One More Taste

by Melissa Cutler

  In a fog, she shuffled out of the church behind Linda, her eyes on Linda’s black orthopedic wedges. Now and then, she shook hands with and offered plastic smiles to the parishioners she’d been introduced to. Some asked her to give Knox their greeting while others patted her hand and gave her blessings and told her how proud they could tell Linda was to have such a nice young lady in her son’s life.

  Emily thought about her own mother. Had she stuck it out with Emily’s father after Emily had left? Was she lonely like Linda, too?

  “You’ll come with me back to my house now, right? And we can swap recipes. I’ll fill you in on all Knox’s favorite dishes, and maybe throw in some embarrassing stories you can tease him with,” Linda said with a wink.

  “Of course. I’ll stay as long as I can. Maybe you’ll allow me to fix you lunch.”

  Linda smiled. “Now there’s a fancy idea. My own personal chef cooking Sunday supper. I’d love that. I’ve got a pot roast going in the crockpot, but maybe you can help dress it up a bit.”

  Emily considered offering to drive home, but Linda had seemed excited to be the one behind the wheel, shuttling Emily to church. She climbed into the passenger seat again. “You and Clint were high school sweethearts in Dulcet,” she prompted once they were on the road.

  “That we were,” Linda said wistfully. “I miss Dulcet sometimes, especially this time of year. My favorite. The countryside’s so pretty in the fall. Are they doin’ okay, then? All the Briscoes?” A hint of longing tinged Linda’s tone, as though Emily had conjured her grief with the question. She definitely didn’t seem angry about the rift, as Knox or Ty did.

  “Everyone’s doing great. Ty’s daughter Carina is pregnant, due in a couple weeks.”

  “Oh, how nice. Ty’s gonna be a grandpa. Hmph. I can’t imagine. Well, maybe it’ll soften that temper. How’s his wife? How’s Eloise?”

  Odd, the affectation in Linda’s tone when she enunciated Eloise’s name. The loneliness vanished and stiffness entered her voice, as though she and Eloise were long-standing enemies rather than long-lost friends or neighbors, though they’d grown up in the same small town of Dulcet, in the shadow of the resort, both classmates with Clint and Ty.

  “She is. As beautiful as ever.” Thanks in part to availing herself of the many services at the resort’s spa as well as the occasional cosmetic surgery down in San Antonio. “Were you two classmates in high school, as well?”

  She clicked her tongue at the question, a motherly sound of disapproval. “How about Granny June. I always liked her. She’s still healthy?”

  Interesting. “Healthy as a horse.”

  Linda smiled. “Good for her. I hope my children inherit her longevity.”

  There was an odd sort of hard-edged haunting in her tone that reminded Emily of Knox’s expression when he spoke of his family’s exile.

  “With Knox as part-owner of Briscoe Ranch now, you should come visit,” Emily said. “I’d fix a great meal for the two of you. Maybe we could invite Shayla and Granny June, too. Maybe Ty’s daughters, Carina and Haylie. You’d love them.”

  A slight shudder passed through Linda, though her smile remained in place. “No. That’s sweet of you, but I could never; I’m sitting fat and sassy right here in Hutchins.”

  Emily’s heart sank as Linda turned onto her block at the sight of a familiar Chevy truck parked out front of Linda’s house.

  “Well, glory be,” Linda said. “I thought he wasn’t coming now that he moved so far away. What a pair you two are, surprising me like this. You sure do keep a good secret, missy.”

  Emily swallowed as they pulled to a stop behind the truck. “Well, I mean, I didn’t exactly tell him … he’s been busy and I…” Jesus, she couldn’t even tell a decent lie these days to save her own ass. Get her within a hundred yards of Knox Briscoe and her composure fell apart like a soggy tortilla.

  Linda was unfazed. “Then God must be smiling down on us for this happy accident.” She walked from the car as Knox stepped out from the house onto the porch where several bags of groceries sat, one with a bouquet of flowers sticking out of the top. When he saw Emily, he froze, one hand reaching for a grocery bag. His gaze shifted between Emily and her car, parked in front of the neighbor’s house, which had been the only spot available at the time. Even from the street, she could see his expression morph from shock to confusion to fury.

