by Raine Miller
I curled my fingers into the material of his T-shirt, flicking my tongue out to probe at the seam of his lips. My pulse leapt when he opened his mouth to let me inside, then I put my hands on either side of his face and deepened the kiss.
A lovely haze descended over me. He tasted like butter, his breath hot against my lips. My heartbeat continued to throb, every beat pulsing heat through my veins. After a long moment of kissing, I paused to stare into his lust-filled eyes.
“Don’t you want to touch me?” I whispered.
“More than I want to breathe.”
“I promise I won’t freak out this time.”
He exhaled hard. “I promise I won’t act like an ass if you do.”
“You didn’t. I’m just not used to this.” I tightened my hand over his. “But I really liked the way you touched me.”
“One day I’m going to touch you in a thousand different ways and show you how to touch me.” Dean slid his hand around the back of my neck. “But right now we’re just going to make out.”
He pulled me closer, easing back so I could stretch out on top of him. I loved the coiled strength of his body beneath mine, the way our chests pressed together and our breath moved in tandem. He drew my head to his and kissed me, the pressure slow and exquisitely easy.
The man knew how to kiss. He rubbed his lower lip against mine, slid his mouth down to nibble at my neck, flicked his tongue out to lick the corners of my lips. His hands spread over the back of my head, angling our mouths together. My eyes drifted closed.
Heat and pleasure billowed through me. I sank into the sensations, unafraid, tunneling my hands into his hair to hold him against me. Our kisses went from soft and gentle to open-mouthed and hot, then back to soft and gentle again. I lost track of time as my heart beat in time to the instinctive rhythm of our kissing, the gentle easing in and pulling back, like waves rippling the glass-smooth surface of a lake.
Dean pressed his mouth to my cheek, trailing a path to my ear where his breath tickled the strands of hair against my neck. He lifted his head to look at me, his eyes filled with both desire and affection, and stroked his hands down to rub my back.
“Okay?” he asked.
“Okay,” I breathed.
His fingers flexed against my waist as our lips met again. I closed my teeth gently over his lower lip, eliciting a groan from deep in his throat. Emboldened, I spread my hands over his chest. The heat of his body burned through his shirt and up my arms. His heartbeat pounded against my palm.
Through the cloud of passion, I was dimly aware of his erection pressing against my leg, and my own body softened in response. A coil of urgency tightened through me, but even then I knew we wouldn’t go any farther than this heart-melting, delicious kissing.
And we didn’t. I don’t know how long it lasted, but somehow it felt as if we had never been apart. We broke the rhythm at the same time, both lifting our heads to stare at each other.
The sight of him—his hot, dark eyes, sharp features flushed with heat, rumpled hair—warmed my blood all over again. He pushed his hands through my hair, easing the loose strands away from my face.
Then he pressed the back of my head gently, urging me to rest against his chest. He brushed his lips across my forehead. I relaxed on top of him, listening to the steady sound of his heartbeat.
He stroked his palms up and down my back as our breathing slowed. Lulled by the sensations, I drifted into a smooth, deep sleep, one unbroken by sharp-edged dreams.
And when dawn appeared through a crack in the sky, I woke with a feeling of safety I had never before known.
We’d changed positions on the sofa during the night, and now the length of Dean’s body pressed against my back. His chest moved steadily in the rhythm of sleep. His breath warmed my skin. One of his arms was flung around my waist, and his hand curled loosely around my wrist.
A wave of pleasure surged beneath my heart. I lay still for a long moment, folded into the arms of this warm, strong man who was willing to bear the weight of my confessions. A man who admired my resolve and still wanted to protect me. A man who saw beauty in me.
Behind me, he shifted, his stubble scraping my neck, his voice a whisper. The crack in the sky opened wider, filling with light the color of apricots.
Part II
CHAPTER 10
Olivia
September 4
There are nine of us in the cooking class, each standing behind a long wooden table with a small range and oven at each station, and a sink in between. The classroom is at the back of Epicurean, a gourmet kitchen cookware and cutlery store, and a wall of windows looks out onto the floor—gleaming stainless steel pans, racks of dishes, colorful ovenware, tablecloths, and linen napkins.
