“Yeah, I’ll take you home when I’m done here.”
I was taken aback. “No, I don’t want to take over your evening. I’ll be fine.”
His eyes and jaw seemed to tighten at the same time. “You can chill in here or come out there.” Of course he disregarded my statement.
I just looked at him before deciding to play along. I’d take his company over Preston’s any day. “I’m sure you don’t want me standing over your shoulder while you cook.”
“Nah, I don’t mind. You can leave your purse in here.” He licked his lips and I swear my heart palpitated.
This was some straight up romcom motion. I mean, I had seen literally a thousand scenes like this play out for a thousand TV women.Was I one of those women in real life?
“Are you coming or not, love?”
I tossed my purse onto the desk and nodded. “Uh, yes.” Suddenly I found myself interested in being in a kitchen even though I had never been before.
I didn’t know what I assumed the kitchen of a chef looked like, but when I stepped into his kitchen I was proven completely wrong. In his space there was no loud chaos like in the movies or TV shows. In the kitchen, besides him, there were three others cooking, all in their own worlds.
“What did you order tonight, Jade?” he asked, his hand fresh off a plate he had just placed on the metal shelf to be picked up.
“Chef’s… Well your special with lambchops. It was delightful.” I smiled.
He nodded. “You wanna try my blackened salmon?”
I bit into my bottom lip at the thought. “Um, I gu?—”
“For me, sweetheart.” He grabbed a fork and dipped it into where he had just plated salmon. I assumed it was for another person’s order but when he held the fork up to my lips, I quickly realized it wasn’t.
I opened my mouth, the“for me”partsending convulsions between my thighs.Shit.
When he put the fork in my mouth, I just knew I shouldn’t have been here. This man was sinful, and his presence was even worse. I closed my eyes, enjoying the taste of the thing that was even more sinful than him. It was good, perfectly textured, and cooked to perfection.
“How does it taste?” he asked.
I could feel his eyes on me. So when I opened mine, it happened again, another moment where it was only him and me in the room with intense, world altering eye contact. I only knew minimal things about him.Just a name, maybe familial ties, and that he had this place, as well as a child.
“It tastes divine,” I complimented. Then I moved to create a little bit of space between him and me.
“I’m glad you enjoyed it.” He gave me a quick glance then moved to the other end of the counter. A knife appeared in his hands and the sound of that very knife hitting the chopping board quickly, many times sounded through the space, yet he still gave me his attention. “Tell me about you, Jade.”
I shrugged nervously. “What do you mean? What would you like to know?”
“What do you want to tell me, beautiful?”
Again I shrugged, but I didn’t mean to. I just wasn’t used to telling anyone about myself. I was boring, the type of woman who was too caught up in her work and family to have a real life. The type who was looking for love in my couch cushions because everything else seemed too dangerous. “I’m boring. Not a renowned chef or anything. I own two clothing shops, I spendentirely too much time with my nieces and nephews, and I’m a movie buff.” I threw that last part in there, because why not?
He laughed. “A movie buff, huh?”
I nodded. “Now your turn. Tell me about you.”
He just looked at me, gazing past my skin but into my eyes. He was about to speak, but someone interrupted the moment, calling out to him.
“Chef!” The voice of the woman from earlier had us both looking in her direction.
“Yeah.”
“We hit our mark for the evening.” She smiled proudly, then everyone around us began to clap. Though they stood around praising him, he didn’t seem to care for it. Instead, he stood there looking around awkwardly. If I didn’t know any better I’d think it was him possibly being extremely humble, but there was something else there. Something heavy and dark in his eyes that threatened to tell a story.
For the rest of the night, I pushed the desire to know his story to the back of my head and focused only on the man before me. He wasn’t much of a talker, but he talked about food, and several times he held food up for me to taste. The fork quickly became obsolete and his hand held out random pieces of meat and maybe even a damn green bean at some point. The man could cook and now I was in fear I’d crave his food even after tonight. I didn’t know how long I allowed him to spoon feed me, but before I realized it we were walking toward his car and the night was over. Though he was sure to pack a to-go plate for me, I was sure I’d crave the hand feeding me the food too.
