Читать книгу Write It Up!: Rapid Transit / The Ex Factor / Brewing Up Trouble - Elizabeth Bevarly - Страница 13

IN SPITE OF JULIA’S HAVING assured Daniel she would shop for everything they’d need to cook dinner, he showed up at her front door with two brown grocery sacks brimming with the makings of a meal that promised to be infinitely more elaborate than the meat loaf and tossed salad she had planned herself.

And he looked even yummier than the food, wearing a pair of snug, lightly faded blue jeans and a lightweight, equally faded forest-green polo that gave the green in his eyes a bit more dominance over the blue. She was glad she’d dressed casually, too, likewise in faded blue jeans, though hers were topped by a colorful, long-sleeved T-shirt decorated with a beaded, spangled art deco French postcard. So accustomed to being in her stocking feet at home was she that she had neglected to put on shoes, which she only now realized as she looked at the heavy hiking boots on Daniel’s feet. However, she didn’t feel any big urge to go put some on. Already she felt that comfortable with him.

She directed him to her kitchen—which wasn’t hard to find since her apartment was roughly the size of an electron—where he deposited the bags on what little counter space was there and began to unpack them. And unpack them. And unpack them. And unpack them.

Whoa. He’d brought more stuff than she would have thought a man could even find in a market, let alone know what to do with. A loaf of French bread, a leafy head of romaine, a bottle of olive oil, free range chiken, she saw with some surprise when she inspected the label—tomatoes, parsley and…a wheel of Brie?

Where were the meat and potatoes? she wondered. Most guys she knew would have brought a half dozen cans of Dinty Moore beef stew and called it dinner.

“And for dessert,” Daniel said, reaching deep into the first sack—Good God, what was in the second? she wondered— “Godiva white chocolate torte ice cream. A pint for each of us.”

All right. That did it. Julia was ready to propose.

“Wow,” she said. “I hope you know what to do with all that. I’m still working on getting the hamburger I’d planned to mix with onion soup mix out of the plastic wrapper. Do you know how that works?”

He grinned smugly. “Not only can I get this chicken out of the plastic,” he said, pointing at the product in question, “but I can infuse it with fresh rosemary, poach it in a dry, kicky chardonnay and garnish it with a radish rose.”

“My God,” Julia whispered reverently. She poked him lightly in the ribs. “Are you sure you’re for real?”

He laughed as he turned his attentions to the second bag. “My parents own a restaurant in Indianapolis,” he said as he withdrew fresh herbs, red, yellow and green peppers, garlic, onions, mushrooms and two bottles of white wine—presumably a dry, kicky chardonnay. “My dad’s the chef, my mom’s the manager. When I was growing up, while my friends’ dads were out in the backyard pitching baseballs to them, my father had me in the kitchen showing me how to broil lamb chops and put the finishing touches on a chocolate soufflé. It goes without saying that I got my ass kicked at school on a regular basis.”

Julia smiled. “Yeah, but I bet the girls were crazy about you.”

He wiggled his eyebrows playfully. “Good point. And using the blow torch on the crème brûlée was always fun.”

“So what can I do to help?” she asked.

“Well, I won’t make you take the plastic off the chicken,” he told her. “So why don’t you open the wine?”

She nodded. “No problem. I’m much better wielding a corkscrew than I am a garlic press. I’m also seriously qualified to choose excellent dinner music.”

“That’s good to know.”

For the hour that followed, and accompanied by the dry, kicky tunes of Michael Bublé, Julia and Daniel worked side by side and shoulder to shoulder—and often hip to hip, so tiny was the kitchen—putting together a meal that was more elaborate, and doubtless more delicious, than anything she’d had since leaving home.

Never before had she realized how intimate—and sensual—creating a meal could be. Along with the sound of jazzy music, the aromas and textures and tastes of the food—to which they frequently helped themselves and then fed to each other—there was the jolt of electricity and the thrill of anticipation that shot through her every time their bodies touched. By the time they sat down to eat, they’d already finished one bottle of wine and opened the second, and they’d sampled enough of the meal to make them leave fully half of their dinners on their plates.

They did, after all, have to save room for ice cream.

But first, Julia wanted to simply bask in the happiness that was dinner with Daniel. He was amazing. Incredible. Too good to be true. Gorgeous, funny, smart, decent. He smelled great—and not just from the garlic, either—was easy to talk to and made her feel as though nothing in the world would ever go wrong again. And he could cook.

There had to be something wrong here, she told herself. No guy could be this perfect and still be available. And she wasn’t the sort of woman who experienced this kind of good luck.

So maybe, she thought, finally, her turn had come. Maybe it was possible to meet Mr. Right through a venue like speed-dating. Maybe, just maybe, her prince had finally come.

“THAT WAS WONDERFUL,” Daniel said at the end of dinner as he twirled his wine idly by the base of the glass.

He hoped Julia would realize he was talking about a lot more than the meal. In fact, he couldn’t remember the last time he’d enjoyed himself this much on a date. Probably, he thought, because he’d never enjoyed himself this much on a date.

