Heat in the Kitchen

by Sarah Fredricks

  Ella tipped her head so her lips brushed against his. Her breathing became faster as she anticipated his touch. At this moment, the part of her that had loved him for years was screaming at her to feel, just this once, what it was like to be kissed by Matt Adams.

  His lips danced over hers as she closed her eyes. It was the softest of caresses but it felt like home. Ella moaned into it and parted her lips in invitation for more. Matt deepened the kiss as Ella responded. Instinctively, she matched his response as their tongues performed the age old ritual of dancing, of tasting.

  The taste of her was intoxicating. He didn't remember any other kiss feeling this good. He couldn't get enough as he stood there and pulled her closer until he held her flush against his naked chest. His pulsing shaft could leave her in no doubt what he wanted.

  Ella had been drowning in the sensation of his touch, of his lips on hers, of the seductive invasion of his tongue. But the touch of his body, the feel of his arousal shocked her out of it and she froze.

  'No!' She pushed away from him, her breathing laboured.

  Matt's eyes flew open and he stared at her, struggling to get his own breathing under control. 'What? Ella, you were into that as much as I was.' He searched her face for an answer.

  Ella turned away from him, flustered. 'I'm sorry. That shouldn't have happened.'

  Matt looked at her, confused. 'I gave you the chance to stop it. You didn't. What's going on here?'

  'I… I'm sorry. I can't do this. It's not you, it's me.'

  Matt ran his hand through his hair in exasperation. 'I never thought for a minute it was me sweetheart!'

  Ella turned back sharply. The look of pain on her face made him contrite. 'I apologise. That was out of order.'

  Matt reached out for her and pulled her into his arms. Ella froze. 'Hey, it's just a cuddle. They always make us feel better in our family.'

  Ella relaxed a little and let him put his arms round her.

  Matt rested his chin on top of her head. 'I am so confused where you're concerned. One minute I'm kissing you senseless and wanting to drive myself into you over and over until we're both satisfied….' Ella's tenseness at that wasn't lost on him. '….and the next minute I just want to comfort you and tell you everything will be all right. I don't know how many times Zander and I did this with the girls. Still do when one of them needs comforting.'

  'I'm not your sister.' Ella muttered into his chest, which was still bare. She was beginning to get hot again.

  'Thank god for that. I've never had lustful thoughts about my sisters.' Matt had been absentmindedly rubbing Ella's back but now noticed how much more relaxed she seemed - felt a shift in her body and sensed her renewed awareness of them. He gently created space between them before she could feel his response.

  'I'm tempted to talk about what's going on here, but it's two in the morning and we both need some sleep.'

  He gave her a gentle kiss on her cheek and turned her towards the door. With softness in his voice he told her to go to bed. 'Tomorrow's a busy day.'

  Chapter 3

  Ella became aware of two things simultaneously - the smell of coffee and the throbbing of her fingers. She opened her eyes and frowned, trying to remember where she was.

  'Morning sleepyhead!'

  She groaned and closed her eyes again.

  'Not a morning person then?' Matt had misunderstood. There was nothing wrong with mornings. It was just that this morning, everything from the night before came flooding back. In technicolour.

  'What are you doing here?'

  'Um, I live here?'

  Ella opened her eyes and glared at him. 'I know that. I mean, what are you doing in this room?'

  'Ah! I've brought you a cup of coffee. Lots of milk right? I thought you'd want to be getting up. It's half past nine.'

  Ella shot up. 'What! Why didn't you wake me earlier? I've got to get home. I've got things to do….' Ella came to a halt and followed Matt's gaze. She blushed as she realised the tee-shirt was taut across her body and the outline of her breasts could clearly be seen through the thin material. Instinctively she grabbed the quilt and pulled it up, even though she was perfectly decent.

  She then realised he was fully dressed and well groomed whilst she was in bed with sleep filled eyes and bed head. She sunk right down into the bed and pulled the quilt over her head.

  'Go away.'

  Matt laughed. 'Sorry. Guess I no longer bracket you with my sisters then! I've definitely never done that with them.'