  Linda practically skipped up the front walk, her arms open wide, reaching for a hug. “Knox, honey! Bless your heart, you brought me groceries. You’re always such a good boy like that. Your daddy would be so proud.”

  Emily followed Linda onto the front steps. Knox kissed his mother on the cheek and hugged her tight, but his eyes remained locked on Emily. No doubt about it, he was livid with her. On top of everything else that church had dredged up within her, she wasn’t equipped to deal with his anger, too.

  “This is most unexpected, Ms. Ford.”

  Ms. Ford? Shit.

  Emily grabbed several bags of groceries and walked into the house, Linda and Knox on her heels. “It was supposed to be a surprise. I’ve been wanting to fix you a dish or two from your childhood, so I thought, why not go to the source? I didn’t think you’d mind.”

  Emily’s shoulders stiffened in anticipation of his rebuttal. She chanced a look at Knox. He was working hard to hide his anger, probably thanks to Linda’s presence.

  “Nonsense,” Linda said. “Of course, he doesn’t mind. I think it’s a capital idea. And it’s been a gas for me to have her around for the morning. She got to meet my friends at church and she’s going to help me spruce up the pot roast for supper. It isn’t every day I can get tips from a professional chef. Isn’t that delightful, Knoxy?”

  “Yes, delightful,” he said mechanically.

  “And now you’re here, which is another wonderful surprise. What a blessed day!” With that, Linda launched into a detailed retelling of their morning to Knox.

  If Knox got his way, Emily would be gone from the house as soon as he could gracefully manage. But there was one last place she wanted to visit, to at least glean some knowledge from the trip since she’d never gotten the chance to swap recipes with Linda. Knox’s childhood bedroom. Perhaps it’d be as inspiring to her culinary imagination as his current bedroom had proven to be.

  As Linda held his attention in the kitchen, Emily slipped back to the entryway. Her heart pounded against her ribs and in her ears. After a last look over her shoulder, she stole up the stairs.

  Chapter Nine

  Emily paused in the second-floor hallway, temporarily distracted by a row of sepia-tinted collages of old family photos behind dusty glass frames. Two rowdy boys and a tomboy sister on horseback. A teen Knox being presented with a belt buckle at a rodeo. His brother, Wade, feeding a goat at a petting zoo. The whole family clustered together on a beach, the boys with bowl cuts and Shayla in pigtails.

  Emily was struck once again by how similar in appearance all the Briscoe men were. They all looked related, but Knox was the spitting image of young Ty and Knox’s Grandpa Tyson, down to the stiff jaw and ambitious gleam in his eyes, while Wade’s face was rounder, more closely resembling Clint and Granny June, and then all with echoes of each other, including Carina and Haylie. No doubt about it, the Briscoe bloodline was strong. Emily couldn’t wait to see how that lineage manifested in Carina and Decker’s baby boy.

  Knox and Wade’s room was marked with a sign taped to the door that looked like it had been printed out on an old dot matrix printer, the perforated edges still attached. Knox and Wade’s Private Lair—Enter at Your Own Risk.

  After another look over her shoulder, Emily pushed the door open.

  The room was divided in half, much like a college dorm room, with each side containing a twin bed and a desk. One of the two boys had been into comic books and WWF as a kid, as evidenced by the posters of oiled-up musclemen in costumes and masks that plastered his wall and the rows of colorful comic books that lined his bookshelves. The other s
ide of the room had been done up in a rodeo motif. There was even a line of cowboy hats hooked on the wall, as well as a line of trophies on bookshelves, all with Knox’s name, all declaring him a junior rodeo champ. What a nice, sweet life they’d all had in this house.

  Jealousy hit her hard, as though it had been waiting quietly in the shadows since the church service, ready to pounce. For all the material wealth Clint’s family lacked compared to Emily’s own upper-class youth, they’d had something far richer than she’d ever known. Real, familial love. There was a time she would’ve given anything—anything in the whole world—for the unconditional love of her parents, to go to bed without being terrified of being awoken in the middle of the night by her drunk father, to not have suffered her mother’s emotional distance and half-baked rationalizations.

