Chapter Eight
Bailey
The second I stepped into the kitchen, I smiled. Like every other room in this house, it was large, with a huge island in the middle. Then again, with two chefs in the house, this was no surprise.
“Someone already prepared everything for me,” he noted.
We went directly to the stove.
“So, your specialty, huh?” I questioned.
“I’ve been on eggnog duty ever since I was sixteen.”
“Duty?” I laughed.
“Yeah, we each contribute as much as we can to the same old traditions. I have to say, I’m the least involved of all. I usually do this for our traditional Christmas get-together, but since I’m here today, I wanted to do it.”
“I like your traditions. Putting up the star with Bella, prepping eggnog.”
I looked at the ingredients on the counter: egg yolks and sugar, milk and whipped cream, nutmeg, vanilla extract, and cinnamon.
“We have all the right ingredients except one. No alcohol?” I asked him.
“Nah. Once we tried to make one for adults only and a separate one for Bella, and it backfired because she kept wanting to taste ours. Let’s just say she wasn’t happy when we didn’t let her. Ever since, we just drink alcohol-free eggnog.”
“Fine by me. So, put me to work,” I said.
He stared at me. “No! You worked enough yesterday. Now you just relax.”
“But I made you work yesterday too.”
“You needed the help. Besides, I can whip this up in no time.”
To my astonishment, he didn’t even need to consult the recipe. I was watching him with my mouth slightly open. Seeing this mountain of a man at the stove made him even sexier, especially when he took off his suit jacket and rolled up his sleeves.
Sexy forearms. Of course. Why couldn’t he have super-thin nonmuscular forearms?
Because they wouldn’t go with the rest of his body, you dummy , a voice said in the back of my mind.
“Bailey?”
“Hm?”
“Where did you go just now?”
I shrugged, trying to play it cool, but I knew I was failing because his smile just widened. “I don’t know. Why? Did you ask me something?”
“I asked if you’ve got any tips for an eggnog recipe.”
“I don’t often make one, but that might change after tonight. You’ve got to give me your recipe. Actually, wait. I’ll taste it first and then see if I want your recipe or not.”
“You still don’t trust me, huh?” he asked as he poured the nutmeg into a bowl.
“I require proof.”
“You’re more like me than you think.”
“Meaning?”
He laughed. “It was a compliment.”
I grimaced. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to imply that it wasn’t. I do look up to you in many ways.”
I was focusing on his hands for no reason at all.
“You have skills in the kitchen,” I commented.
“Yeah, I told you that yesterday when you wouldn’t let me near the stove.”
“I figured—”
“That there was no use?”
“I wouldn’t put it quite like that.” Goodness, I need to watch myself with him.
“But close. I grew up with two chefs as grandmothers. There was no escaping cooking in my family. With so many of us, we kind of took turns with it.”
“I assumed your grandmothers wanted to be in charge.”
“Nah, they worked a lot during that time. Mom cooked often, but we kids gave her a hard time.”
He glanced at me, and yep, that really was mischief in his eyes. “We kept teasing her that her food was no match for that of the grannies’.”
“Poor Adele. It must have broken her heart.”
“Not really. She openly admits that she doesn’t like cooking.” After the pot started simmering, he said, “It’s gonna need half an hour.”
“Wait a second, we can’t drink this tonight. Doesn’t it need to cool off in the fridge?”
“No, we always skip that part.”
“Wow. Now I have to taste it. I never thought you could skip such an important step.”
He chuckled. “We wing it very often in my family. If something tastes good, it doesn’t matter how you prepare it. That’s our motto. Well, that’s the motto of everyone else except the grandmothers. But then again, the rest of us are just lowly mortals, not chefs.”
There was nothing left for him to do for now, so he turned sideways, training his eyes on me.
“I’m glad I came tonight,” he said.
“I’m glad too. It was really nice to see you with your family.”
He looked at me for a few seconds before saying, “I love my family, but I came tonight to see you.”
I gasped lightly but managed to disguise it as a small cough. “Me? You wanted to see me? Why?”
I was standing with my back at the kitchen island, and Xander stepped in front of me. “Because I enjoyed your company a lot last night, and I didn’t get enough. Not nearly enough.”
“Xander,” I murmured, “I know you’re trying to be on good terms, but really, this is your company and—”
“Fuck the company. This is not about that.”
My pulse quickened, and my breath caught. “What is it about?”
He was very close, and there was heat in his eyes—there was no mistaking it. But I had to hear it from him. I couldn’t believe it otherwise.
“It’s about you. Just you.” Then he touched my cheek with the back of his fingers. “You’ve been on my mind constantly ever since we met.”
“I gave you such a hard time. That doesn’t make sense.”
“That was precisely why I couldn’t stop thinking about you.”
Now he was close enough that his hot breath brushed my skin. Heat gathered between my thighs, and I pushed my legs together.
“Xander. Last night—”
“I wanted to kiss you at every turn.”
I pushed my hips forward in a knee-jerk reaction and pressed myself right into him. That’s how close he was.
