Dominican. I’m telling you, if I never go to another quinceñera, it’ll be too soon.”

She laughed, a rich and robust sound that stroked his spine. “Liar. I bet you love line-dancing with all the teenagers. You probably think you’re as good a dancer as you are a singer.”

“Hell, yeah. I’ve got moves you’ve never seen, DeLuca.”

That sent another flush to her cheeks that looked so good on her he felt alternatively aroused and annoyed. He had never wanted something to happen so much, but he couldn’t expect a woman as grounded as this to turn her life upside down for him. The stinking injustice of it all popped him in the gut.

Her smile was sympathetic, an acknowledgment that they had stretched the boundaries of what was possible. Give it up, dude.

They continued in silence, except for her instructions on how to make the pappardelle noodles as thin as possible using the roller. He’d already started the stockpot of boiling water—it came as no surprise that Tony DeLuca didn’t use a commercial pasta cooker—and after a couple of minutes, Jack drained, then dressed the noodles with a quick waltz of the rabbit ragu around a sauté pan. Together, they carried the Chianti, plates, and a basket of truffle oil focaccia he had whipped up earlier out to one of the booths at front of house and settled in.

He swirled the coated pasta around the fork and slipped it between his lips. The world halted on its axis, then jolted awake as he swallowed. He had died and woken up in Tuscany.

“Oh, baby. This is absolutely amazing,” he said. The pasta ribbons were the perfect size and consistency to pick up the rich, meaty rabbit ragu.

“You didn’t just call me baby,” Lili said.

“Correct, I didn’t. I was talking to the food.”

“You two need to be alone?”

“Maybe. I would have sex with this pasta if I could.”

“With the way your love life is going, that might be your best bet.” She licked her lips, catching some of the sauce from the corner of her mouth. Her hand hovered over the focaccia, but she withdrew breadless.

“There’s plenty more.”

“That’s okay,” she murmured, and something about how she said it sent a quiver of unease through him. Bloody Twitter.

Covertly, he watched her slurping the noodles, all while envying her fork. Damn if it wasn’t sexy. He loved that she’d eaten everything he had fed her today and that she didn’t have a weird relationship with food. So unlike most of the women he dated who were constantly whining about carbs and diets. He was suddenly aware of the irony, that his taste in women usually veered toward the ones who despised the very thing he spent his life’s work on. It gave him a moment’s pause. At the same time, another interesting thought lit up his blood-deprived frontal lobe.

Healthy appetites usually had universal application.

He loved cooking, women, and, since he’d moved to New York eight years ago, the Mets. In that order. And this season, the Mets couldn’t hit for shit. He’d played sexy food games with previous lovers but it had always felt like a fraud, like he was going through the motions because eating involved mouths and tongues, ergo it was a natural complement to sex. But experiencing food with a woman had never felt like this. Sensual and visceral. Right.

Rein. It. In. Eager to get his filthy mind off sex, he shifted his gaze to the restaurant’s exposed brick walls. “These photos are good. Yours?”

She looked around as if noticing them for the first time. “Yeah. I took some of them in Italy. Some of them in the parks around the city.”

“Is this the kind of work you usually do?”

“No, this was just for fun, my take on Cartier-Bresson. Trying to catch people at a decisive moment. I’m more interested in posed portraiture at the moment, specifically the human body as text and narrative.”

“What does that mean?”

She paused, probably trying to think of one-syllable words to explain it to him.

“Nudes, Jack.” She gifted him with a lazy, devastating grin. “I work with my friend Zander. He’s interested in the male form and the interplay of light on muscle, particularly when the body is under stress.”

“Under stress?”

“Yeah, working out, tied up, that kind of thing. The tauter the muscle action, the better for Zander.”

Jesus, only artists could get away with that kind of shit.

“Do you work with men?” The only taut male musculature he wanted to think about Lili seeing was his.

“No, I work strictly with the female body. As interesting as the male form is, a female’s lines are much more beautiful.”

“On that we can agree,” he said, stupidly relieved. “Cara said you’re planning to go to graduate school in New York. Which one?” Real subtle, subconscious.

