Chapter 54 Harper #2
“You are incorrigible.”
“I’m thorough. There’s a difference.”
“There really isn’t.”
He leaned over and pressed a kiss to my temple, and I felt it all the way down to my toes.
Later, I kept my promise.
I stood in the kitchen, wearing nothing but a pale blue apron and a questionable amount of self-respect. The ties knotted at my lower back, the fabric barely covering everything that mattered, and I could feel Knox’s gaze on me like a physical thing. Warm. Heavy. Relentless.
“Stop staring and make yourself useful.” I pulled the chicken out of the fridge.
“I am useful. I’m providing moral support.”
“You’re providing a distraction.”
“Also useful.”
I pointed the spatula at him. “You. Chair. Now.”
He dropped into one of the kitchen chairs and leaned back, stretching his legs out and crossing his arms behind his head. The picture of innocence, if innocence were six foot four and covered in tattoos and looking at you like he was calculating exactly how long it would take to get that apron off.
I turned back to the stove.
The sauce was the first thing. Crushing the San Marzano tomatoes by hand, the juice bursting between my fingers, then garlic and olive oil hitting the hot pan with a sizzle that filled the kitchen. The scent bloomed through the air and I heard Knox inhale behind me.
“That,” he said, “is already better than anything I’ve smelled in years.”
“Wait until I add the basil.”
I was dicing onions when I felt him behind me. Not touching. Just close. The heat of his body along my bare back, his breath stirring the hair at the nape of my neck.
“You’re supposed to be in the chair,” I said.
“The chair was too far away.”
His hands settled on my hips, just above the apron tie, and his thumbs traced slow circles against my bare skin. My knife stuttered against the cutting board.
“Knox.”
“Hmm?”
“I’m holding a very sharp object.”
“I trust your reflexes.”
I turned around, pointing the knife playfully at his chest. “Back. Up.”
He raised both hands in surrender and retreated two steps. But he was smiling. That low, quiet, dangerous smile that made my stomach flip.
I went back to the sauce. Stirred. Seasoned. Tasted. Let it simmer while I prepped the chicken, dredging it in flour, then egg, then breadcrumbs, the methodical rhythm of cooking settling into my bones the way it always did.
I was kneading the dough for the garlic bread when I heard him groan behind me.
“What now?” I asked with a smile.
“You’re moving your hips when you knead.”
I froze. Looked down. He was right. The rocking motion of pushing and folding the dough had my hips swaying back and forth, and in nothing but an apron, I could only imagine what that looked like from his angle.
“That’s just the mechanics of kneading bread, Knox.”
“The mechanics,” he repeated flatly, “are going to be the death of me.”
I grinned and kept kneading. Maybe with a little extra sway. Sue me.
The next thing I knew, his hands were on my waist, spinning me around. My back pressed against the counter, and he was right there, his body caging mine, his eyes molten silver.
“Five-minute intermission,” he murmured.
“The sauce is going to burn.”
“Then we’ll be quick.”
His mouth found my neck. My jaw. The spot just below my ear that made every coherent thought dissolve into static. I gripped the edge of the countertop with flour-dusted fingers as he hitched the apron up and sank to his knees.
I looked down at him. This man. This impossibly strong, impossibly gentle man on his knees in my kitchen, looking up at me like I was the only thing in the world worth worshipping.
“Knox, I swear to God, if the sauce scorches …”
“Then I’ll make you new sauce.” And then his mouth was on me.
His tongue traced a path that made my knees buckle and my fingers grip the counter so hard, my knuckles turned white. When he slid two fingers inside me, curling them with a precision that should not have been legal, I stopped thinking about the sauce entirely.
The kitchen smelled like garlic and simmering tomatoes and basil, and I came apart on his tongue while the bread rose on the counter beside us.
Afterward, he stood, licked his fingers clean, and pressed a kiss to my forehead like he’d just helped me reach something on the top shelf.
“No more,” I breathed, pushing gently at his chest. “Until dessert.”
His eyes darkened. “My dessert will be you.”
“Your dessert will be whatever I decide it is. Now sit down before I burn something.”
True to his word, he let me finish. He stayed in his chair, though I caught him shifting more than once, his jaw tight, his eyes tracking every move I made like I was something he needed to memorize.
I plated everything with more care than I’d taken with a meal in years. Golden chicken Parmesan with melted mozzarella bubbling at the edges. Spaghetti tossed in the sauce I’d spent two hours babying. Thick slices of garlic bread glistening with butter.
I set the plate in front of him and stepped back, my heart doing something stupid and fluttery in my chest.
Knox looked at the plate. Then at me. Then back at the plate.
He picked up his fork. Cut into the chicken. The crunch of the breading gave way to tender, juicy meat, and he brought the first bite to his mouth.
And closed his eyes.
The sound he made was low and rough, pulled from somewhere deep. The genuine, unfiltered reaction of a man tasting something real for the first time in years.
When he opened his eyes, they were brighter than I’d ever seen them.
“Oh my God.” He took another bite before he’d finished the first, like his body couldn’t wait. “Is this what real food is supposed to taste like?”
We’d been living off of the basics and DoorDash for days, but this was the first official homemade meal I’d cooked.
I leaned against the counter, arms crossed, trying very hard not to cry. “Do you like it?”
“Do I like it?” He stared at me like I’d asked if the sun was warm. “Harper, if you make this for me every night, I will literally do anything you want.”
I arched an eyebrow. “Anything?”
“Anything. Dishes. Every night. Foot rubs on demand. Name what you want.”
“Watch a rom-com with me. No falling asleep. No commentary about plot holes.”
He hesitated. Just barely. “Define commentary.”
“No talking.”
“Can I make facial expressions?”
“Minimal.”
“Done.”
“Let me pick the music in the car. Permanently.”
“Now you’re pushing it.”
I laughed, and he grinned at me, and the kitchen felt warmer than any oven could make it. He took another bite and shook his head slowly.
“I forgot food could make you feel like this,” he admitted.
I reached across the table and covered his hand with mine. His fingers curled around mine instantly. A reflex. Like holding my hand was something his body had decided it would always do.
“We have a lot of meals to make up for,” I said. “A different one every night. Italian. Mexican. Thai. Greek. Breakfast for dinner, if you want. Until you figure out your favorite.”
He turned my hand over and pressed his lips to my palm. Held them there. When he looked up, those eyes held something so open, so unguarded, that it stole the breath right out of me.
“I think I already figured out the most important thing,” he said.
“What’s that?”
“That it’s not the food.” His thumb ran across my knuckles. “It’s having someone who wants to make it for you.”
And just like that, sitting in a kitchen that smelled like garlic bread and homemade sauce, wearing nothing but an apron, I fell even harder for Knox.
True to his word, the moment the last plate hit the sink, Knox picked me up like I weighed nothing, carried me to the bedroom, and tossed me onto the mattress.
“Time for dessert.” He pulled his shirt over his head.
And I let him have every last bite.
I wish we could have stayed there. In that warmth. In that bubble where the world was just his skin against mine and the sound of his heartbeat slowing beneath my ear.
But afterward, as we lay tangled together, my phone buzzed against the nightstand. And I made the mistake of checking it.
Knox saw the message come through at the same time I did.
An unknown number.
A photo.
Me and Knox in the grocery store checkout line. Hand in hand. A quick kiss that was intimate. A moment that had been ours.
Beneath one sentence.
NO ONE TAKES WHAT IS MINE.