He groaned and kissed me in the next second. His mouth was hot and so full of passion. It demanded the same from me, and I gladly gave in to the kiss. God, I didn’t even know I needed it so badly.
His hand moved from my cheek into my hair, wrapping it tightly, then bringing me even closer to him. I felt his other hand on my back and then sliding to my hip before finally moving under my ass. I was lost to this man. So lost, in fact, that I didn’t even realize what was going on until he lifted me off the floor and put my ass on the counter.
He was pressing my thighs to his sides, and since he was touching me so freely, I did the same. I moved my hands on his shoulders and then down his chest. Goodness, the muscles on this man seemed unreal. They were perfectly formed and so hard that I couldn’t get enough. I needed skin-on-skin contact. I needed everything. No one had ever stoked such a fire inside me or made me lose my head that way.
The sound of someone clearing their throat made me come back to my senses. My lips felt cold as Xander took a step back, looking straight at the door.
Oh my God, someone caught us kissing!
My face felt like it was burning. I was so flushed that I thought I might faint any second now. I didn’t even dare turn around.
“We need you in the living room.” It was a guy’s voice, but with my back turned, I couldn’t tell who it belonged to. At least it wasn’t Isabeau or Celine, but it had to be someone from the family.
“We’ll be right there,” Xander said.
How did he look so annoyingly calm and composed? The man wasn’t even blushing. I felt like a roasted tomato.
When the footsteps faded, he turned his gaze on me. His eyes were super dark and even sexier than before. “I’m sorry.”
“Oh.” My smile fell, and I quickly hopped down from the counter. “Umm... we can pretend it didn’t happen.” I pulled my dress down to my knees and smoothed out the nonexistent wrinkles just to give myself something to do.
Xander touched my arm, and a current of awareness moved through me. I instantly straightened up. He gripped my chin next. “I didn’t mean the kiss. I’m not fucking sorry about the kiss, just that we were so rudely interrupted. I had big plans.”
There was the man I knew, straight and to the point.
“Really? What were they?” I was suddenly feeling a little better about our getting caught.
“Something completely impractical for the kitchen.”
Holy shit! My nipples turned to tight buds; they were almost painful against my bra.
“I completely forgot we were in the kitchen.” Xander seemed to revert back to his sensible self, and I had to smile.
“Funny, I totally forgot that I was in your grandparents’ house too.”
He looked at the eggnog. “This is ready to put through the strainer,” he said. With dexterity, he grabbed the utensil and the simmering pot and poured the contents into the empty pot right next to it.
“My God, you’re strong,” I whispered.
“What was that?”
I laughed nervously. “Nothing, I was talking to myself.”
After putting down the pot, Xander turned to me. “Bailey, we just passed that stage where you have to keep your dirty thoughts to yourself.”
“Who said I had dirty thoughts?” Ha! If he only knew.
“I can read your body language. Right before the kiss, you pressed your thighs together.” His voice was suddenly an octave lower.
“Yes.”
“Was it because you were wet?”
I got even wetter at his words. I couldn’t say it, so I simply nodded.
He closed his eyes, taking a deep breath. “Fuck,” he murmured. “We need to join the others.”
My heart was beating out of my chest. What was I doing, kissing this man, flirting with him? I was working at the branch he planned to close. This thing was messy anyway. Why was I making it even worse?
But when he fixed his gaze on me, I couldn’t think straight.
“Or what?” I murmured.
“Or I’ll lose my head completely.”
I needed to tease him more than I needed my next breath.
“What would that entail?” I prodded.
He swallowed hard. “Closing the kitchen door, turning the lock, and taking you right here on this counter. And next to it and on the floor and on that chair. And every other place there is.”
I could barely breathe past the tension gathering in my body. How did we go from zero to dirty talking in no time at all? I didn’t have time to mull it over too much, though, because someone joined us again.
“You can have another kissing session once the guests are gone. Come on, let’s go.” It was the same voice as before. It belonged to Beckett, who winked at me before leaving.
I covered my face with my hands and groaned. “I can’t show my face out there. What will your family think?”
Xander caressed the back of my head, then kissed the top of it. The gesture warmed me in a different way altogether. It was sweet, and that wasn’t a word I thought I’d associate with this man.
“Don’t worry about Beckett. He won’t say anything to the family or put you on the spot. He’ll give me a hard time, but not in front of anyone else. You can trust me on that.”
“Maybe we should go separately, so it’s not too obvious, I guess?”
Xander looked at me with an expression I couldn’t read. “Sure, if that makes you feel better. Go ahead. You can tell everyone I’m still checking on the eggnog.”
“That sounds like a good idea.” I quickly made my way around the island.
When I reached the doorway, Xander said, “Bailey?”
“Yes?” I looked over my shoulder.
“This conversation we started here isn’t over.”
And just like that, my pulse was out of control once again, but I gave him a smile. I hadn’t thought it was either.
“By the way, I need that recipe. I wasn’t paying attention to anything other than your forearms.”
He laughed wholeheartedly. “I’ll go one better. Whenever you want to make some, I’ll come to your place, and we’ll make it together.”