The surrender is nicer than I thought it’d be. Dare I say it, I’m almost relaxed.
And just like that, the gnocchi comes together. A ball of dough that’s no longer sticky or streaked with yolk and flour, but evenly colored a rich, deep purple.
“Beautiful,” Chef Katie murmurs, rolling the ball between her hands. “Great job, y’all. I’m gonna divide it into two here using a bench scraper.” She holds up a flat, shovel-like blade, which she sinks into the middle of the ball. “Now each of you roll your section into a thin rope. About, say, as thick as your thumb.”
I roll and Bel rolls, her body rocking in time to her movements.
“This good?” She holds up her rope.
“A little too girthy,” Chef Katie replies.
Bel glances at me, and my gaze meets hers. The edges of her mouth twitch, and before I know what she’s doing, she’s taking her dough rope in her hands and slapping its flaccid end against my bare forearm.
“Feel too girthy to you?” she asks.
Chef Katie snickers. I’m glad Annabel and I aren’t the only pervs in this kitchen.
“Hmm,” I say, weighing the rope in my hand. “Depends on your preference, really. How big do you like it?”
“Big,” Chef Katie says.
“I’d settle for satisfying,” Bel adds.
“Then you should use mine as a model.” I drop Annabel’s rope and lift my own. “Note its perfect dimensions from root to tip.”
Gathering her bottom lip between her teeth, she dips her fingertips into a nearby bowl of flour and flicks them into my face. “Ew.”
“You mean yum.” I blink, licking the chalky flour off my lips. Annabel’s eyes move to my mouth. That electricity—the bonfire, the creek, the lawn—sparks, a sudden charge I feel in the base of my spine. “I thought you loved carbs?”
“Not yours.”
“Not nice.” I reach across her and dip my first finger in the flour. I smear it across her cheeks, my movements stealthy and sure. Laughter bubbles up inside my belly as her eyes go wide, and she gasps.
“You son of a bitch,” she breathes. Then she’s twirling her gnocchi rope like a lasso, her face in a mask of concentration. She lets it loose, and it slaps my arm, the tip breaking off and falling to the floor.
“Now look what you’ve done.” I bend down to grab the dough. “You cut off the most important part. You’re gonna have to pay for that.”
Annabel bounces her eyebrows, taking a step toward me. “Show me what ya got.”
Then I’m shoving the dough-rope-tip thing down her shirt, and she’s gasping again. She’s taking the whole bowl of flour and attempting to dump it over my head by standing on her tiptoes with one hand fisted in the front of my shirt to hold me in place—Lordy, I like that—and the other on the bottom of the bowl.
I blink at the snow shower that falls in front of my eyes.
“Aw, you’ve really done it now,” I say, grabbing the bowl from her. I loop an arm around her waist and hold her against me as she writhes, laughing. I tip the bowl upside-down over her head, Chef Katie squealing when the bowl lands on the floor with a hollow clatter.
“There may be snow on the chimney,” Bel wheezes, laughing so hard now she can barely breathe, “but there’s still fire in the furnace!”
That’s it.
I give in.
I laugh so hard it hurts. It loosens my grip on Annabel, but she still stays pressed against me.
So I hold her, and I laugh, and I am soaked.
Soaked by the sudden, thrilling realization that I’m not dead yet. Hell, that I’m actually—mostly—alive.
Her. Me. This day.
We still have all of this.
For the first time, I wonder why, if I’m still capable of feeling so acutely, coherently alive, am I dooming myself to certain death by holding myself back? Because death doesn’t just visit the body. It can kill the spirit, too. And now I’m starting to think I’m welcoming it too quickly and with too much certainty.
What if certainty is the enemy?
What if I allowed myself to enjoy life—this life, with Bel and bowls of flour and bonfire make-out sessions—for as long as life will have me?
Trouble.
Delicious, hilarious, electric trouble.
Chapter Eighteen
Beau
I lean back in my chair with a groan.