He still wasn’t sure what had come over him to make him offer to cook for Julia. That was a side of himself he normally never showed to anyone, male or female. It wasn’t that he thought cooking wasn’t a masculine pursuit, or that he was ashamed of what his father did for a living. On the contrary, not only was Steven Taggart one of the most celebrated chefs in Indianapolis, whose restaurant commanded four stars from the Michelin Guide, he was also the one who had fostered Daniel’s love of both basketball and hockey.

But as adept at cooking as Daniel was, it was neither a vocation nor a hobby he had wanted to pursue, and he hadn’t done much of it since leaving home. Cooking reminded him too much of home. It was something he did with family, in a family environment, something that roused feelings of comfort and affection and happiness and domestic tranquility. Which, now that he thought about it, might be why he’d never wanted to share it with women.

So why had he been so eager to offer to cook for Julia?

She looked great tonight, he thought, pushing the question away without answering it. He liked her better in the jeans and T-shirt and sock feet than he had in the party-girl outfit of the night before. If she was wearing any makeup tonight, he sure couldn’t see it. And instead of the curly, flyaway do her hair had been arranged in the night before, tonight it fell in soft waves over her shoulders, enough of it clipped back in a barrette to make Daniel’s fingers itch to loosen it.

“It was good, wasn’t it?” she agreed, looking at him in a way that told him she was talking about more than just the meal, too. “But now we have to clean up,” she added, wrinkling her nose.

“It won’t take long with two of us,” he said.

And, with two of them, it didn’t. In no time at all, they had completed the task and were bringing fresh glasses of wine into the living area—the apartment wasn’t large enough for an actual living room. But as comfortably as they’d spoken throughout the preparation and consumption of dinner, once they were sitting beside each other with nothing to do, neither seemed to know what to say.

Julia had dropped into one corner of the sofa while Daniel had folded himself onto the other. It was a small couch, and the gap between them probably wasn’t more than a couple of feet. Just enough to be annoying, he thought, but still enough that if he scooted himself closer to her, it would be an obvious ploy to get closer to her.

But then, why shouldn’t he be obvious about that? he asked himself. He and Julia weren’t in high school, right? Even if, for some reason, he had sort of felt like an adolescent with his first big crush since meeting her. Gee whiz, maybe they could play spin the bottle. Golly willikers, maybe that would give him an excuse for why he had to kiss her and get her girl cooties all over himself.

He blew out an exasperated breath at the thought.

“What?” she asked, obviously hearing it.

He shook his head. “I was just sitting here trying to think up some excuse for why I could move closer to you,” he said.

She smiled. “Why do you need an excuse to do that?”

He smiled back. “Good question.”

Just as Daniel began to scoot himself down on the sofa toward Julia, she scooted herself closer to him, until they were seated immediately beside each other, almost touching, in the middle.

“That’s more like it,” he said.

“Indeed it is,” she agreed.

“So. Come here often?” he asked.

“Occasionally,” she replied. “But I don’t like to be a regular anywhere. So some nights, I go to the chair over there in the ’burbs, and other nights, I like to go uptown to the table. When I’m feeling really wild and want to party hearty, I head downtown, to the kitchen.”

He nodded. “Must cost a fortune in cab fare.”

“It’s okay. Here in my world, I’m independently wealthy.”

He laughed at that. Then, before he could stop himself, he heard himself say, “I really like you, Julia Miles.”

She seemed surprised at hearing his admission. Maybe even as surprised as Daniel was to have uttered it. “I like you, too, Daniel Taggart. You’re—” But she halted before completing the remark.

“I’m what?” he asked.

She seemed to give that some thought before answering. “Different,” she told him.

He wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or not. “Different from what? Other guys? Serial killers? Tropical fruit? Waterfowl? What?”

“Just different,” she said with a laugh. “From other guys and tropical fruit. You’re just fun to be with.”

“And that makes me different from other guys and tropical fruit.”

She nodded. “Yeah. It makes you pretty wonderful.”

Daniel thought she was pretty wonderful, too, but he wasn’t ready to reveal that to her. Not yet. Bad enough he’d told her he liked her. He honestly didn’t say things like that to women. Especially not after having met them barely twenty-four hours before. Hell, how could you even know if you liked someone in that short amount of time?

Strangely, though, he did know it about Julia. He wasn’t sure how. And there was something else he knew, too. He knew he wanted to kiss her. Badly. He just wasn’t sure how to go about it.

Which was nuts, because Daniel never second-guessed himself with women. If he wanted to kiss one, he kissed her. Something about Julia, though, made him hesitate. He wanted to make sure he did it right the first time. Because he wanted there to be a second time. And a third. And a fourth.

Don’t think about it, he told himself. Just do it.

But all he managed was to lift a hand to her face, to cup her cheek in his palm and hold her gaze intently with his. Julia didn’t seem surprised by his touch, and in fact lifted her hand, too, toward his face. She skimmed her fingers lightly along the line of his jaw, then down to the back of his neck. His heart hammered harder as her fingers wandered into his hair, fondling the shorter strands at his nape, sparking something hot and frantic deep inside him. Then she hesitated for a moment, her fingers stilling against his skin as if she were trying to decide if she really wanted to do whatever she was thinking about doing.

