So fascinated was he by the way she worried her full bottom lip that it took him a moment to process her question. “You mentioned other things besides the Garden.”
“True.” Thoughts moved behind her expressive gaze. “Maybe I should have some sort of safe word,” she suggested. “That way I can explore, you can push me, but we’ll both know when I’m really at my limit.”
She scrunched her shoulders. “I mean, I’m not into pain or anything. I guess you could say that I’ve seen enough and read enough to be kink-curious. Everyone’s into something in Los Angeles, you know?”
Kane smiled. He’d been about to suggest something similar. A frank discussion about hard limits might be unsexy, but establishing ground rules up front meant a better time could be had by all later. Nadia was sensual and passionate by nature, he could see that clearly. That passion made her daring. He wanted to be the one to help her explore, to push her boundaries. He wanted to be the one to awaken her full sensuality.
“I think that’s an excellent idea,” he told her. “Any idea what you’d like your safe word to be, or do you want to think about it for a while?”
“I already have an idea of what I’d like to use.” Her teasing smile lit her eyes. “Sticky buns.”
He ran his forefinger down her cheek to her chin, tilting her face up. She hadn’t bothered with makeup, but the remnants of afterglow still flushed her cheeks and shone in her eyes, making her beautiful. “I think that’s a perfect choice.”
“I think so too.” She caressed his shoulders. “Sorry for the freak-out.”
“Don’t ever apologize to me for that. You felt what you felt, we talked it out and now we’re good. And your countertop is drunk.” He gave her a quick, hard kiss. “Are you ready for dinner?”
He clearly heard her stomach rumble, causing them both to laugh. “Apparently I’ve worked up an appetite. Give me a moment to clean up and I’ll come back to help.”
“Sure thing.” He released her, watching with admiration and appreciation as she strolled out of the kitchen then up the stairs to the second level. Grinning like the village idiot, he finished cleaning up, put her cleaning supplies away, and began rummaging through the well-stocked professional kitchen as he began the prep work for dinner.
Relief filled him. He could understand Nadia being uneasy with the explosiveness of their connection, considering that she hadn’t been in a relationship in a while. It had taken him by surprise too. She’d caught his attention and held it from the first day he’d seen her in the café. She was sugar, she was spice, she was the answer to a question he hadn’t even known he was asking.
He needed someone like her, he realized. Someone who could make him forget the pressure of his job, the bleak evil of his consulting work. Someone willing to explore all the pleasures that human sexuality had to offer without thinking they were dirty or depraved.
Nadia could do that, ease his hunger for more when it came to sex. Though he had to admit, sex with Nadia was plenty damn hot without enhancements. He doubted he’d be able to look at her kitchen island or sofa without remembering how she’d come for him.
As he worked, he took a long perusal of the main level of her home. He’d been rightfully occupied the night before and hadn’t paid much attention to his surroundings. The main floor was completely open, save for a small room she used as an office just off the foyer opposite the coat closet and half bathroom. The living area boasted furniture designed for lounging and relaxing, microsuede pieces in rich browns, copper and pear green accented with brightly patterned pillows and knitted throws that made him wonder if they’d been handed down from her grandmother. A dark wood entertainment console sat on one wall, filled with the obligatory flatscreen TV and other components, including the surprising addition of a gaming system.
Then again, Nadia probably had her friends over frequently and loved entertaining. He didn’t know of any other single woman her age with a rustic trestle table with seating for eight that stood in the open dining area in front of the kitchen. Though she probably worked some hellaciously early hours running the bakery, he had a feeling that her friends were important to her and they gathered together often.
The oversized windows on the far wall framed French doors that opened onto a balcony that presented a view of the gentrified business district that made Crimson Bay a tourist destination for people looking to get away from big SoCal cities for the weekend. Although night had fallen he was sure bright natural light spilled into the room during the day, emphasizing the openness without making it seem cold or sterile. Overall, the place was bright, warm, and comfortably sexy without trying, quite like its owner.
Nadia returned a few minutes later, brimming with energy and smiles, her earlier uncertainty gone. He nodded at the stack of index cards in her hand. “What are those for?”
“I thought I’d write down each of the sundry positions mentioned in chapter six,” she answered. She dropped the cards and a couple of pens on the breakfast bar before joining him in the kitchen. After a quick survey of his preparations so far she pulled out a package of metal skewers for the vegetables he’d cubed. “That way we can randomly choose one when we get together.”
“Good idea.” He gestured toward the satchel he’d left over by the coffee table. “I have a couple of different copies of the book. Feel free to pick whichever version you want. Oh, and write down a few wild cards too.”
“Wild cards?”
He began to thread the vegetables as she retrieved his bag. “If you draw a wild card, it means that person can choose whatever they want to do, from the book or otherwise.”
A speculative gleam lit her gaze as she settled onto a barstool. “Whatever we want, huh?”
“Within reason. You may have some hard limits that will have you using your safe word.”
She nodded as she mulled that over. “What about you? Do you have a safe word, or hard limits?”