  'That didn't take you long.' She wished he'd go away, it was hot under the quilt.

  'Mmm, must have been that kiss that did it.'

  Ella stuck her fingers in her ears. 'Don't remind me! Go away!'

  Matt frowned at her response. He'd never known a woman react as Ella did. If he had time, he'd get her to talk about it. But there was too much to do, and, as he'd discovered in bringing up his sisters, talking through a quilt was never very successful.

  'I'll er, leave you to it. Drink your coffee. When you're ready I'll check your hand and drive you home if you can't manage.'

  Once she heard the door close, she threw off the quilt and sat up, mortified that Matt had seen her in bed. Her embarrassment knew no bounds as her brain whizzed through their meeting, their working together, her wayward thoughts, her state of undress and THAT kiss. Oh god, that kiss! Ella buried her head in her hands and felt tears sting her eyes. She'd steered clear of men - had never been turned on by any of them; had fended off advances from other musicians; had naively believed that her mother's boyfriend had killed off sexual desire before she'd ever been old enough to experience it. Despite what she'd always felt for Matt, she'd believed it would forever be her fantasy and that if they ever met he was unlikely to show an interest in her. In a million years, she could never have prepared herself for the reality of meeting him, or for him apparently seeing her as his next conquest.

  She threw her head back against the pillows, and mentally shut everything away in a box. A technique she'd learnt at a young age to protect herself from anguish. She wiped away the single tear that had dared to escape and left the bed.

  *

  Matt looked up from the kitchen table where he'd been drinking his coffee as Ella came into the room. He looked her up and down, trying to work out if his tee-shirt over last night's outfit was a good look or not. It was certainly more respectable than the trashy look that he suspected was as far removed from the real Ella as the moon was from the sun. He refused to dwell on what the boots screamed out to him. His focus rested on her hair as he grinned at her.

  'Mmm, that two-tone hair colour suits you!'

  Ella gave him a crushing look. Rather than wash out, the purple hair dye had attached itself firmly to every strand and turned her hair a pale lavender. There was still a large blob of purple though where she hadn't been able to wash it properly with her one good hand.

  Ignoring the look, he continued. 'You've obviously managed to have a shower anyway. How's the hand?'

  Ella held it out in front of her. 'A lot better than last night but it's sore when I put any pressure on it. The two worst affected fingers are stiff too. It was awkward in the shower - I couldn't wash my hair properly.'

  'So I see.' Matt was struggling not to burst out laughing.

  'I wondered if - if you could help me wash it again? To see if more of the dye will come out.'

  Matt's grin became wolfish. 'In the shower? It would be my….'

  'No!' Ella was horrified at the idea. 'It doesn't matter. I'll just go home.' She looked dejected as she turned away.

  'Wait! I want to check your hand before you go. And I'll help wash your hair.' Ella turned round sharply. 'Over the sink.' Matt laughed as he pointed to the large sink by the window.

  As he washed her hair, he filled her in on the activity over in the kitchen. The two chefs had arrived and were creating the sandwiches using the bread Matt had made the night before. They were filling the mini brioche rolls with salmon and waterc
ress and a dill sauce, using the tomato bread with roast vegetables, adding cured ham with Batavian lettuce leaves and homegrown tomatoes to the poppy seed bread and making a selection of more traditional sandwiches using cheese, egg, cold meats and a mixture of brown and white loaves. The miniature round rolls he'd created would be topped with mini homemade spicy steak burgers cooked at the venue. He'd also asked the chefs to finish the desserts, prepare miniature jacket potatoes and decorate the wedding cake.

  'Wedding cake?'

  'I saw the fruit cakes in the shopping. I presumed they were for the cake. Tacky! I made a couple of round cakes last night.'

  'Oh, yeah, I remember seeing those. I must have been too tired for them to register. Thank you.'

  'I noticed a couple of ribbons as well which I presumed are to match the bride's colour choice.'

  'I'm not sure Penny has a colour choice, she's pregnant and just wanted to get married before the pregnancy showed. With her dad being out of work and Penny needing to save for the baby, she's done everything on a very tight shoestring. Her biggest expense has been the buffet and you know how much she's paying for that.'

