Page 68 of Right With You
CHAPTERTHIRTY-THREE
Elise
Luc arrived home right as I finished measuring the dry ingredients.
“Hey. I’m glad you’re home. I feel like I haven’t seen you in days.”
Granted, we’d slept together and had ended up snuggled close this morning. He’d been the one to slip out of bed first, and since I’d been wiped out from a late night with my friends, I’d indulged in another lazy morning.
But I’d spent the afternoon doing my VA work and now I’d prepped a little project for us.
“What’s all this?” he asked, entering the kitchen and going immediately to wash his hands.
This was something I really liked about him. He didn’t automatically linger outside the kitchen. He’d clearly spent hours inside it and enjoyed cooking.
“I decided we need cookies.” I had to do something for him, and I couldn’t figure out what. So my old reliable default I’d funneled into my business came out to play. I wanted to leave him with something, if this was about to be over. Leave myself with a memory we’d made together, too. Something real.
Interest flared in his eyes. “Is that so?”
I turned on his mixer to cream the butter and sugar, as much to deflect from the swoop of my heart at this last realization as a need to get on with it. “It is. I need to bake them, and you need to eat them.”
The half-smile gracing his mouth was enough to make me blush. The man was just so handsome, and it felt like I’d hardly seen him, even though we’d been next to each other all night long. The key there was that we weren’t talking, or even touching, on purpose.
We ended up that way but never acknowledged it. I’d decided I didn’t want to mention it in case it made him think I didn’t want him close.
“What kind of cookies are these?” he asked, then set a hand on the counter on either side of the mix, effectively caging me in.
My pulse started on the stair master, climbing bit by bit without stopping, especially when his stubble grazed against my cheek as he said, “Don’t tell me they’re chocolate chip?”
“Is that a problem?” I asked, dropping in the shelled eggs one at a time.
His breath coasted along my jaw, and he seemed to almost nuzzle me behind my ear. Was he… was he snuggling me? Seducing me?
Was this what happened when you made a man nicknamed Cookie chocolate chip cookies?Note to self: cookies every day.
I’d greet him at the door with a cookie and a kiss on the cheek. I’d leave work hours earlier and spend time doing something fun or volunteering, then I’d come home and make fresh cookies and wait for that little smile he just gave me that made my heart flutter.
And maybe he would seduce me then, and I’d let him, because?—
“Not a problem at all. A gift, I think.”
His hands slid closer to where I worked measuring out a teaspoon of vanilla and dipping it into the mixer, almost like he was trying to resist touching. Like if he nipped at my jaw and inhaled my scent, it didn’t count, but if his hands got involved…
“I hope you’ll like them, but I should caveat this recipe is nothing special. It’s straight from the back of the bag of chocolate chips. I have another one I like but it takes a few days and I haven’t?—”
My words cut off when one of his large, warm hands pressed against my belly, urging me to lean against him.
Don’t mind if I do.
Maybe we wouldn’t have that everyday scene, but this, like much of it had already been, could be the indulgence.
“I love this recipe. I’m certain I’ll enjoy the cookies, and all the more since you had a hand in making them.”
His face was tucked into my neck, one hand against my body, the heat of him radiating across my back. The temptation to drop my head back on his shoulder and forget all about the cookies nearly overpowered me, but then he nudged the bowl of dry ingredients toward the mixer with his free hand.
“Don’t overmix, non?”
I huffed an exhale, releasing a bit of the pent-up tension building in me, and nodded. “Wise. Though less important with cookies. But still, wise.”