He brushed a balsamic marinade over the vegetable kebabs. “I’m not into blood play, so no needles or knives. As for a safe word, why don’t I use yours? That’ll make it easy for both of us.”
“Okay.”
He glanced at her as he turned on the gas to the grill attachment. The wickedness that danced in her eyes flipped his switch, making him hard again. “Do I even want to know the ideas spinning in your head?”
She gave him a cheeky grin. “Probably not.”
“Considering our first date, I’ll just have to hope that you draw a wild card sooner rather than later.” He transferred the swordfish steaks to the grill. “I hope you don’t mind me making myself at home in your awesome kitchen.”
“Surprisingly, no.” She flipped open the Burton translation, then drew the stack of cards closer. “But that’s probably because you screwed me into acceptance. Though I must say, I think having a man who’s not my father cook me dinner is very sexy.”
“Noted. I look forward to impressing and arousing you with my culinary skills.”
“Go easy on me,” she said, laughing as she began to make notations. “Thanks to you, I’ve gone from zero to two hundred in the sex department. Not that I’m complaining, but I still need to be able to function. I do have a café to run, you know.”
He did know, and he wanted to make sure he didn’t have a negative impact on her and her schedule. “What are your hours at the café? I’m assuming your day starts really early.”
“It does,” she answered with a nod. “We open at seven. I’m usually downstairs by four to start the breakfast pastries that I prep the afternoon before. I have an assistant who comes in about an hour after I do. After the breakfast goods we bake our designer cupcakes and pastries and whatever breads Siobhan needs for her lunch menu. Since we’re in the business district, our business dies off at two, and we close by three. We do a limited menu on Saturdays with breakfast items from nine to eleven and lunch from eleven to one.
Sunday is my sleep late day since we’re closed, though for me that’s usually somewhere around seven, and I’m usually doing planning and prep work for the start of the week.”
He filed away the information. “What made you decide on a bakery and café instead of a restaurant?”
“Restaurants have a higher fail rate than cafés, which aren’t much better. Besides, Siobhan and I know our limitations. The last thing either one of us needed was the stress and long hours of trying to get a restaurant up and running. The café lets us indulge our love of cooking and baking and trying out new recipes, and not having to handle a dinner crowd means we don’t have to overextend ourselves and we can still have lives. Mostly.”
“Can I ask why you didn’t try for another cooking show or writing cookbooks after you got out of rehab? For some of those Hollywood types, being in rehab is almost a fashion accessory.”
A shadow crossed her expressive features as she slid off the barstool. “For some it is. Rehab might even boost their careers, giving them a weird sort of street cred. But for some of us it’s impossible to recover from and the only option is to burn the bridges and leave town.”
He remained silent as he watched her pull a bottle of red out of her wine fridge, then uncork it to breathe. “You think you wouldn’t have recovered your career.”
She placed a set of wineglasses on the counter, her moments measured. “Honestly?”
“Always.”
“I didn’t try. I saw the writing on the wall. Even if I hadn’t, I didn’t think I’d be able to hack it. It was a grueling life and I got caught up in it and lost myself in the process. I didn’t want to face that sort of stress or temptation again.”
He gave her a considering look as he tested the doneness of the fish. Nadia was a survivor. He knew that by the matter-of-fact way that she admitted her shortcomings and took responsibility for her actions. Beneath her passion was a core of steel. Once she learned from a mistake, he doubted she’d let herself get trapped again.
“You didn’t think you could handle Hollywood, so you decided to become a small business owner instead. Sounds like you can handle more than you give yourself credit for.”
The smile she gave him lit the room. “Thank you for that. But it helps to have a solid network of support. I doubt Siobhan and I could have been as successful as we are if it weren’t for our friends and chosen family.”
“So no expansion plans outside of the business district?” he asked as he plated their food.
“God, no,” she replied with a laugh, taking their wine, glasses, and silverware over to the dining table. “We like our little place, like being part of the community and knowing our regulars. If we do any expansion, it’ll be to open for a longer stint on Saturdays, but that’s about it. We’re making a decent enough amount of money to support the café and ourselves, and we’re happy with the way it is. I’ve had enough of letting ambition drive my life and make my decisions. Now the decisions are based on what’s right for me and Siobhan, what can we handle. It’s worked pretty darn well for us for the last handful of years.”
“Sounds like it.” He shut off the grill then followed her with their plates. “If you hate it, you won’t hurt my feelings. Much.”
Nadia snorted. “Somehow I doubt your ego is that fragile, Professor Sullivan.”
“You’re right,” he said as they settled at the table. “It comes from being confident in knowing what I’m capable of.”
“What are you capable of?”
He gave her a long look. “Whatever I put my mind to.”
She saluted him with the wine bottle and a lopsided grin before pouring. “Here’s to discovering everything we’re capable of.”
“I’ll drink to that.”
EIGHT
“So what made you go into the field of human sexuality, when you could have so easily been a chef?” Nadia asked as she dug into the delicious meal. “It’s not like people wake up one morning and go, ‘Hey, I want to study how people think about sex.’ I didn’t even know it was something you could study for a degree program.”