  'Well, I've gone with the green and yellow and created sugar paste flowers that will cascade down from the top tier to the table. I've asked a couple of my creative team to select some greenery and flowers from the grounds and greenhouses to decorate the tables.'

  Ella went to stand up. Matt gently pushed her head back down. 'Not finished. Stay down.'

  Ella continued to speak into the sink, feeling more and more ridiculous the longer she was down. 'What greenhouses? What are you doing?'

  'Decorating the hall. Our company, 'Two's Company', has its own gardens and greenhouses on this Estate. We grow a lot of our own vegetables as well as flowers and greenery that we use for decorating venues.'

  'Oh,' Ella really had no idea the extent of the Duval-Adams' business. She knew Matt personally catered high profile events and did TV shows. She also knew there were a few restaurants around the world but hadn't given any thought to what else the business would entail. 'It sounds like everything's going to be lovely.'

  'I wouldn't deliver anything less. And I hope your friend thinks it's a bit more than 'lovely'!'

  'Have you ever been told you've got a big head?'

  Matt laughed. 'Lots of times. But I'm just confident in what my team and I deliver. I wouldn't be where I am now if I wasn't.'

  'Hmm, suppose. Some of the ingredients for what you're doing weren't there last night….'

  'No, I've been out this morning to get them.'

  Ella was surprised. 'You must have been up early.'

  'Six thirty. I'm always up early, no matter what time I get to bed. Don't need a lot of sleep I guess. You have a lot of hair by the way.' Matt felt how silky soft the long curls were between his fingers and tried not to imagine her hair spread out across his pillow.

  He shifted his stance and continued. 'Anyway, I got all the supplies, made the sugar paste flowers for the cake, went for a swim, briefed the chefs and here we are. I'll need to go over later to check progress and then supervise setting up at the venue, but I've got a couple of hours to spare, so if you need running home, I'll take you.'

  Ella blew out a breath, ignoring his comment about her hair. 'It's exhausting just listening to all that. Do you ever just relax?' Ella tried to get up again. It was just too weird having this conversation when all she could see was the water running down the drain. Matt pushed her head down again as he gave her hair a final rinse and squeezed the excess water out.

  'Yeah, sometimes. Last night was the first chance I'd had though in a couple of weeks and the last week was a pretty rubbish one. That's why I wasn't very welcoming. One of the things that relaxes me is playing with food and creating new dishes.' He paused. 'You thwarted my plans.'

  'Sorry.'

  'I'm over it. Right, hold the towel in place while I clear up.'

  Ella stood up and instinctively put both hands up. 'Ow. Ooh, that's sore. If I can't hold a towel, how am I going to play this afternoon?' Ella felt herself getting upset again. What was wrong with her, she didn't get upset at things. She also didn't want to let Penny down.

  'Play? Play what?'

  'The piano. Penny asked if I would play background music during the meal.'

  Matt knew he would regret asking this. 'What pieces have you chosen?'

  'What does it matter when I don't think I'll be able to play them?'

  'Well, I still play a bit. I might be able to help.'

  'You?' Ella stared at him as if he'd sprouted another head.

  'Yes, me. Before our parents died leaving us with nothing, I was headed to the Royal Academy to study music.' Matt removed the towel from her head. 'Your hair is still a shade of lavender I'm afraid but at least it's all the same colour now.'

  Ella's heart sank at the news. At this moment she felt like throttling both her sisters next time she saw them for getting her into this mess. Not that they'd poured the boiling water on her hand, she'd managed to do that all on her own but one of them was responsible for her hair colour and the other was responsible for her being in the kitchen in the first place.

  'Earth to Ella.' Matt waved his hand in front of her face.

  Ella blinked. 'What? Oh, sorry.' She sounded dejected. 'Thanks for trying to help. I'll go and phone Penny and explain. Maybe I can look out some music tracks to be played.' Ella started to move away. Matt reached out to stop her.