“I had my eye on Parsons. They have a great photography program, but…” The pause stretched tight.

“You’ve been busy with other things,” he finished for her.

A short nod, a quick blink, and she looked away. Her thoughts echoed loudly, so loudly they made his heart thud against his rib cage.

“Sounds like it’s been a tough year,” he said.

She made a gulping noise. “Tougher for my mom. And for Dad, too. He’s crazy about her and I’m not sure he would have survived if she hadn’t.” She hesitated and rubbed the lip of her wineglass.

“Go on, love.”

She took a deep breath. “It changed him. You’d think he’d be overjoyed, see every day as precious. Don’t get me wrong, he was always difficult before. Bossy, traditional, real old-school Italian, you know, just like the movies, but now he’s even harder. He acts like we’ve only been given a reprieve, like the axe could fall any second.” Her gaze panned over the restaurant, visualizing something beyond the space. “He can’t see what a gift it is to have her with us still.”

His chest tightened to the point of discomfort. He so wanted to touch her, but any overture might be taken the wrong way. And frankly, he wasn’t sure he could trust his body not to want to go there if he laid a finger on her. He was such a dick.

“My mother died when I was twelve and my sister was just two,” he said, drawing a jerky uplift of her chin. “My stepdad didn’t handle it so well.” That was a complete understatement. His mother’s death from cancer had sent his stepfather into a spiral of neglect—of himself, his stepson, and his daughter, before he died a couple of years later with a bottle in his hand.

Liquid pain filled her eyes and she curled those long fingers around his palm. His whole body sighed into her hand’s embrace.

“That must have been awful for you.”

It had been hell but luckily for Jack, his own surly teenage years had kicked in and created other distractions.

“And for your sister. She was so young. What about your own father?”

“He wasn’t around. I met him once but it didn’t go so well.”

“What happened?”

“He wasn’t interested.” The father-son reunion had been a bitter disappointment, a foregone conclusion when reality overtakes hope. He shook off that dark memory and focused on a happier time. The happiest of times. “Not long after my mother died, I found cooking. Or rather it found me.”

Her hand squeezed tighter, so he talked, knowing she liked the sound of his voice. Women dug the accent, for sure.

“I acted out, got into trouble. Fights, stealing, kid stuff. I ended up in a program for juvenile delinquents that taught me to cook. Apprenticeship in Paris at eighteen, my first restaurant at twenty-three, my first restaurant failure at twenty-four…” That netted him a wry smile. “More success, British TV. I opened Thyme on Forty-Seventh, conquered America, and here we are.”

“Wow, just like the Beatles. The American dream fulfilled. And it’s about to get better with your new show.”

He wouldn’t have put it in quite those terms but he could see why she would think that. Money and fame equated to better for most people.

“Nice switch,” he said. “We started out talking about you and I managed to make it all about me.”

“One of my superpowers.”

A throwaway comment, but he suspected there was a lot of truth in there. Putting other people first was how she operated. Last night, she had taken a chance on him and he’d turned her down for his own self-flagellating reasons. Yep, he was a dick squared.

“What about your fairy-tale ending? Your mom’s better, so you can kick-start all your grad school plans again.” The thought of Lili living in the same city as him sent an unreasonable thrill through him. Curiously, it wasn’t sexual…or not only sexual.

She released his hand and his stomach felt weirdly hollow despite being stuffed with pasta and bread.

“I have responsibilities here. Managing this place.”

“Sounds like a lot of work,” he prompted.

“It’s not so bad. The killer is the early morning deliveries. I’m so not a morning person.”

His head shot up so fast he almost got whiplash. “You handle the deliveries?” Most chefs or their sous took care of that. He had a team of people who took care of it.

“Dad’s first mate, Emilio, lives in the suburbs, so it’s difficult for him to make it in that early. We used to split it when I lived at home, but since I moved to the apartment upstairs a couple of months ago, I do it.” There was a noticeable bite in her tone. The bonds of familial obligation had to chafe sometime.

