He was a good dancer, and his girl wanted to show him off, share his talent with her friends. He didn’t disappoint her. He cut an easy swathe through the milling crowd and foot traffic, spun Marcie under his arm, around his body and bringing her back, turning her toward Cass as he seamlessly grasped Savannah’s hands, pulling her into a dramatic spin that had her smiling. He took turns with the women, twisting cleverly in and out of embraces with each, to the delight of the nearby crowd. Marcie laughed aloud as a few threw dollars into the circle he’d created, as if they thought they were street buskers.
Ben took a bow and kissed the hand of each woman in a flourish, egging on the crowd. Then he caught Marcie against him with a forceful jerk and kissed her deeply enough to earn them a few more dollars.
When she pulled back, her eyes sparkled more vibrantly than any diamond he could buy her. If he could have one wish in the world, it was that she’d always look at him like that, proving that she was happier in his arms than anywhere else.
“Here,” Cass laughed, handing Dana the collected money. “More to add to your future child’s college fund.”
Which proved Cass, like all of them, knew about Dana’s dilemma. Dana elbowed her, but she tucked the money in her pocket with a smile. “We’ll tell the guys we earned it from that lap dance in Jackson Square.”
When they reached Ingredients, Ben held the door for the women, and Marcie touched his face as she passed him. He bent his head to kiss her palm. “Try not to fall asleep in there,” he teased.
She sniffed. “Cass said there are samples. That should keep me busy.”
Savannah was the last of the women to pass him. “When you get a chance,” Matt’s wife said, “I need your opinion on a better food processor. Our current one grinds up Angelica’s homemade baby food either too grainy or too chunky.”
“One kitchen consultant at your service,” he said.
She moved over the threshold. He didn’t immediately follow her, however, holding the door for a trio of older women who came in behind them. One had a stylish short cut of snow white hair, another was dyed strawberry blond, and the final one had a mix of gray and white strands through her shoulder-length brunette mane. Their relaxed and chatty demeanors, as well as the sturdy sneakers and practical though colorful casual wear, told him they were tourists, likely retirees. That, and the midwestern accents. One of them amused him by giving him a saucy wink. He heard her mutter to her friends as they moved into the store’s interior.
“They sure make them pretty here in NOLA.”
He flashed a grin at her and she chuckled, flapping a you-go-on-now kind of hand at him, before the store inventory had them buzzing off like bees after honey. He did a headcount of where each of his women had gone, and then made his own beeline toward new cookware. Once there, he divided his attention between examining a few pieces and watching Marcie, shaking his head and suppressing a fond sigh.
In a store full of items sure to delight serious cooking aficionados, the proprietors had figured out how to occupy any companions less culinary-minded. Bless her heart, she’d been drawn right to the display of holiday-shaped pastas and the wide array of cookie cutters.
That was all right. His girl had superior investigative skills and could kick the ass of a guy three times her size, even though her fearlessness terrified him. Perhaps because with him she dropped all her defenses and craved the pain he could give her. And in those vulnerable moments, he saw the treasure that was her soul, and just how fragile it was.
Christ, he was standing in the middle of a store mooning over her. Getting a grip on himself, he responded to Cass’s call for assistance on the best Kitchen Aid mixer, and then moved to help Savannah with her food processor issue. Dana was picking up thinly wrapped gourmet chocolates to inhale the different scents, before she dropped her selections into the basket she had over her arm. He snagged one out of it without her noticing, but the crinkle of the thin wrapper gave him away. She turned toward him with a mock scowl. “Which one did you take?”
He bent close and puffed soft breath against her nose. She cocked her head. “The white chocolate truffle.”
“You’re better than a blood hound.” He fished a replacement truffle off the shelf and put it in the basket, leaving his wrapper in there to remind himself to pay for it. Not that he expected the store employees to get their panties in a twist over one chocolate, when he regularly visited and spent big in here. Yeah, he could get far better deals at the bigger stores, but he had the money to support New Orleans small business, and NOLA had been good to him.
He caught up with Rachel at the spices. She was stretching up on her toes to reach one on the top shelf, and as he stepped up to her, she steadied herself on his shoulder, his hand automatically sliding to her hip and waist to give her an extra boost. He cocked an eyebrow at her.
“You know, you can ask the tallest person in your party to retrieve things from upper shelves. That would be me, when Cass isn’t wearing stilettos.”
She chuckled and dropped the spice into her own basket, but bumped her body against his companionably.
The initiation into their inner circle meant he’d had his hands on each woman in an intimate way, helping to arouse and drive her to an unforgettable pinnacle for all of them. Though Dana was the only one he’d fucked, thanks to the threesome she’d fantasized about and Peter had granted, he’d touched their soft skin, smelled their hair, felt their bodies respond to the things he could do to a woman to make her helpless with desire. But just like when Savannah had sat on his lap, sometimes he enjoyed the casual intimacy that their inner circle permitted almost as much as that. Though he was sure he’d lose his man card if he admitted it to anyone.
“Which spice did you say you used on those fabulous green beans you made us at family dinner last month?” Rachel asked.
“This one.” He picked it up and handed it to her to examine. “But you can play with your preferences. The key to them is the cooking.” Moving further down the aisle, he found the bouillon cubes he preferred for fresh vegetables and handed that over. “Put the least amount of water possible in the sauce pan and flavor it with one of those. You have to stay right on top of them so they don’t burn, but it’s when they absorb that bare amount of water and still stay crisp that they turn out the best.”
Rachel was listening intently, but he noticed her gaze strayed past him, caught by something that made a little smile appear on her face. The three matrons were a few feet away and apparently had overheard him. One of them sighed.
“I want to take him home and just watch him cook.”
The one who’d winked at him scoffed. “I want to do more than that with him.”
Rachel chuckled and Ben grinned, nodding courteously their way. “I’m flattered, ladies, but I am taken.” He gestured toward Marcie, engrossed in a choice between Santa-and snowflake-shaped pastas. “That poor girl can’t boil an egg. She needs me.”
The third matron studied Marcie and harrumphed. “That girl doesn’t need to boil an egg. If you fall down on the job, she’ll have a passel of men standing in line to do it for her.”