“I know,” Bel says, putting a hand on her belly. “I know. But I can’t stop eating. Chef, this is amazing.”
“You two are a handful.” Chef Katie shakes her head at us from across the table. “But I have to admit, I don’t think I’ve ever had this much fun at a lesson. Cheers, y’all. It was a pleasure having you.”
She holds up her wine—we’re on a cabernet sauvignon now, light but tasty—and the three of us clink glasses. I’ve been sipping each flight of wine, careful not to overdo it. It’s been fun getting to try a bunch of different varietals. Samuel—or Emma?—killed it.
Chef protested at first, but eventually Annabel and I convinced her to sit with us and eat after our lesson ended. It was the least we could do after the mess we made in her kitchen.
Of course we cleaned up everything. Everything but ourselves. Annabel’s hair is still coated in flour. I have something sticky stuck in my eyebrow, and the skin on my left cheek feels tight. I can only imagine what’s stuck in my beard.
My belly aches from laughing. And because I’m so full. I look down at my empty plate. Despite the dick innuendos and ensuing food fight, the gnocchi turned out delicious. Rich without being heavy (“It’s the ricotta,” Chef explained), it paired beautifully with the butter sauce. And the hazelnuts? They added just the right amount of crunchy sweetness to round out the dish.
I glance at Annabel. Her cheeks are rosy, and her hair’s fluttering in the breeze from the open window. She looks relaxed. It has nothing to do with the wine; she’s taken a sip from each glass, if that.
She looks better than when she first arrived at the farm, that’s for damn sure.
I did that.
Well, not all of it, but I helped. And that feels really fucking good.
When she thinks we’re not looking, she presses the flat of her hand to one breast, then the other. It’s getting late. She’s gotta get back to feed Maisie. I should get up and drive her home.
But I just don’t want this day to end.
I’m tired, and I’m turned on. The memory of Annabel’s body pressed against mine lingers. I imagine the scent of her perfume clinging to my clothes, my skin.
She’s everywhere I want to be, which makes leaving her really, really difficult.
But I have to.
Have to.
Only when I tell myself that, a voice inside my head wonders what would happen if I didn’t.
“Happy?” I ask when I pull up in front of her house, gripping the wheel for dear life, lest I put my hands on her.
She turns her head to meet my eyes, looking so beautiful it hurts.
“Happiness still feels a ways off. It’s closer than before, but still not there. Not yet. That being said, I do feel…full. Not just in the physical sense. Is that the word you’d use to describe the feeling you’re exactly where you need to be, with exactly who you need to be with, doing exactly what you need to be doing?”
Christ Almighty. He’s raining down tests on me left and right today.
“Full.” I lean into the steering wheel, the effort of holding back making me feel sick to my stomach again, the way lifting too much weight did the other day. “Or maybe whole?”
“Yes. That word works, too. Do you feel it? Whole?”
“Yeah. Yeah, I guess I do. But I always feel that way around you, Bel.”
A beat of charged silence passes between us.
I begin to pray.
Please. Release, please give me release, I can’t take this much longer.
“What is it that’s really bothering you about your diagnosis?” she says softly. “That you’re not
invincible anymore?”
I let out a breath, the reality of my situation hitting me like a blast of cold rain after a day of sunshine. I gotta stop forgetting myself around this girl, but it just—
It feels so great.
“It’s not that I’m not invincible. It’s that I’m good and truly wrecked on the inside. And pretty soon, it’s gonna start to show on the outside, too.”
Her eyes go soft. “You’re not wrecked. You’re human. Same as me.”
“Some of us are more human than others, then.”
“And that’s okay. In fact—and maybe I’m a jerk for saying this—but I kinda like that you’re not a superstar stud muffin anymore.”
Please. “Says the girl who name drops Brad Pitt and Paul Dollywood or whatever the fuck that guy’s name is.”
