8. Strawberry Compote
STRAWBERRY COMPOTE
*Use half the sugar. A little sour makes it sweeter.
S o, this was a kiss.
His lips were soft yet firm. Pliant but demanding as they opened mine and started to explore.
It wasn’t anything like I imagined. Far better than practicing on my hand, or against a door, or sometimes even my pillow during cold, lonely nights in a city brimming with lovers. My bedding couldn’t respond, but Lucas Lyons did .
He nibbled and lapped like my mouth was a scoop of gelato during a heatwave. The hand at my waist tightened while his other slipped around my neck and held me still, as much of a warning as an invitation to follow him deeper.
He was still in control. Always in control. But not quite taking it—rather, inviting me to give in to that solid, grounding touch laced with heat that coiled something dark in my belly before releasing like an internal sigh.
So this was what the fuss was about.
I’d thought it would be messy. And maybe it was, a little. But like that gelato, even if it was a bit of a muddle, it was too delicious to stop.
Lucas’s lips fitted with jigsaw precision while his tongue twisted around mine again and again, searching for its twin, searching for something deep within me.
“Fuck,” he growled, like it physically hurt to keep the word in. Then, with the first evidence that his careful control was starting to shred, he grabbed my face between his palms and resumed the kiss as though he would die if he didn’t. “ That mouth .”
Kissing was the wrong term.
I was reminded of the first time I tried a perfect crème br?lée , topped with Ondine’s strawberry compote.
I hadn’t just tasted the dessert.
I’d devoured it.
Which was exactly what Lucas was doing to me as his teeth worried my lower lip, then nipped at the fuller top one with a groan.
To my surprise, however, I was devouring him right back, enjoying the way the slight stubble on his chin dragged over my smooth skin and the hints of champagne and, yes, strawberries, mingled between us.
For the first time in my life, I was acting on instinct. Who knew how my arms had even found their way around his neck? But I was glad they had as I yanked him closer and let my fingers weave into the soft hair at the nape of his neck.
“Lucas,” I gasped before attacking him again.
His bottom lip was surprisingly full. Luscious, even. Like a perfectly ripe plum eager to be bitten.
The thought made me moan.
I was moaning . Like a silly girl in a silly movie, I melted under that firm, demanding touch.
The sound broke whatever spell we were under. Lucas stopped the kiss on a labored breath and stepped away, leaving me to figure out where I was and what had just happened and where the hell Marie had gone and who had I become in the space of the last thirty seconds.
Or thirty minutes.
I honestly could not tell.
When I looked up, Lucas was watching me as he pulled at his collar. His chest heaved with several more deep breaths, and his eyes dilated like a panther on the hunt.
What did that make me? The prey?
“I…I…” I blinked, dumbstruck.
Lucas’s hand was pressed to his mouth, his other tugging on his crooked bow tie as he continued to stare.
His combed hair was mussed from my efforts, and there were traces of lipstick staining his skin.
For the first time since I’d known him, the unflappable oldest child of the Lyons dynasty looked bewildered. And a bit of a mess.
“Marie.”
My name was a whisper. His eyes were burning. My entire body was on fire.
“I—thank you,” I said.
The words slipped out, hushed, but there. Immediately, I flushed and whirled around to face a wall of propagating tropical plants.
Oh God . I get my first kiss at the wizened age of twenty-five, a good first kiss, one for the record books, and the first words out of my mouth are “Thank you?”
Should I just go full Oliver , hold my hands out, and request in a quaint British accent, “Please, sir, may I have some more?”
Lucas, to his credit, didn’t seem to my humiliation. When I forced myself back around, he had mostly put himself back together. His bow tie was straight again, his hair smoothed back into place as he rebuttoned his jacket, cleared his throat, and faced me like I was a room full of board members.
“You’re welcome,” he said calmly, as if he’d bought me a coffee or cleared his own plate. Not as if he had just kissed every coherent thought out of my inexperienced mind.
The red lipstick still smeared around his mouth was the only sign he’d been just as thoroughly debauched as me in his family’s greenhouse.
At least I had that.
“I—but, why?” was the next thing I managed through still-tingling lips.
Lucas took out a handkerchief and wiped his face. “Why what?”
I flapped a hand in the direction of my face. “Why that? The kiss? Why? I didn’t even know you thought of me…that way.”