I open my satchel and remove my notebook, then check to make sure I brought at least three pens. You know, a backup in case one runs out of ink and a spare in case my station neighbor needs a loan.
I tighten my hair in its ponytail, then line up my notepad and pen beside the range just as my cell phone rings.
“Are you still at the library?” Dean asks.
“My cooking class starts at seven. I told you yesterday.”
“Oh. Sorry, I forgot.”
Irritation prickles my skin. “Yeah, well, there’s a chicken pot-pie warm in the oven for you.”
I snap the phone shut with an audible click, which catches the attention of the woman at the station beside me. She gives me a sympathetic smile.
“It started out as a frozen pot-pie,” I say, dropping the phone back into my bag. “Obviously the reason I’m here.”
“Welcome, everyone.” A blond-haired man wearing a white chef’s jacket steps up to the instructor’s station at the front of the room. “I’m Chef Tyler Wilkes, owner and executive chef of the restaurant Julienne over in Forest Grove. Natalie invited me to teach this class for the next few months, and I hope I can help you learn some exciting new cooking techniques.”
At this point, I’d be happy to learn any cooking technique, whether or not it’s exciting.
Chef Tyler Wilkes drones on about a bunch of his accomplishments—four-star this, five-star that, an award here, another award there—then he wants us to introduce ourselves and tell everyone our reasons for taking his class.
Charlotte Dillard, my station neighbor, just returned from a culinary tour of France and is anxious to recreate some of the dishes she enjoyed. Laura Gomez has had a lifelong love of food and is considering leaving her insurance job to pursue cooking as a career. George Hayes, the one man in the group, recently retired and is finally getting around to trying new things. Susan Chapman wants to learn more about preparing local and organic ingredients to provide healthy, delicious meals for her family.
My introduction couldn’t be more straightforward.
“I’m Olivia West. Everyone calls me Liv. I’m taking the class because I can’t cook.”
Tyler Wilkes smiles at me from behind his station. Even though I’m in the third row, I’m a little dazzled by the effect of brightness.
He’s cute, I think in the abstract way I think puppies and stuffed animals are cute.
“Why don’t you think you can cook, Liv?” he asks.
“Uh… I don’t think I can’t. I know I can’t.”
“Why?” he persists.
I have no idea what he’s talking about. The rest of the class is looking at me, as if expecting some grand philosophical answer like, “Well, I wasn’t really nourished as a child, so I never understood what…”
Oh, shit.
My fingers curl on the edges of the counter. For a second, I feel blindsided.
“Liv?” Tyler Wilkes presses.
“Er, I guess… I mean, I’ve never done much of it. Cooking, that is. In my life.” My face is starting to get hot.
Tyler Wilkes smiles again and moves on to talking about what to expect from this class (good cooking techniques, the basics of classic French cuisine, learning to cook individual dishes, then the gran
d finale of preparing an entire menu), then he reviews all the implements at our stations.
I’m half-listening, taking notes mechanically. My mind fills with unwanted memories of my culinary past—greasy, fast-food hamburgers; dinners of saltines and fried eggs, scrounging in a stranger’s pantry for a can of beans.
Suddenly I want Dean so badly my chest aches. I want to feel his arms tight around me; I want to press my face against his neck.
I force my attention back to the front of the room. Tyler Wilkes is demonstrating, with lightning-fast speed, how to chop carrots, celery, and onions for something called a mirepoix, a word he writes on the whiteboard behind him.
Then he tells us all to get started. I grab a carrot, and the sound of knives thwacking against wood fills the room as we all start chopping. Tyler Wilkes walks around observing everyone’s “knife technique.”
I concentrate, slicing the carrot down the middle, then into neat little cubes. Tyler Wilkes pauses beside my station neighbor Charlotte and praises the speed and evenness of her carrot dicing.