“Paul Hollywood. And he’s not a stud muffin, he makes muffins. Crucial difference. And Brad Pitt is Brad Pitt. I’m not sure what else to say about that.” She grins. “Not being a superstar makes you more relatable, Beau. More fun. I mean, hello, we were just slapping each other with dough penises and dumping bowls of flour all over the place. I’ve never seen you let go like that. Not when you weren’t drunk off your ass at the Dutch Galleon, anyway. I loved it, and I’m pretty sure you did, too. Forget what that ESPN article said about you being a god. I like you as a human better. Let yourself walk amongst us mortals for a while. I think you’ll like it here.”
I feel so much right then that I’m not sure how to react.
Full? No, this is something else. This is whole to the point of transcendence.
Whole to the point of hurt.
A good hurt.
Not the kind you earn after a hard workout or a long day at the computer. The kind that’s just there. That you get from the sheer beauty of things you didn’t work for or ask to experience.
Like the way the strands of Bel’s hair dance in the breeze.
Or how she thinks I’m better this way. Human. Foggy. Fallible as fuck.
It’s not pity that I make her feel or disgust—things I’ve felt about myself ever since I got my diagnosis. Hell, I felt them before, when I kept falling down on the shit I was once able to do.
I like being in control, and I like working, to the point it’s almost a compulsion.
Maybe that’s my problem. Not that I have brain disease, but that I feel as though I have to earn love, admiration, and affection by working for it.
Seems like a revelation even though it shouldn’t be. I’m ashamed that, as someone who takes great pride in his self-awareness, I didn’t see it sooner.
I’ve been ashamed that I can’t be the man I’ve tried so hard to become, the man I thought I should be. Seeing my dad go downhill so young and so swiftly meant I felt pressure to fill the vacuum he left behind. I had to be the man of the family. I had to take care of everyone and everything.
Now I can’t be that man. I’m falling down on the people I love, and I hate that.
But Bel? She doesn’t see it as falling down. She sees it as coming down to earth. Where I should’ve been all along.
“I know we’ve done a lot of cool things together,” she says, turning her hips away from me so that her feet meet with the blacktop beside the cart. “But I think today might’ve earned a place in my top three all-time favorite Bel and Beau moments.”
“Me losing my shit over ricing sweet potatoes?”
“Yup. Made your comeback all the more thrilling. Thanks for a wonderful day.”
As if she knows any kind of physical contact would send me into a tailspin, she tosses me a grin over her shoulder.
That fucking dimple. It’s working some kind of black magic on me right now.
She hops out of the cart. My eyes follow her as she makes her way up the path to her front door.
Because it’s her front door now. Whether she wants the house or not.
She’s wearing a skirt today, this silky material that clings to her ass and shapely legs as she moves. There’s something about the proportions of her body, hips to waist to shoulders, that I find so fucking beautiful. She’s strong in places you wouldn’t think to look: neck, calves, spirit.
She’s not beside me anymore, but the pull between us is still razor sharp in its intensity. I watch her, and I want her so badly I can hardly breathe.
I’m in love.
I am so beyond fucked it’s not even funny.
What do I have to lose that I haven’t lost already?
I must black out for a few heartbeats because the next thing I know, I’m out of the cart and jogging after her with my hands in my pockets. By the time I catch up to her, I’m breathless. She turns, and her eyes go wide when she finds me standing so close to her on her front porch.
Our gazes lock.
Desire is written clear as day in her green eyes. It scares her, it scares me, and for several seconds, I have no clue what to say.
The tension in the air is so thick I can taste it.
I want to taste her. Tell her.
Fuck words.
Stepping forward, I yank my hands out of my pockets. Hands that shake as I cup the back of her head with one and her face with the other. I tilt my head and guide her mouth up to meet mine.
You, I tell her.
It’s always been you.
To: Annabel Rhodes ([email protected])
From: John Beauregard ([email protected])
December 18, 2013 4:23 AM EST
Subject: Congrats!
Another night, another bout of insomnia. So naturally, I’m emailing you.