  'Ella, I said I'd help. How difficult can it be to play background music?'

  'Difficult enough. You'd be playing for about an hour and a half and although the music is heard, no-one really listens to it. I don't think your ego could manage that.' Now she sounded cross.

  Matt hooted with laughter. 'Oh boy, that's telling me! I think my ego can cope for a couple of hours. Do you want a hair dryer, or can it dry naturally for a bit?' Without waiting for an answer, he continued. 'Come on, I'll audition for you.' He grabbed her hand, led her out of the apartment and down the stairs.

  Ella bristled with his annoying habit of asking questions and not letting her answer and was down the stairs before she knew it.

  *

  Matt led her across the hallway. Despite the speed at which they were walking, Ella took in her surroundings as she hadn't been able to last night. They'd come down a flight of stairs by the front entrance. To her left she noticed a few closed doors with a statue and a table in-between. At the far end of the spacious hallway she saw a wide sweeping staircase that split halfway and continued up left and right to the first floor balcony. Turning her head she realised that the balcony ran along all sides of the house in a square. Matt's apartment door stood open as he'd left it and there appeared to be other doors off too, which she presumed were the entrances for the other apartments.

  At ground level three pillars at each side of the hall supported the weight of the balcony. At either side of the central stairway in front of her she noticed more closed doors. Matt led her through a set of glass doors on the right. The length of the hall on this side was entirely comprised of a glass wall which threw a lot of natural light across the hallway. The lounge into which they'd entered appeared to run the complete depth of the building.

  Ella really should have been worried about letting Penny down but all she could do was gaze around her. The sheer size of the place and the quality of the finish was breathtaking. The lounge looked like a well lived in family space, albeit on a major scale. At the front end there was an enormous TV screen on the wall with three large sofas around it and some occasional tables. There was another set of sofas surrounding the large central fireplace on the opposite wall. Bookcases and glass cabinets lined the wall space.

  Towards the back of the room, there was a large dining table and beyond that a grand piano. An electric upright piano, other musical instruments and a cabinet full of sheet music were displayed in the corner. Patio doors led outside and a door to the left was open to what looked like a kitchen.

&nb
sp; 'Wow! This is amazing. It's beautiful.' Ella stood and completed a circle around herself. 'You've got your apartment so who uses this?'

  'We all have our own apartments. Everything down here is communal. When we first bought this place, it was crumbling. We did it up bit by bit and converted the top two floors into four two-storey apartments. The girls were just fifteen when Zander and I pooled enough money to buy it.'

  'Gosh, you must have both been young yourselves to have that sort of money.'

  'We were. Zander was a whizz with investments, still is, which is pretty much all we had then. We'd both dabbled for years, investing more and more as we made more and more. By that time, I'd had some overseas catering assignments which had paid exceptionally well and we used that money to start the renovations. The money we earned doing the part-time jobs we both had went on keeping us all fed and clothed. What little money was left over after we'd sold off our parents' properties and cleared our father's debts was mostly saved for the girls' school fees. We didn't see why their education should suffer just because of our parents' stupidity and selfishness.'

  Ella heard bitterness creep into his tone. She didn't really know what had happened when their parents had died, other than the girls had stopped boarding and Mr Brown had let them live in a cottage in the school grounds. He spoke as if she should know. Maybe he thought Tess and Ronnie had told her. She didn't like the bitter sound - it went against the confident, positive person he'd mostly been since last night. She ignored it and focussed on the present.

  'If you all have your own apartments, when do you use this room?'

  'When more than one of us is here, we use it all the time. We like spending time together as a family. When one of us wants their own space they stay in their own apartment. As you can see, all our apartments open out onto the internal balcony and we generally leave the doors open, so we can feel part of the family but still have our privacy. We all know not to intrude in each other's apartment but to wait to be invited in. Although, because we'd all initially lived in the apartment that's now mine, it took a long time before I managed to get them all to stop traipsing in whenever they felt like it. This space down here is different though - no privacy allowed! This room was the first one we did up. The kitchen through there was just useable when we moved in.' Matt pointed through to where the kitchen was.