“Thank you, Chef,” she replies, glowing.
“How are you doing, Liv?” He stops in front of my station.
“All right… uh, Chef.” That sounds weird.
“Tyler,” he says, a smile in his voice.
I glance at him. He’s not much taller than I am, not much older, and he has a pleasant, open face and bright blue eyes.
He watches my chopping for a minute. “Too tight.”
“Excuse me?”
“You’re holding the knife too tightly. These three fingers should be loose around the handle.”
He reaches out and puts his hand over mine to ease my fingers from the handle. I jerk away so fast the knife clatters to the cutting board.
“S-sorry.” I wipe my palms on my apron. A blush crawls over my neck.
Tyler holds up his hands and steps back.
“Relax,” he says, nodding toward the knife.
I don’t relax at all, but I manage to get my mirepoix completed to Tyler’s satisfaction, though he gives me a lecture about the value of uniform dicing. Then he sends us all off with our mirepoix in take-out containers, a packet of information about knife techniques, and instructions to practice.
When I get home, Dean is watching the news, his long body stretched out on the sofa and his feet on the coffee table. Relief almost makes my knees weak. I drop my satchel and container on the kitchen table, then cross to him.
I burrow beside him. He settles his arm heavily around my shoulders, pulling me closer. He presses his lips against my hair.
“You smell like an onion,” he remarks.
“I chopped two of them. I mean, I diced them.”
“Nice. Makes me want onion rings.”
“Maybe I’ll make you some before this class is over.”
“That’s my girl.” He glances at me. “How’d it go?”
“Okay, I guess. Makes me realize how much I don’t know about cooking.”
“So that’s why you’re taking the class, right?”
I nod, thinking of my fellow students and their reasons for wanting to learn how to cook. I think of Tyler Wilkes, who has already accomplished so much.
How? Why? What gave him a dream to pursue? And why do some people—like my mother, who had such a promising start—end up with nothing?
Still troubled, I move away from Dean and go to take a shower and change into my nightgown. I crawl into bed and try to lose myself in a novel, but the words swim in front of my eyes.
The bedroom door opens. Dean approaches me and brushes his hand over my hair. Some of my unease dissipates. He knows.
I grasp the front of his shirt. “Give me a kiss, professor.”
He slides his hand around to the back of my neck and lowers his head. His mouth meets mine in the warm, seamless way that has always soothed my prickly emotions.
A ripple of need courses between us. I shift as he puts his hands on either side of my face to angle his lips more securely against mine. Our tongues touch, and I feel the pulse of urgency flare to life in his blood.
He moves away from me and starts to unfasten his shirt. My heartrate increases as I watch him push it off his muscular chest and shoulders. He lowers his hands to the button-fly of his jeans where there is already a tantalizing swell.
He pushes his jeans halfway down his hips. I stare at the line of hair arrowing from his flat belly beneath the waistband of his boxers. He climbs onto the bed. Anticipation billows through me. My book falls to the floor.
I rise onto my knees to meet him and slip my hands into the open waistband of his jeans. His skin is warm. Just brushing my fingers against his smooth erection sends a heated charge through my veins.
He grabs a fistful of my nightgown. “Take this off.”
I can’t help smiling. Sometimes he loves the way I look in the long, snow-white gown (I suspect it makes him think of something a medieval virginal maid would wear, though Professor West would never admit to having such a fantasy). Other times he complains that the voluminous material just gets in the way.
I’m happy to shuck the thing off, since I’m starting to get hot. I drop it onto the floor beside the bed and press my body full against his. He lowers his head to kiss me as his palms come up to massage my breasts. He has an expert touch, his thumbs circling my stiff nipples as his fingers slide into the crevices beneath the heavy globes.
Sparks shoot through my body, down to my sex. I moan against his mouth and struggle to shove his jeans the rest of the way off. He helps, and then we’re both naked and his cock is pushing against my belly as his hand slips between my thighs.