  Knox’s childhood home was filled with the same sort of authentic love that Emily had been chasing her whole adulthood through her cooking. Her hand closed over a framed photo on Knox’s desk of him and his father. She couldn’t stop staring at the pride in Clint’s eyes. The goddamn fatherly pride. No wonder Knox held his father’s memory in such reverence. Emily was certain that no one had ever looked at her like that.

  There was nothing more for her to learn in this house tonight, not with bitterness and jealousy and the ache of longing that was bulldozing over her professional detachment. There was no room in her mind for her muse to work. She was straightening the framed photograph in preparation to leave when footsteps behind her caught her attention.

  “You had no right to come my mother’s house. No right at all.”

  She cursed internally, because, of course, Knox’s anger was justifiable. With nowhere to run or hide, she pulled a cowboy hat from the wall and turned, then set the hat on his head. “Are you sure your mom’s okay with you being alone in your room with a girl?”

  He ripped the hat off his head and tossed it on the bed. “Don’t play cute. I refuse to allow you to use my mother.”

  “I’m not trying to.”

  “I sent Mom to the store for wine to have with dinner. That gives you plenty of time to leave.”

  Emily’s heart sank, even though she’d known that was coming. “I didn’t mean her or you any harm by doing this. I wanted to learn more about you and—”

  “Then you should have asked me instead of dragging my mother into your … your…” He waved a hand at her, as though her mere presence articulated plainly enough the point he was getting at.

  “My what? My evil plan to succeed at the challenge you’ve laid out for me? My dastardly intention to tap into your love for your father by fixing you his favorite meal? Buttering you up with nostalgia?” A wry huff escaped her lips. “But guess what? The trick’s on me. I’m the one who let sentimentality get the best of me today. This room, your mom and her church, the love in the house itself. I can feel it in the walls and in every room. It’s nothing that money can buy. I know you feel like you were cheated out of the life you were owed by being cut out of the Briscoe fortune, but you have to believe me when I say that money can’t buy everything. It can’t buy love. It can’t—” Wincing, she closed her eyes and fought to get a grip. She’d already said too much and taken the conversation way past the boundaries of professionalism.

  She raised her lashes again. Knox was standing close, watching her with those dark, enigmatic eyes that drew her in every time.

  “You shouldn’t have come here,” he said quietly.

  No, she shouldn’t have. “But I am here. Why does that scare you so much? What are you trying to hide?”

  He stepped even closer, so near that his shoes bumped hers. His lips parted as though he were on the verge of speaking. She chanced another look in his eyes, but flinched back at the presence of anguish in them—anguish that mirrored her own.

  Her attention dipped to his neck, and to the press of his shirt collar against his Adam’s apple as he swallowed hard. How could he breathe in that choker of a suit? Her fingers twitched with the urge to undo the button at his neck and unmake him in the same way he’d shed his business attire in his bedroom on that first night of their agreement. That was the man she wanted to feed, the man free of his armor, the one who drove his father’s old truck and named the fish in his lake. The one whose eyes glowed with warmth when he looked at his grandmother. Emily wanted to feed the former rodeo champion who brought flowers to his mom on Sunday morning. The tender, loving soul behind the fierce Briscoe name and CEO title.

  Without thinking, she reached out and touched his tie. The back of her hand scraped against that ever-present five o’clock shadow on his jaw as she loosened the knot, then unfastened the top button of his shirt. Needing to feel his skin, she flipped her hand over and cupped his cheek. And then the whole world unraveled before her eyes.

  * * *

  Different bedroom. Same woman. Same crushing hunger for her that had swept through him that first night she’d cooked for him, when he found her lying on his bed. What was it about Emily Ford that drove him to the brink of devastation every time he was in her orbit?

  If he were honest with himself, that was the real trouble with getting that text from his old friend wondering why Knox’s mom was flaunting his ‘girl’ Emily around church without him. As though they were an item. As though she really were his to flaunt around his hometown.

