Chapter 33
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Elise
L uc arrived home right as I finished measuring the dry ingredients.
“Hey. I’m glad you’re home. I feel like I haven’t seen you in days.”
Granted, we’d slept together and had ended up snuggled close this morning. He’d been the one to slip out of bed first, and since I’d been wiped out from a late night with my friends, I’d indulged in another lazy morning.
But I’d spent the afternoon doing my VA work and now I’d prepped a little project for us.
“What’s all this?” he asked, entering the kitchen and going immediately to wash his hands.
This was something I really liked about him. He didn’t automatically linger outside the kitchen. He’d clearly spent hours inside it and enjoyed cooking.
“I decided we need cookies.” I had to do something for him, and I couldn’t figure out what. So my old reliable default I’d funneled into my business came out to play. I wanted to leave him with something, if this was about to be over. Leave myself with a memory we’d made together, too. Something real.
Interest flared in his eyes. “Is that so?”
I turned on his mixer to cream the butter and sugar, as much to deflect from the swoop of my heart at this last realization as a need to get on with it. “It is. I need to bake them, and you need to eat them.”
The half-smile gracing his mouth was enough to make me blush. The man was just so handsome, and it felt like I’d hardly seen him, even though we’d been next to each other all night long. The key there was that we weren’t talking, or even touching, on purpose.
We ended up that way but never acknowledged it. I’d decided I didn’t want to mention it in case it made him think I didn’t want him close.
“What kind of cookies are these?” he asked, then set a hand on the counter on either side of the mix, effectively caging me in.
My pulse started on the stair master, climbing bit by bit without stopping, especially when his stubble grazed against my cheek as he said, “Don’t tell me they’re chocolate chip?”
“Is that a problem?” I asked, dropping in the shelled eggs one at a time.
His breath coasted along my jaw, and he seemed to almost nuzzle me behind my ear. Was he… was he snuggling me? Seducing me?
Was this what happened when you made a man nicknamed Cookie chocolate chip cookies? Note to self: cookies every day.
I’d greet him at the door with a cookie and a kiss on the cheek. I’d leave work hours earlier and spend time doing something fun or volunteering, then I’d come home and make fresh cookies and wait for that little smile he just gave me that made my heart flutter.
And maybe he would seduce me then, and I’d let him, because?—
“Not a problem at all. A gift, I think.”
His hands slid closer to where I worked measuring out a teaspoon of vanilla and dipping it into the mixer, almost like he was trying to resist touching. Like if he nipped at my jaw and inhaled my scent, it didn’t count, but if his hands got involved…
“I hope you’ll like them, but I should caveat this recipe is nothing special. It’s straight from the back of the bag of chocolate chips. I have another one I like but it takes a few days and I haven’t?—”
My words cut off when one of his large, warm hands pressed against my belly, urging me to lean against him.
Don’t mind if I do.
Maybe we wouldn’t have that everyday scene, but this, like much of it had already been, could be the indulgence.
“I love this recipe. I’m certain I’ll enjoy the cookies, and all the more since you had a hand in making them.”
His face was tucked into my neck, one hand against my body, the heat of him radiating across my back. The temptation to drop my head back on his shoulder and forget all about the cookies nearly overpowered me, but then he nudged the bowl of dry ingredients toward the mixer with his free hand.
“Don’t overmix, non?”
I huffed an exhale, releasing a bit of the pent-up tension building in me, and nodded. “Wise. Though less important with cookies. But still, wise.”
“Less important? Than donuts?” he asked, his tone sounding almost casual, though the way his fingers splayed out along my abdomen, the tips of his index and middle finger brushing along the top of my jeans, and his voice low and rich in my ear were anything but casual.
Dear sweet Nestlé, the man was melted chocolate itself. He was decadent and delicious and more tempting than, well, melted chocolate.
The thing was, I didn’t want to be consumed by melted chocolate. And right now, with his perfectly trimmed stubble and his graveled voice and what I could swear was a more intense accented lilt to his words, I wanted to drown in him.
“Elise, mon ange ?”
His prompt came low and sensuous, but the use of French, for once, didn’t lull me into a melty daze. It spurred me into action.
I fed the dry ingredients into the slow-moving mixer and explained. “Certainly less important than cake. Overmixing cake batter can ruin its ability to rise completely—it wipes out the leavening agent due to eliminating the—” I breathed out heavily as his lips brushed against the sensitive skin of my neck. “The air. And, uh, donuts vary, but since most of mine at Glazed are yeast donuts, they have that leavening power.”
And was I really going to keep talking about leavening agents while he was… doing what he was doing?
“Fascinating.”
Both of his hands explored me now—nothing more than a slow slide of his thumb arcing over the fabric of my shirt to the left of my navel, or the soft, almost ghosting of his palm along my forearm.
Never had I imagined this simple contact could set me on fire. He was a double boiler, and I was the unsuspecting chocolate chips helplessly losing shape against the heat of him. Or… something. I couldn’t describe it.
As soon as the dry ingredients were combined into the mixer, I turned, took his face in my hands, and pulled his lips to mine.