“What else do you do?”

“Scheduling, payroll, ordering, the books.” She smiled. “The usual.”

Despite the brevity of their acquaintance, he recognized a forced smile when he saw one. “That’s a lot for one person.” All this and caring for her mother. Admiration got all mixed up with his libido, which was pretty much how one defined a crush.

“We all help out. It’s a family operation.”

Topic of conversation over. Time to try Door Number Two. “So you’re too busy to date, or maybe you’re just too busy to date me.”

She tilted her head and gave him that look, the one that could cut him down at fifty paces.

“Tell me about the last date you went on,” he said, praying it wasn’t with that moron, Marco.

“The last date I had.” She shook her head, then straightened, girding herself for…he didn’t know what. “You want to hear about my dating adventures?”

“Only if they’re entertaining. And, of course, embarrassing.”

“Oh, I can guarantee that. How about the guy who collapsed in tears when the appetizers came out? The shrimp cocktail reminded him of his ex.”

“Sounds like you dodged a bullet.”

“Then there was the one whose Bentley broke down on Lake Shore Drive on our way to dinner. He asked if I could help change the tire. While he sat in the car, texting. In January.”

His hand curled into a fist on his thigh, but he forced humor into his tone. “So you bring useful skills to a date. Good to know.”

She laughed, the sound more heartbreaking than amused.

“What did you see in not-so-super-Mario?” It spilled out quicker than it took for the thought to form.

“His name’s Marco.”

“Whatever.”

For a moment, he thought she was going to ignore him, but as before, she had evidently decided that humoring him was the best strategy to handle the idiocy.

“It didn’t last long,” she said, which came nowhere close to answering the question, or perhaps it did. A couple of bright spots lit high on her cheekbones. “I was at a point where I needed something, someone, to take my mind off things. It was never supposed to be serious.”

“But…”

“Yeah.” She raised those drown-in-me eyes to meet his. “Under normal circumstances, I wouldn’t usually fall for a guy like that. Mr. Smooth.”

Under normal circumstances. But her mother had been ill and Lili had been what? Looking to lose herself in the arms of some guy? Is that what she’d wanted from him last night? Some measure of sexual oblivion? The comparison may have been unintentional, but it hit him like a cricket bat to the kidneys. There was no way in hell he was like Marco or any of these cabbage heads she’d dated. Idiots who wouldn’t appreciate a beautiful, funny, and sexy-as-all-get-out woman like Lili if she danced a cancan on DeLuca’s bar.

What he wouldn’t give to show Lili his appreciation. Touching her until she moaned like she had when she tasted his food. Discovering those spots on her body that drove her crazy. Making her beg him to plunge inside her and take her someplace she hadn’t even known existed until she’d met him. Jesus, he wanted to shag her senseless, and then hold her so she wouldn’t feel so lost.

So, that had taken what…five minutes to get back to sex?

Kudos, Kilroy.

He’d known this woman for less than thirty-six hours. A thoroughly pleasurable thirty-six hours colored by a brain injury, a rather girly faint, and a hospital visit. The bad publicity, the contract, the upcoming taping, how burned out and dog-tired he felt, it could all go to hell because with her, food tasted better and he wanted to grasp it and hold on for dear life.

They stared at each other for a long, expectant moment. Suddenly, this no-sex kick was shaping up to be the most ridiculous idea he’d ever had. His dick was never meant to be as useless as a white crayon. It was meant for pleasure. It was meant to pleasure her.

Her eyes darkened, like the pupils had swallowed all the blue. “You look weird again. Is it your head? Do you need your pain meds?”

Would the meds help the ache in his jeans, now building to an unbearable level? His hands twitched, ready to slide around her, under her, inside her.

“Are you still in love with Marco?” he bit out, surprised at his own sharpness.

She looked flummoxed. “I don’t see how that’s any of your business. Or relevant.”

“It is my business but you’re right, it’s not relevant. A little time with me, you’ll forget about him.”

An amused smile curved her lips. “I’ve already explained why dating wouldn’t be a good idea.”

