by Piper Rayne
“Eat protein and no sugar tonight.” He bends down in front of me and touches his toes.
He really does have a nice ass. Like your hands automatically just want to reach out and grab it. I didn’t take full advantage of that when we had sex. I make a mental note to grab his ass the next time we sleep together. Well, if there is a next time.
“So like peanut butter then?” I ask.
I don’t cook for myself. It’s not like I stock up on chicken and beef at the butcher.
He turns around. The view of his front just as appealing as his back side.
“I was thinking a grilled chicken breast and vegetables.”
The thought of staring at a rubbery piece of chicken with sad, overcooked green beans on the side gives me the heebie-jeebies.
I love food. I think about it constantly. But if I was eating what he just suggested, I might starve myself.
“Do you actually make dinner for yourself every night?” I ask, curious.
Maddie’s told stories of Mauro cooking…or trying to cook. She jokes it’s a good thing he knows how to use a fire extinguisher.
“I try.” He stops stretching and stands up straight with a shrug. “After hockey, the guys usually want to head to the bar. I’m not some super health nut, but if I want to win, sugar and fried foods aren’t going to get me there.”
Am I really finding his dedication to reaching a goal a turn on right now?
“Well…thank you again.”
Not moving from the bottom step of the stairs, his eyes focus in on me at the top. Like he’s processing something or has something he wants to say.
“You’re welcome. Same time tomorrow?”
I nod, ignoring the pull inside that has me wanting to ask him to stay. Maybe we could make dinner together. I’d have to go out and get some groceries since all I have are Frosted Flakes and some pumpkin spice Pop Tarts and I think we can all agree that that’s not what gave Cristian Bianco his fantastic body.
He knocks his knuckles on the rod iron railing and steps down from the last step to the sidewalk.
Just ask him to stay.
“Bye.” I wave, turning to my door.
As my key inserts into the lock, I swing back around.
Cristian is standing in the middle of the sidewalk staring at me. “Everything okay?”
I nod. “Yup.” Turning back around, I get into my house and stand with the door still open.
He smiles and waves. “Remember to lock up behind you.”
“I will.”
Just let him go.
“Cris!” I call out and he spins back around to face me. “Would…would you like to stay for dinner?” I hold my breath and wait for his answer.
He smiles and walks back up the path, right up the stairs until he’s standing in the foyer with me. “Took you long enough to ask.” His chest brushes along mine as he shuts the door behind him.
As hard as I bite the inside of my cheek, I can’t get the smile to leave my lips.
What has this man done to me?
“If you want to shower, I’ll make the dinner.”
“Okay, I’ll be quick. You can go after me if you want.”
He chuckles. “No offense, but I didn’t exactly work up a sweat at the pace we were going.”
I smack him in the stomach and laugh. “Okay well, watch TV or something until I’m done and then we can worry about dinner.”
He passes me and heads into the living room, using the remote to switch the TV on.
I race upstairs and have the fastest shower known to man and I’m back downstairs in comfy clothes and wet hair in less than ten minutes.
“That was fast,” he says, turning the TV off and heading into the kitchen.
I follow him, happy he decided not to have a shower because I’m not sure I could stay downstairs knowing he was up there, stripped naked in a shower, without wanting to join him.
He starts looking around the kitchen like he’s formulating a game plan.
“I’ll help, but I don’t really have anything…”
His shoulders slump when he opens the fridge and finds it bare. It’s just me and Lauren and that girl can survive on black bean burgers and tofu.
“Well, you have some stuff.” He grabs all of Lauren’s food. “Tell Lauren I’ll replace all this.”
“How do you know they’re not mine?” I ask.
He looks from the assortment of healthy items in his hands and back to me without a word.
“Point taken,” I mumble.
He carries peppers and tofu over to the counter and opens the freezer. “What do you live on?” There isn’t any judgment in his voice, just curiosity, which makes it easier to answer.
“Sugar.”
His eyes roll up and down my body. “Well, I’d say for you, sugar does a body good.”
“I can run to the store.”
“Nope. We’re good.” He takes out a box of turkey burgers from the freezer.
I look at the three ingredients left sitting on the counter. We’re screwed and I’ll be starving by the time he leaves.
Cristian looks around the kitchen. “Mind if I make myself at home?”
He’s always so polite.
“Sure. I’d love to help, but I don’t know what I’m doing.”
Digging around in the cabinets, he comes up with a cutting board, knife, and places a skillet on the stove.
“I’m a patient man.” He winks and my stomach does that gurgling thing whenever he says anything remotely sexy.
“Okay, then where do you want me?” I head to the sink to wash my hands.
“That’s a dangerous question.”
He comes to stand next to me and doesn’t wait for me to finish washing my hands before putting soap on his. Placing my hands in his, he slips the soap between our fingers.
“You have to wash your hands for twenty seconds. My Ma sings the Happy Birthday song in Italian.”
Our fingers slide and weave together, sending bolts of energy through my veins all rushing in one direction. As if he didn’t make hand washing erotic enough already, he begins singing the Happy Birthday song in Italian softly in my ear.