The simmer of tension becomes a full boil. I start to squirm against his hand, and then I’m not thinking about anything else but his touch and the anticipation of his hardness filling me.
I grasp his shaft and stroke it, thrilled by the pulsing sensation beneath my palm, by his groan of pleasure. He thrusts into my fist. I slide my thumb over the hard knob of his cock and sense his own coiled desire unleashing. At this rate, we could both come by stroking alone, but then Dean eases me onto my back and plants both hands on either side of my head.
I know what he wants, and I’m glad. I love the missionary position. I love watching Dean’s face as he fucks me, the shifting muscles beneath his taut skin. And I love watching my own body roll beneath his, my breasts jostling in rhythm to his thrusts.
His eyes are dark, almost black. His breath is hot against my neck. After putting on a condom, he pushes his knee between my thighs.
“Open for me, Liv.”
I spread my legs wider, feeling the head of his cock nudge at me. Trembling, I draw in a sharp breath and clutch his shoulders. He moves his hand between us and positions himself, then thrusts hard. I cry out, aware of some unidentifiable emotion coursing through me alongside the mounting urgency.
Dean pushes his hands beneath my damp thighs, spreading me farther apart as his pumping grows deeper, stronger. It’s delicious, this heavy stroking, the fullness firing my blood. I shift and writhe, matching his thrusts as best I can as the pleasure becomes all-consuming.
Sweat trickles down my neck, between my breasts. This is exactly what I need, this feeling of being taken, overwhelmed by the crackling heat of our union. I lift my legs, my knees hugging Dean’s hips, and sink into the sensations.
The tension mounts to breaking point. Stars explode. I cry out again, digging my fingernails into his back when rapture spills through my veins. Before the vibrations slow, I grip his biceps.
“Harder,” I whisper, wanting this to go on forever. “Fuck me harder…”
He plunges deep, so deep my body jerks with the impact, and then he slides out and does it again. I can hardly believe it, but I’m still convulsing around him, and then his mouth descends on mine—open, wet, hot. I grip him tighter as he crests the wave and comes down the other side.
When he slows to a stop, he eases aside and takes me with him so I’m half-lying o
n top of him. I press my hand against his chest and feel the strong rhythm of his heartbeat.
We’re quiet for a while. The tightness in my body has loosened, but I can still feel the rustle of disquiet, the anxiety evoked by shadows of the past.
I swipe at my damp forehead and tuck myself closer to Dean. “I didn’t even ask you about your day.”
He wraps a lock of my hair around his finger. “University business as usual.”
“The semester’s going well?”
“So far, so good. Got a journal article to edit about food served at Anglo-Saxon feasts.”
“Like baked eel and parsnip pie?”
He gives me a puzzled look. I smile.
“Remember that first time I went to your place for dinner?” I ask. “You told me we were having medieval food, and for a second I might have believed you. But you’d really gotten take-out manicotti from an Italian restaurant.”
“I did?”
“You don’t remember?”
“I just remember trying not to stare at you too much.”
“I liked it when you stared at me.” I rub my cheek against his shoulder. “I still do.”
“Even though I offered you take-out manicotti on our second date?”
“Best manicotti I’ve ever had.” I think about all the food-related things Tyler Wilkes talked about earlier this evening. “You know, by the end of this cooking class, I’m supposed to be able to make an entire menu of French cuisine classics.”
“You will.” Dean pats my hip. “Learning anything is a process, right? Julia Child wasn’t born knowing how to make coq au vin.”
I give a muffled laugh. “I don’t even know what that is.”
“Chicken cooked in red wine. You’ve never had coq au vin?”
I shake my head.
“That French restaurant over on Dandelion must have it on their menu,” Dean says. “I’ll take you there for dinner this weekend. Get you inspired.”
“Thanks, but I’m working nights at the bookstore both Friday and Saturday.”
He frowns. “Nights?”
“Allie’s going to keep the store open until midnight on weekends,” I explain. “She wants to catch some of the post-movie and theater traffic.”