“Because we live in different cities? We can figure that out.”

She rolled her eyes, but she did it patiently. He liked that. “Well, that problem has been superseded by a shit storm I’d rather not deal with.”

“I told you it’ll all die down, and everyone thinks we’re together anyway. Why not give us a chance?”

“Clearly you’re not used to taking no for an answer.”

“Can’t say I am. It’s one of my most endearing qualities.”

“Sounds annoying for everyone else.”

The heavy clop of footsteps echoed behind them. Torn between irritation at the interruption and gratitude he was putting an end to the desperation portion of the proceedings, he looked up to find Lili’s cousin, Tad, swaggering in from the kitchen.

“What’s up, kiddos?” He placed a motorcycle helmet on the table and made a move on the focaccia.

Lili swatted at his hand. “Hey, try asking first.”

He scoffed and snatched the largest piece in the basket. A single bite transformed his face into something close to an epileptic fit. Yeah, it was that good. Once recovered, he divided a look between Jack and Lili. “How goes it?”

A slow, knowing smile lifted Lili’s face. “Could be worse.”

“Well, not to worry, la famiglia’s on the case.”

“No, no, no,” Lili said, her smile evaporating as her hands white-knuckled the table’s edge. “You are not to get involved in this.”

“Too late. Gina’s already mobilizing the troops on Facebook and Twitter. And if you want any input on the T-shirt design, you should get on the horn.”

Lili pulled herself up. “I’d better call her.” She lingered, her gaze locked on her cousin, sending wordless messages that only family this close could comprehend.

Irrational jealousy ripped through Jack as Tad enveloped Lili and whispered in her ear. It should be Jack’s job to comfort her, and not just because he was to blame for her current predicament. With a deep exhale, she drew back, splaying her fingers on Tad’s chest.

“Be nice,” she said quietly.

Tad’s face split into a grin. “When am I ever anything else?”

As she swiveled to saunter off, Jack urged himself not to look. Ah, to hell with that. He drank in that va-va-voom body with more curves than a winding Italian road, only stopping when Tad plunked down in the booth and leveled Jack with a stare of steel similar to Tony’s storm front last night.

Busted.

“Don’t hold back,” Jack said.

Tad gave a press-on smile, but it made no impression on those flinty eyes. “She knew what she was doing. At the top of my list is the f*cker who put up that video.”

Jack nodded grimly. “You and me both.”

“But that doesn’t mean I think you’re completely blameless. There’s some rumor going round the Interweb that you’ve got a new show in the hopper.”

“And?”

“And,” Tad dragged out, “after all that Hollyweird shit with your skanky soap opera chick, advertisers might be more open to a guy with a regular girl from the hood, complete with a nice TV-friendly family.” His mouth curled into a sneer. “Not that we’re especially friendly.”

Is that what people thought? More importantly, is that what Lili thought? Evie hadn’t wasted a second. “That’s a rather cynical viewpoint, and that video doesn’t exactly fit the wholesome image so beloved of advertisers.” He adjusted in the booth, the memory of her hand between his legs sending all his blood rushing hellward. Nope, nothing wholesome about that.

Tad smirked. “Maybe. But it’s not going to do you any harm, is it? As long as we’re clear, if I see you gaining an advantage at Lili’s expense, you’ll be moving to the top of my list. She’s too good a person for that.”

“I would never hurt her.” Jesus, all he wanted to do was protect her from all that. Keep her safe from every hater with a camera or a keyboard. Sweat trickled down the back of his neck. He strummed the table and added, “I like her.”

A slow burn of a smile animated Tad’s face, and Jack immediately wanted to bite back his admission.

“Okay,” Tad said, a million things hinted in that single word, all of them annoying as f*ck.

They were bonding. Cute.

“Anyway, I’m not the DeLuca you should be worried about.”

Jack knew it was coming and he almost welcomed the gut check. He needed to be brought down from this cloud he’d been floating on for the last day and a half.

Tad’s grin turned to pity. “You might want to dust off your crotch armor because Tony’s going to have your nads in a vise before the day is over.”