Recognition crossed his marble face. “Oh, I thought that was clear: the kiss was part of the message from Daniel.”
Each word fell like a stone to the bottom of my stomach.
Message.
From.
Daniel.
Who, if Lucas was to be believed, was playing the good Samaritan in the back of an ambulance while I had been making out with his brother like a drunk sorority girl on her twenty-first birthday.
My hand flew out before I could stop it and met Lucas’s cheek with a hard slap. His head jerked to one side, and when he looked back, my handprint was white on his ruddy skin. He pressed his own hand to it, a parody of a lover’s touch.
“What the fuck was that for?” he snapped.
Something odd, something like respect, colored his shock.
“You r-ruined it!” I wrapped my arms around my waist, wishing I could shrink into the wall.
“Ruined what?”
“Why did you have to do that? Who kisses someone on behalf of their brother? Daniel wouldn’t have wanted that, and you just came in here, and you stole my first kiss, and?—”
I cut myself off before I could incriminate myself further. Lucas Lyons had just humiliated me here in the conservatory. He’d thieved my innocence. He didn’t get to have my history too.
Unfortunately, the damage was done. Horror was etched all over Lucas’s face. “Your first—do you mean to tell me that was your first kiss?”
Tears welled. “Shut up.”
“But—but—but that’s impossible.”
I swiped at the tears that streamed down my cheeks, not caring that the act would certainly ruin my makeup even more than it was already. “Unfortunately, it’s not. Embarrassing, yes. Impossible, no.”
“But you’re…you’re you .” He almost seemed angry at the fact.
I glared. “What is that supposed to mean?” I might have enjoyed that he was the one stuttering now, but I was too upset to care.
“You’re…my God, you must be younger than I thought.” Panic flashed in those eyes like a bolt of lightning. “You’re not under eighteen, are you? Did we hire a child ten years ago to clean the baseboards?”
“Jesus, no . I was fifteen when I started, which makes me twenty-five now. I’ll be twenty-six in October.”
The horror receded, briefly, replaced by relief. Then returned to shock.
“Christ, that’s still young, though.”
“Twenty-five or fifteen?”
“Both.” He rubbed his cheek. I must have slapped him harder than I thought. “I don’t understand. How can you be almost twenty-six years old and never been kissed?”
“Quite easily, as it happens,” I said as dryly as I could, which was to say, not very, as my throat was cracking under the strain. “Or are you forgetting that until one year ago, I was basically a frumpy nun living in everyone else’s shadows?”
Lucas’s brows furrowed into deep grooves. “I don’t remember ‘frumpy.’ I remember you had much longer hair, wore glasses, and preferred more conservative clothing. But, Marie, there was nothing nun-like about you.”
I closed my eyes; it was like the year in Paris had never happened. I was back in my giant sweaters and ankle-length skirts, terrified of being seen, of being heard, of being noticed at all despite wanting more than anything for it to happen.
Until I started working at Prideview, the only people I regularly spoke to were family members.
High school was a purgatory where I ate my lunch alone and spent free periods in the library.
I’d watched everyone else in my family grow and blossom.
I saw my older brother and sisters erupt like tulips in the spring, the bulbs having gestated through the hard winters of our childhood.
Eventually, I had come to the conclusion that my bulb was a dud. Smaller than everyone, a fraction of the people my charismatic family members were becoming, a mediocre student, a paralyzed social idiot. I had nothing to offer.
But what started with chicken soup and a chance in the kitchen had brought me down a path to be something more. Ever so gradually, the wall of anxiety and fear cracked with every eggshell I broke, every batter I mixed, and every plate I served.
Now my bulb was finally starting to flower.
It had taken time as Ondine’s protégé, a full year in Paris, a degree from the best culinary school in the world, and a world away from my overbearing family to acquire the courage to be who I wanted to be instead of the leftover Zola sibling that everyone forgot.
But it was still only preparation.
Tonight— this night—was the first real action.
And it started with a kiss that meant nothing.
I didn’t realize that tears were slipping freely down my cheeks until I felt the gentle press of fingers wiping them away. I opened my eyes to find Lucas standing close while he stroked my skin with his thumbs.