“True, and thank you,” he said as he watched her eat. His focus should have made her self-conscious but he seemed pleased that she enjoyed the food he’d prepared for her. “You’ll be happy to know that there’s no great tragedy in my past that led me to my chosen field. Not really.”
“Not really?” She munched on a skewer of vegetables, cupping her hand to catch the juice that squirted when she bit into a tomato. “What does not really mean?”
“My parents and I lived all over the world before we settled in Seattle when I was thirteen. So I got exposed to a lot of different cultures and people. Some places are more sexually repressed than America, but many aren’t. There are some that recognized a third gender, for example. It was halfway through my freshman year in college when I had an epiphany. It might have been the copious amounts of alcohol and the lively discussion on men and women and dating and sex and what was acceptable that inspired me. Anyway, I realized that sexual education—real education, not just lip service—would go a long way to encourage sexual acceptance in society as a whole. Especially if we could all agree that consenting adults are sovereign in their own bedrooms.”
“Or kitchens,” she added with a sly smile.
He winked at her. “Or their own kitchens.”
“Okay, so you got a degree in sexual psychology and became a professor. But you do more than teach, right? You write too.”
“Actually, I did some writing and counseling before I became a professor,” he replied, pausing to finish off his vegetables. “I got on with a think tank in D.C., published some more, and then got noticed by Dean Campbell at Herscher. She invited me to join the newly created Center for Human Studies here. Then the Red Light Rapist case happened.”
She nodded. “I remember a little about that. Every thin blonde woman between eighteen and thirty thought she was a target. How did you get involved?”
He fiddled with his wineglass, looking sheepish. “Well, I had the temerity to tell the FBI their profile was wrong. Things went downhill from there.”
She stared at him in disbelief. “Taking on the FBI? Is that what got you on all the national news channels?”
He grimaced. “Yeah, it was apparently a slow news week. Anyway, the publicity led to more speaking engagements, a book deal, and a rush to get the department ramped up. After all, Dr. Kaname Sullivan, Professor of Human Sexuality, Center for Human Studies, Herscher College, sounds awfully impressive to the media. It made it seem like I actually knew what I was talking about.”
“You did know what you were talking about.”
“True.” He said it matter-of-factly, as if he had no reason to be modest when it came to his career. Truth be told, he didn’t. “The net result was record enrollment in our program, which made everyone at Herscher happy.”
She took a sip of her wine. “It might have been a slow news week, but I’m sure the fact that you’re drop-dead gorgeous didn’t hurt.”
“You just called me gorgeous. I’ll have to remember that.”
“Don’t let it go to your head, Professor. I’m surrounded by gorgeous people.”
“But not drop-dead gorgeous ones,” he replied with a grin. “I’m sure my genes had a lot to do with my popularity, but I’m lucky in that I have a brain to back up my looks. The book deal followed, and like I said, we’re bursting at the seams as far as enrollment is concerned. I’m hoping that will translate into tenure pretty soon, since I really do enjoy teaching.”
“Maybe it’s my imagination, but I thought I heard a but in there. Am I wrong?”
“No.” He took her hand, kissed her fingers. “The downside is that I have to deal with ambitious colleagues and young coeds with stars in their eyes, not to mention overactive imaginations.”
“The nickname.”
“Yes, the
nickname,” he agreed. “Not only that, but the road to tenure is always a rocky one. I have options though. I’ll survive.”
“Goodness, Kane. Coworkers and students?” Her muscles trembled with the need to hug him, offer him comfort. Other than the first day he’d come into the café, she’d never seen him upset. He was always cool, almost detached, even though she knew now he was anything but. She had no idea what he faced daily in his job.
“And with that, I’m done talking about myself. I’d much rather talk about you.”
“Me?” She waved her free hand with a laugh. “We’ve already talked about me.”
“I’d like to get to know you better, Nadia.”
“There’s nothing much to talk about. My life’s pretty boring now.”
He snorted. “With the company you run and the friends you keep, I seriously doubt your life is boring.”
“Okay, maybe not boring,” she conceded. “But it’s nothing like it was before.”
He kept a hold on her fingers, and she enjoyed the warmth, the easy comfort. The realization that she trusted him had surprised her. Trust wasn’t an easy thing for her anymore, not after her experiences in her former life. There was something about Kane, though, something about his quiet, commanding air and ability to smoothly take control that told her that she could trust him. She believed that he would push her while making sure she was safe. Surely sharing bits and pieces of her life was a small price to pay for that?
“Do you miss it? Your former life?”
She dropped her gaze. “Sometimes,” she admitted softly. “It was cool being the ‘it’ girl for a while. Being young and pretty and thin with a slightly bent personality didn’t hurt either. I had the show and cookbooks, and outside of the show I got requests to do birthday and wedding and party cakes for a lot of musicians and young Hollywood types, which meant I got into a lot of parties. At parties you get exposed to things, sometimes without even realizing it. Partying and shooting the show took a lot of energy, and I leaned on my manager more than I should have. The problem with burning the candle at both ends with a flamethrower chaser is that you burn out way too fast. Which is exactly what I did. Then reality hit me in the face for good measure, and I paid the price.”
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