I think we’re having a Ghost moment.
I hang on each word as his breath tickles my ear, I close my eyes, not wanting the song to end. Another twenty seconds, please. But sooner than my liking he places our hands under the warm water and rinses the soap off.
“That’s step one.” He leaves me breathing heavily at the sink, grabs two paper towels and hands me one.
I may have underestimated this guy.
“I’m going to defrost the turkey burgers. Why don’t you cut up the pepper.” Cristian places the red pepper on the cutting board with the knife.
He’s overestimating my proficiency in the kitchen. I take the knife and slice through it. How am I supposed to get all these seeds out?
The microwave starts up behind me and seconds later Cristian’s behind me, his chest to my back, and his hand on top of mine as he guides me through cutting the white stuff off the inside and getting all the seeds out. “You can always wash out the seeds if you can’t get them all.”
His deep voice so close to my ear is unsettling. Not in a bad way though.
Placing the pepper cut side down, he continues to show me how to complete my task. Somewhere during the process, I lose concentration and it’s only his scent that I cling to. The softness of his hands over mine. The way his muscled forearm flexes lightly with every chop.
My head falls to his shoulder and I wish he was mine so that I could kiss him. This is a great moment for a thank you kiss. One little peck to his neck. But, my imagination doesn’t stop at a kiss. My fantasy takes me on a trip of Cristian caging me against the counter, pushing the cutting board and pepper to the floor and propping me up. Our hands in a tangled mess of who can undress the other faster. His frantic lips exploring every inch of me. My head falling down onto the granite countertop, my eyes shutting as he pulls that thread insid
e of me tighter and tighter.
“There you go.” He releases my hands and like a space shuttle that lost its fuel, I crash land back on Earth.
“Thanks,” I choke out, swallowing the extra saliva pooling in my mouth.
The skillet sizzles to life a second later and even though we’re in the same room, he feels miles away.
“Why didn’t you ever you never learn to cook?” he asks. “I’m not judging. I mean, neither of my brothers do. After I moved out, I couldn’t survive on burgers like Mauro could, so I taught myself.”
One more sign of how different we are.
“Not sure. I just never did. But I can remember baking with my mom.”
“Fuck,” he sighs. “I’m sorry. That was shitty of me.”
I turn around and smile. “It’s fine, but if I had to peg a reason, I’d say it’s probably that. My dad got by but for about a year after my mom died, neighborhood women would stock our fridge for us. Casseroles galore and some would bring over freshly made dinners. After the first year, I think we lived off pizza and frozen meals. That’s when I discovered my love for cereal.”
He flips over the burgers, grabbing salt and pepper to season them. “What’s your favorite?”
I step over to the pantry cabinet. “If you want any chance of getting me in bed again you better agree that Boo Berry is.”
“I didn’t even know they still made that.” He abandons the turkey burgers to grab at the box I just pulled out. “I was a Count Chocula fan, but Boo Berry would be my second choice.”
I open the box as he holds it, taking out a monster marshmallow. He opens his mouth and I toss it in. “Okay, if I’d known you had this I may have hopped on your train of having cereal for dinner.”
I take a handful of the cereal and close up the box. “I’m awesome.”
“I can’t disagree there.”
We each eat out of my hand. “They’re only available during Halloween season.”
“I bet you have a stockpile.” He smiles and then starts in on the tofu at the cutting board.
“Maybe, I’ll keep my eye out for Count Chocula, but he’s usually the first to go.”
“Because he’s the best.” He opens up his mouth. “Feed me.”
I drop two pieces of cereal into his mouth and he goes back to the task of cutting up tofu.
It’s arousing watching a man who knows what he’s doing in the kitchen. I’ve never dated someone who knew how to cook anything other than heat and serve. I’m sure that’s not surprising.
“Don’t you find it hard in the city? Transporting all the groceries on the bus or the train. I’ve taken a taxi a few times.”
“It’s not New York, why don’t you drive?” he asks, looking up from the cutting board.
Shit, I talked myself right into that one. Just another embarrassing fact to admit to the perfect guy.
“I don’t know how.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Vanessa
“You can’t drive? Like, you never got your license?” This time I do hear a tad of judgment in his tone.
I slide up on the counter. “I grew up in Chicago. My dad believed sixteen was too young for a license and said I could get it at eighteen. By then I was in college and Maddie and Lauren never seemed to mind driving. We only had so many spots at our apartment so I didn’t have anywhere to park a car anyway. For the most part, I don’t need one.” I shrug. “The older I get, the more the whole thing kind of scares me.”
“Scares you? How?” He seems surprised by my admission.
“The responsibility of it all. It’s expensive and I’d have to get insurance and…” I could go on and on, but the bottom line is that it just scares me.
Cristian pulls the turkey burgers out and sets them on a plate and tosses the chopped up tofu in a pan. He looks through a few cabinets and the fridge again, looking for what, I don’t know, but he eventually pulls out a bottle of soy sauce.
This sure is transpiring to be an interesting meal. Not that I’m judging. I don’t throw stones at glass houses.