Daniel held his breath in anticipation, then slowly released it when she moved forward to rest her forehead against his. Her breath stirred the fine hairs at his temple and warmed his face, and her heat and her fragrance surrounded him.

Her mouth was scarcely an inch from his own now, her lips parted slightly in an unmistakable invitation. As if she couldn’t quite bring herself to be the one to kiss him, but very much wished he would kiss her. So Daniel closed what little distance still remained between them, slanting his mouth over hers. She gasped softly in surprise and stiffened for a brief moment, as if she honestly hadn’t thought he would kiss her. Then, just as quickly, she melted into him, tunneling the fingers of both hands through his hair, kissing him with equal fire, equal need, equal hunger.

Daniel bit back a groan and cupped the crown of her head in his palm, dropping his other hand to curve his fingers over her shoulder. As they warred over possession of the kiss, Julia pushed her body closer to his, and his hand drifted lower, down along her arm, over her rib cage, her waist, her hip, then back up again. As he did, he pulled her closer still, devouring her even more voraciously. When she raked his lower lip softly with her teeth, he drove his tongue into her mouth, then groaned as she sucked him in deeper still.

Something dark and explosive shattered inside him, and, his mouth never leaving hers, he looped both arms around her waist and tugged her onto his lap. He continued to kiss her as he reached for the barrette at the back of her head and unclipped it, relishing the sensation of soft silk spilling over his hand.

Julia uttered a hushed little whimper in response, then shifted in his lap, roping both arms around his neck. Daniel dropped one hand to her hip, splaying his fingers wide over the denim, opening the other over the small of her back. She felt so good against him, her body fitting so perfectly against his own. She was soft in all the places he was hard, curved where he was angled. She was all the things he wasn’t, and somehow that made him want her all the more.

For a long time, they only held each other, kissed each other, enjoyed each other, until Daniel couldn’t tolerate not knowing more of her. Slowly, tentatively, he pushed the hand on her hip higher, over her waist, along her rib cage, until he encountered the lower curve of her breast, cradling it in the deep V of his thumb and forefinger. Julia sighed at the contact but didn’t pull away. In fact, she leaned in closer, deepening their kiss. So Daniel inched his fingers higher, covering her breast completely with his hand.

The sound she uttered then was wholly erotic, sparking heat deep inside him where he’d never felt it before. She moved in his lap, her bottom rubbing against him, stirring his erection to completion in one swift maneuver. As he gently kneaded her breast, loving how it filled his palm so perfectly, he moved the hand on her back lower. He tugged at her shirt until it was free of her jeans, then dipped his fingers beneath it to open them again, this time over hot, naked skin.

Too much, too soon, he thought the moment their bare flesh made contact. It was a realization completely out of character for him. To Daniel, there was never enough when it came to sex, and it was never too soon to have it. So it was even more out of character when he, and not Julia, ended the kiss. But, suddenly, he jerked his mouth from hers, pulling back to look her squarely in the eye.

Gasping for breath and groping for coherent thought, he somehow managed to ask her, “What are you doing for breakfast tomorrow?”

She leaned in again, touching her forehead to his the way she had before, a gesture that was sweet and affectionate and should have had him running for his life in the opposite direction. Instead, it made him want to kiss her again.

“Daniel,” she said, pulling his name out on a long groan. “I know this is going to make me sound like a tease considering what we’re doing. But I don’t think I’m ready to—”

He moved his hand to cover her lips, halting her objection before she could utter it. “I’m not asking to spend the night,” he said.

And strangely, he realized that was true. Oh, all right, half true. If she had invited him into her bedroom right now, he would, without question, have followed her. But the knowledge that this evening wasn’t going to end in sex—and that he was the one who’d put a stop to things—didn’t bother him the way it should have. The way it would have, had Julia been anyone else. He was satisfied enough—for now—just to have been able to spend time with her. To have held her. Kissed her. Touched her bare flesh, if only for an instant. For some reason, he didn’t want to know any more than that tonight.

“I just meant,” he said, “if you’re not busy tomorrow, do you want to meet for breakfast somewhere?”

Did he only imagine the look of disappointment that clouded her features for a moment? he wondered. Must have, he quickly decided. Because she was the one who’d said she wasn’t ready to go any further. Even if Daniel was beginning to suspect the same was true of himself.

“I’d love to meet for breakfast,” she said. “Just tell me where and when to be there. But Daniel,” she added with a smile that was almost shy. “You don’t have to leave just yet, do you?”

He grinned, withdrew his hand from beneath her shirt and awkwardly tucked it back into her jeans. Then he wrapped his arms around her waist, kissed her once, twice, three times, four, and told her, “No. Of course not. We can still sit here and…chat…for a while.” Then he covered her mouth with his again.

And again. And again. And again…