He had nice hands. They weren’t a laborer’s hands, but were broad and capable, cradling my jaw with an even blend of tenderness and strength. Just as it was plain that Lucas Lyons could and would take charge wherever he saw fit, it was equally evident that he would never in a million years hurt me.
I couldn’t explain it.
I had spent only a few minutes with the man that everyone else in this house and probably large swaths of the world feared.
But I had never felt safer.
I hiccupped.
His dimple reappeared along a remorseful, lopsided smile. “All right?”
I nodded and tried to ignore the wave of sadness that flowed through me when he dropped his hands and straightened.
“Sorry,” I said. “I was just…overwhelmed for a moment.”
“No, I apologize.” He rubbed a hand over his face. He did that a lot. “I didn’t know.”
“That I’m a loser?” The word was bitter on my tongue. I felt too old for the designation that had been thrust on me since grade school. But a new haircut and some makeup didn’t change fundamental truths, did they?
His more typical stern expression resumed. “I’d just call it inexperienced.”
“It’s pathetic.” I hugged myself again. “Do you know what other twenty-five-year-olds are doing right now? A lot of drugs, that’s what. Dancing until three a.m. Sleeping with strangers and having the time of their lives.”
“Not all of them. I certainly didn’t.”
“Oh, really? You were a virgin until you were twenty-five too?”
Maybe Lucas wasn’t plastered all over the society pages, but he was still good-looking.
More than good-looking, if I were being honest. When that uncertain smile made an appearance, he was almost as beautiful as his brother.
Certainly more…something. Something complicated.
Like the way the most delicious sauces were made from the long simmer of complex elements or the deglazing of a pan that had layers of caramelized ingredients.
“Twenty-four, actually.”
I jerked. “Are you serious?”
“Though I was led to believe that was rather late as well, for someone like me.”
Lucas dropped back to the bench beside me. It was nice. I still had to look up at him, but our height difference wasn’t quite as pronounced. From this vantage, we were almost equals.
I laid my hands flat on my knees and examined them. I hadn’t had time to do my nails before the party. It hadn’t seemed necessary when I would just have to remove the polish first thing tomorrow morning, since I couldn’t risk anything flaking into the food I would be preparing.
“Still.” I sat up a little straighter. “I just had my first kiss, and it wasn’t even real.”
Lucas swore softly. “Look, there’s no shame in being innocent. And I doubt every twenty-something lives the way you described.”
“Even if you didn’t, I know Daniel does.” I sniffed. “He’s a Page Six regular. The life of every party. I should know—I’ve served him drinks and food at enough of them. Just like I also know he’s brought a different girl right here, to the conservatory, almost every time.”
“And tonight, you wanted that girl to be you.” Lucas didn’t sound particularly pleased by the idea.
“Something so wrong with me?” I couldn’t make myself look at him.
“Not even a little.” His reply was immediate. “Daniel, however, has the foresight of a fruit fly and a similar discernment.”
“So, he only likes me because I’m the newest piece of fruit?”
“If he does, he’s a fucking idiot.” Lucas took my hand and pulled me to face him. “Marie, the only reason I’m here is because I have to trust that he saw the same thing in you that everyone else did when you arrived.”
“And what’s that?”
Lucas’s mouth opened while his stare seemed to bore through me.
But no words came out. Nothing at all.
I swallowed. “That’s what I thought.”
He looked at me for a long time, like he wanted to say more. I found myself staring just as brazenly at him, daring him to speak.
In the end, he looked away first.
I wondered if he had ever done that before.
Lucas cleared his throat, then stood. “I, ah, I’m sorry that this evening didn’t go the way you planned, Marie. I’m sorry…for everything.”
His eyes met mine one last time, and I couldn’t move. There was something deep there. Something pained.
It was a flash. And then it was gone.
“I’ll also tell Daniel he needs to deliver his messages himself. Please accept my apologies. Again.”
He gave an awkward, abbreviated nod and offered his hand. Mine drifted up, and something in me relaxed as that broad, capable touch engulfed my fingers.
He squeezed, and my heart squeezed with him.
“Good night, Lucas,” I said quietly.
His eyes met mine, and for a moment, I couldn’t breathe.
“Good night, sweet Marie.” His voice was a soft hum, like the rumble of a storm that hadn’t quite decided to leave the shore in peace.
Then he left.
And I was left with the rest of my kind. Another flower hugging the wall.