The press of our mouths was like lighter paper, one edge singeing and the burn racing to unravel the rest of the surface. One press, then he took over, his mouth as hungry for me as I was for him. But just as we got going, he pulled back, his fingers pinching my chin lightly to keep me in place.
I blinked, coming to the moment with surprise at the sudden halt and frustration. “Why?”
He knew the question. “Because. I shouldn’t be distracting you. And you—” His gaze flickered away, his jaw flexed, and then his eyes came back to meet mine. “You didn’t ask me to.”
A rough exhale preceded my next words. “I would think me kissing you supersedes you needing to be asked. It’s asking without words, isn’t it?”
Those eyes bore into mine, digging into me in the most delicious, intense way. My gaze fell to his lips again, and he dropped his forehead to mine.
“ Oui. T’as raison . But I—I can’t think when you touch me, and?—”
I leaned back, shooting him all the skepticism fizzing through me.
“ You can’t think when I touch you? ” My laugh had never been more incredulous.
This man only smirked, though it wasn’t irritating. It was alluring.
Okay, so we’ve entered the phase of finding every darn thing he does attractive. Noted.
“I may have gotten carried away. But when my…” Something flickered over his face but disappeared before I could figure it out. “When I find you here making cookies you intend to share, am I supposed to keep my hands to myself?”
I burst out laughing. “I see how it is. It’s really the cookies.” I didn’t even feel bad he was essentially saying it wasn’t me who had drawn him in, but the classic chocolate chip cookie ingredients.
“Exactly. Not at all you.”
But his eyes seared a path so laden with desire from my eyes to my lips, I reached up to touch my mouth as though it might’ve been burned, not merely kissed. Interest flared in his gaze yet again.
“So if it’d been Michele here, you would’ve done the same thing?” I asked, moving to the sink to wash my hands and give me space.
His low laugh sent a shiver through me. “ Mais oui . Though maybe not exactly since I don’t think Aurelie would appreciate it. An abbreviated version, let’s say. Peut-être seulement a high five.”
I shook my head, surprisingly charmed by his refusal to tell me the truth. Normally, it would bother me, but what he said with his words directly contradicted everything else. It certainly contradicted this sense that he was holding himself by a very thin leash.
Where was this coming from? And why now, right as we were about to part ways?
He watched as I moved through the motions of adding the chocolate chips, then joined me as I scooped spoonsful of dough onto two pristine cookie sheets I’d found in his glorious kitchen.
Once I slid the first tray into the oven, I turned to find him watching me. His eyes hadn’t left me save for when he’d been scooping dough.
“You have to be the most extraordinary woman I’ve ever met.”
The slight smile gracing his lips dropped and everything about him became more intense, almost severe. He stepped forward and suddenly, instantly, the change in his entire bearing sent me on alert.
I swallowed hard and tried to find words to respond. “I—where did that come from?”
“From every interaction I’ve had with you since I moved here. Seeing you for what felt like the first time at Oak’s wedding, so beautiful it hurt to look at you, to the mornings at your shop over the last year where you were endlessly kind to your customers. Every time we’ve talked, everything about you…” His jaw flexed again, and his chest rose and fell betraying how hard he was breathing.
And me? I was stunned. Standing there with one hand on the counter to anchor me to Earth and the other pressed against my chest, I could hardly comprehend his words.
He moved toward me, plucking my hand from my chest and bringing it to press against his, over his heart, then covering it with his own. “I have heard you every time you’ve said you don’t want a relationship. If you still feel that way, I will respect it.”
“We’re pretending.” My voice came out stilted and unsure. What did he mean?
“We’ve been pretending, yes. At least in part. But every bit of what I’ve said to you, the things I feel for you… those are real. And I want to know if, perhaps, you would consider allowing this to be more.”
“More,” I repeated, almost numbly, pulse ticking up.
His eyes narrowed, sweeping over my face. “Oui, more. More than a fake engagement. Maybe we let it ride a few more days, we let it run a bit.”
Under my hand and the fabric of his shirt, his heart thudded wildly. I stood there staring at my hand over the sculpture of his chest and marveled at the raging muscle underneath betraying so much.
Revealing this wasn’t an act.
This was real. Or… closer to it, though temporary.
And though I’d worried maybe my ability to desire someone, or even care for them beyond friendship, had died with my relationship with Callum, Luc had revived all of that.
From the first time I saw him, I’d recognized attraction. But these last few weeks together had grown friendship as well as something more…
A longing for more.
And this way, I could indulge a little longer, but still within those guardrails of our agreement.
He didn’t put a fine point on this being for life or lasting or whatever, but that, too, was safer. It was better, wasn’t it? And if nothing else, accepting this small concession to our deal was a sign of progress—a show to myself that I’d moved past all the mess Callum had made of my heart and mind.
Tipping my head up, I rose to my toes and pressed my lips to his. “Let’s be more, for now.”
He pulled me into his arms and lifted me up, kissing me as he moved, and I wrapped my legs around his waist. I was ready to give whatever he wanted to take and likely would have if the oven hadn’t beeped obnoxiously and our beloved houseguests arrived home at the very same time.