“I never chalked you up to hide from something you’re scared of.” He moves the tofu around in the pan, pulling back his hand when the oil splatters him.
“You don’t really know me.”
His eyes meet mine. “As you keep mentioning. Why don’t we change that?”
“Because you probably won’t like me once you find out my secrets.” There’s more truth in that statement than he’ll realize.
“I’ll tell you one of mine first.”
He turns the burner down on the stove, flips the tofu over and as much as I hate to admit it, saturated in soy sauce it doesn’t look so bad. He abandons the pan, coming over to me and placing his arms on either side of my hips. I widen my legs welcoming him between them.
“I lost my virginity to a teacher.”
Whoa. Holy shit, I thought he’d tell me that he ate Mickey D’s last night. He’s going deep. I hope he doesn’t expect me to do the same.
“Really?” I ask, eyes wide.
He raises both eyebrows and heads back over to the pan.
“Yeah. I should mention that I was eighteen, as embarrassing as that is to admit to you. She was twenty-four. Right out of college, her first year.”
“Well, Bianco. As sick as it kind of is that a teacher seduced you, I have to say I thought you were a follow the rules all the time kind of guy.”
Placing the tofu on a plate, he adds the pepper to the pan. “Your turn.”
I stare up at the ceiling. It’s hard to decide what to tell him. There’s so many. “My dad was the one who got me drunk for my first time.”
“What?”
Cristian looks like he might pass out.
“I came home from a party one night and he smelled alcohol on my breath. It was Jell-O shots and I only had one. The next night he sat me down and did shot for shot with me. It was a sick way to learn a lesson, but I didn’t drink again until halfway through my freshman year in college.”
“Damn, the Commander plays hardball.”
“You have no idea. I puked so much that night. I think he switched his to water at some point. I was a lightweight back then.”
“Oh, and what, you can drink me under the table now?” He fixes us two plates and I feel bad that I kind of slacked helping out.
“All this green stuff you eat, I bet you’d pass out before me.”
“And would you take advantage of me?” He grins.
“Why do I feel like you’re hoping that I would?”
He chuckles and his laughter fills the kitchen with a warmth that’s absent when I’m here on my own.
“A man can dream right?”
I figure we’ll eat at the breakfast bar, but Cristian takes the two plates over to the table.
“Wine?” I ask.
“Not until Saturday.” He grabs two bottles of water from the fridge.
We sit down at the table and as much as I’m enjoying our time together, I try to convince myself I don’t.
“Here’s another secret, this is my first time trying tofu.” I cut it in half, the consistency of the stuff not exactly winning me over.
“My secret is that I’ve never made a woman dinner.”
I flip our conversation to lighthearted and he flips it right back to serious. This is the juxtaposition of us.
“I’ve never had someone make me dinner. I do have to say though that whoever cut up these peppers did an awesome job.”
He smiles over his mouthful of food.
“That they did. Now you have a job for the next time we do dinner at home.”
Home. A four letter word that means more than shelter. And it reminds me of another four letter word—love.
“You’re pretty presumptuous.” I place the tofu in my mouth and at first, I want to spit it out. It’s like the inside of a tomato—gushy, mushy, and squishy...but then the spices come into play. The saltiness of the soy sauce, the heat of the black pepper.
“Try
all three together,” Cristian says.
I fork off a small piece of turkey burger, a small piece of tofu and then scoop up a piece of red pepper. As the entire mixture hits my mouth, I realize that it surprisingly works.
I place my fork down and wipe my mouth with the napkin.
“Did you just spit it out?”
“No.” I show him my napkin. “I had my doubts, but this is good, Cristian. Ever think about leaving the force?”
He laughs, placing his fork down and taking a sip of water. “Is that a deal breaker for you?”
His question throws me and I don’t answer right away, but he continues anyway.
“I know it’s a risky job and you’ve lived with a cop your entire life. So I guess I want to know if me being a police officer is going to jeopardize my chances with you.”
God, where did this guy come from? He doesn’t even mean for his words to be so endearing. Chances with you? No one has ever wanted to put in the effort to really get to know me because—newsflash—I’m a hard person to get to know. Most men see my tits and my ass and my height. The blonde doesn’t help, but even after I went brunette for a year, it was still the same. They want me in their bed, but not much else.
And no, I’m not asking for pity. I don’t deserve any—things could always be worse. But just once it would be nice to think that a guy could like me for what’s inside. Even if it is more like a jagged piece of slate rather than a clear, polished diamond.
I never wanted a man in blue until Cristian. So I find myself answering his question in a way I wouldn’t have two weeks ago.
“No. I’m okay with it.”
He smiles and it reaches his eyes, the deep brown sparkling. “Come to my hockey game tomorrow?”
Again, I respond by saying something that surprises even me.
“Yes.”
The next night I’m in the stands of a recreation facility with Maddie and Lauren.
Cristian, Luca, and Mauro are across the ice with the rest of their team. Cristian has a clipboard in his hand and he’s pointing his pen at a few of the guys.
“I didn’t even know they played,” Lauren says.