  When she’d skulked up to his bedroom, he’d followed her, prepared for a confrontation. He hadn’t expected the tinge of sorrow behind her eyes or the glimpse into her soul that she’d shared. It was a sorrow that mimicked the grief he’d struggled with after his dad’s passing. When her eyes had turned glassy, he’d wanted desperately to draw her into his arms and take on the burden of her sorrow, whatever the source. In that instant, it was tempting to see her as a different person from the confident chef who’d flung soup into his lap, but she was exactly the same woman as that fateful day—with the same heart on her sleeve, the same impetuous passion. He’d never met anyone quite like her, and the intertwining of their lives that had happened in the days since had only whetted his appetite for more.

  With fingers that trembled against the sensitive skin under his chin, she loosened his tie, then unfastened the button at his collar. The release of pressure from around his neck left him gasping for air, as though he’d been holding his breath for too long without ever being aware of it. Then she touched his face. After a life spent perfecting the art of never losing control, with one touch, Emily transformed him into a man enslaved by his urges, erasing a lifetime of discipline.

  With stiff, stilted movement, he snared her waist with his arm and drew her up against him. The sheer force of the emotional storm raging inside him rendered him incapable of smooth moves or intelligible thoughts. She came willingly and brought her other hand up to his face, cradling his cheeks as she released ragged breaths against his neck. Cupping her neck to lock her against him, he pressed his lips to her forehead and breathed his need into her skin.

  Her hands roved over his body, as though memorizing the shape of him by feel. His chest, his arms, his waist. As her hands moved, her lips touched his jawline, sending electric currents sizzling through him. He gritted his teeth, enduring the sensations, and yet needing so much more.

  He willed his arms to move so he could match her movements. His hands molded against her back and down over the flare of her hips. The dress fabric was thin, but still a burden. He needed her skin under his grip. He bunched the fabric of her dress until the hem was high enough that his hands could reach her leg. At the first contact of his palm splaying over the back of her thigh, he heard a guttural growl in the back of his throat. On a whimper, she melted against him. He slipped his hand higher, breaching the hem of her panties and filling his hand with soft, supple flesh. Her hands sank from his chest to his waist. She gripped his belt and tipped her head back, eyes closed, and gave herself over to his touch.

  “I need…” she began as a whisper. Her fingers delved behind the waistband of his pants, letting him
know exactly what she needed.

  “More,” he finished for her.

  She tipped her head up. Her eyelids were heavy with desire, her cheeks flushed, a goddess of sensuality, the sexiest goddamn woman he’d ever seen in the whole of his life. “Yes. More. Now.”

  At her words, everything Knox had thought he was, a man of reason and purpose and control, surrendered irrevocably to the drumbeat of raw, primitive need. He reached between her legs and grazed his hand over her panties. On a whimper, her body shifted, and she pressed herself more fully into his touch, sinking his fingers against the wet fabric. He groaned along with her at the intimate contact. She gripped his belt tightly as her body undulated against his hand.

  Her lips parted in a silent cry. She released a hand from his belt and molded her fingers over his still-clothed erection. The caress rocked through him so intensely that his knees buckled. He collapsed back into the desk chair, pulled her down to straddle him.

  With her curly brown hair cascading in waves around her face, she unlatched his belt, then his pants. He watched her work, marveling that the same hands that were so capable and confident in the kitchen were so unsteady now. He leaned back in the chair to give her more room to work, but bumped the chair back into the desk. Something tumbled from the desk to the floor. A Dukes of Hazzard action figure, reminding Knox where they were. Not his current house, not his apartment in Dallas either. His mother’s house. Which meant …

  Shit.

  He forced the fog of desire to clear from his mind insomuch that he could speak. “I don’t have…” Damn it, he couldn’t get his mouth to form words. “There’s no protection here.” Every sound had to be forced out from a sandbag tongue and concrete jaw. “So I’ll need to…” The sentence dissolved into an almost angry growl of pleasure as she tugged his briefs down, freeing his heavy, swollen cock. He couldn’t think past being inside her, past achieving that profound connection with Emily—this maddeningly intense, ferocious, singular woman who was so much a reflection of his own famished soul. Right the hell now.