Got your voicemail earlier. I’m so effing proud of you, Bel. A director before you’re 30? That’s gotta be some kind of record. Managing director, here you come. Does that mean you’re not going to be my co-CEO of Blue Mountain Farm? You gonna be too good for us, Bel?
Just kidding. I’m 100% sure you’re capable of becoming whatever you want to be in your career. CEO of the bank? You got it. Professor of literature and/or porn at an Ivy League? Piece of cake for you. You’re driven and you’re smart and you’re seriously an inspiration for a simple guy like me.
Although, gotta be honest. You didn’t sound as excited as I thought you’d be. Everything okay? I know you’ve been working your balls off lately for this promotion.
Come take a break with me. Aaron invited me out to his place in Cabo when the season ends. We can celebrate, rest, and drink ourselves silly. Just say yes.
Thanks for asking about the concussion. I feel better. Doc says I should be back on the field soon. But I was just telling my mom how this season is really taking a toll on my body. Retirement may be in the cards sooner than I thought.
Congrats again. Wish I could be there to hold back your hair. Or have a sloppy make-out session on a dance floor somewhere. But I’m guessing your boyfriend wouldn’t like that. Ha!
Beau
Chapter Nineteen
Annabel
His kiss is a confession.
It’s hot and it’s soft and it’s so different from the caresses we shared at the dock house. That was pure fire.
This, this is the kind of kiss that makes you want to cry.
He’s pouring himself into me, the things he’s feeling and the things he doesn’t know how to say.
He’s saying them with his lips and his tongue.
He’s ardent. All in. I get lost in the kiss, allowing him to take and take and take. My time. My breath.
My heart.
Behind my closed eyelids, the thought runs wild that it’s always been his. I just needed life to strip me of my defenses and my excuses to see it.
My pulse thunders. His breath is hot on my left cheek, the tip of his nose brushing against the other. He opens the seam of my lips with his tongue, licking it into my mouth. Need bolts through me, gathering between my legs, and I can’t take it. I need to touch him.
I lean into the kiss, into him, plastering my body against his. Running my palms up the firm slope of his chest, I glide my fin
gers around his neck and dig them into the hair at his nape.
He growls, pressing forward with his hips, and then plants his feet on either side of mine. The heat of his body makes me feel surrounded. Safe.
A full-body shiver has me gasping into his mouth. A mouth that tastes like wine, equal parts tart and sweet.
This.
It’s everything.
We kiss so damn well. Kissing chemistry is a real thing. You either have it or you don’t. Beau and I have it—big time. I swear to God if my legs didn’t feel like they were about to give out, I could kiss this man for a year.
The kiss deepens.
We’re going for it. But just as I’m starting to get really turned on—he is, too, by the bulge he presses into my belly—Beau pulls back. My eyes fly open.
My tits feel full to the point of pain.
“Bel,” he says, leaning his forehead against mine. His eyes are still closed. His brow is knitted, like he’s hurting, too.
I’m having trouble catching my breath.
“Yeah?”
“I still can’t—”
“Please.” I shake my head against his and drag a hand down to his chest, placing it over his heart. It’s going wild. “Let’s not go there now. Let’s just…be here, okay?”
He lets out a breath. “Okay.”
I want to know what this change of heart means. Lord, do I want to ask that question and a million others. But I’m working on instinct here. And my gut is telling me to let it be.
Whatever it is that’s going down between us, let it be. Maybe that way, I can let it go when I need to.
The idea sends a searing ache through my middle.
I ignore it. What else can I do?
“Want to come in?” I ask. I have no idea where this is going, but I do know I don’t want it to end.
“Aw, honey, I’d love to.” His voice is like gravel. Accent thick. “I’m havin’ a real hard time holding back. But it’s up to me—Bel, it’s up to me to keep you safe and keep you from getting hurt. Let’s sleep on it, all right? I don’t want you to regret anything. Also, isn’t your mama here? I know we’re adults, but I’d still feel weird walking past her to…you know. Go do stuff with you in the bedroom.”
Southern Seducer: A Best Friends to Lovers Romance Page 16
