Page 25 of Tank
“Execution, huh? Funny choice of words.”
She shrugs, playing at innocence, but I’m not fooled. “Maybe I just know what happens to men who don’t follow through.”
She’s baiting me. Pushing me. Testing me. And damn if I don’t like it—especially the way her eyes burn with that unyielding fire. I’m not used to someone like her, someone who isn’t afraid to go toe-to-toe with me and give as good as she gets. It’s intoxicating. I grab a mixing bowl and get to work.
I start working the dough—flour, eggs, olive oil, water—all coming together under my hands, smooth and elastic. I let the rhythm of it take over, the familiar feel of the dough transforming, like magic, into something tangible and real.
Bianca watches, tilting her head like she wasn’t expecting me to actually know what I’m doing.
“I don’t get it,” she finally says.
I lift a brow, my hands still working, shaping the dough, laying it out on the counter, pounding it, working it, while my mind is half-focused forward on flavor combinations to put inside the dough that’s just minutes away from becoming ravioli. “Don’t get what?”
She gestures vaguely at me. “You. The big, scary, probably-has-a-body-count baker who chains men to his bed and also… makes whatever that’s going to be… from scratch?”
“Pasta. Ravioli, to be exact,” I say, rolling out the dough. “And the reason is: it’s a hobby. Some guys golf. I bake, and I cook.”
She snorts. “Some guys also don’t kidnap people and hand-make ravioli in the same twenty-four-hour period.”
“True. Some don’t. I do.” I chuckle, shaking my head. She’s got a point.
I move on to the filling — ricotta, Parmesan, a little mozzarella, and some black truffle — mixing everything together in a bowl while Bianca watches closely.
Too closely.
It’s as if she knows the effect her closeness has on me, the way she makes my skin feel flush, my heart race, and my eyes flicker constantly away from what I’m working on to see just how well her shirt hugs her body and how, even with no sleep and a mountain of stress on her and the fact that I know she’s related to the man that I sorely want to murder, that teasing smirk on her lips burns hotter than anything in this kitchen.
I slice the dough into even squares, working methodically, trying to ignore the electric current that seems to pulse between us. The more she watches, the more aware I become of every movement. I spoon the filling onto each square, then fold and seal them with practiced precision.
“I'm not used to an audience," I say, breaking the charged silence.
"I'm not used to being cooked for," she counters, reaching for a bit of leftover cheese. I catch her wrist before she can snag it.
“Patience," I growl, my fingers circling her delicate wrist. The pulse beneath my thumb quickens. "Good things come to those who wait."
She doesn't pull away. "Is that a threat or a promise?"
"Both," I release her, returning to my work. "Hand me that pot."
She does, and our fingers brush. It's brief, meaning nothing but everything at once. I watch her face as she watches my hands, the way her eyes follow my movements with a kind of intensity that makes my throat go dry. For all the heat between us, there's something else there — a genuine curiosity, like she's trying to figure me out.
I drop the ravioli into the boiling water and move to prepare the sauce. Butter, sage, a splash of white wine, a touch of cream. Simple but rich.
"So, when did you learn to cook? Prison?" she asks, her voice deceptively casual.
I laugh, surprised by how easily she catches me off guard. "No. Not prison. Taught myself after the military. The shit they fed us in the mess tents was inspiration enough to learn.” I shake my head. “Wish I would’ve learned sooner, but growing up with my dad was..." I trail off, my words hanging there, suspended between us, but even unfinished, she knows. The admission is more than I meant to share, but it lingers, chipping away at the silence.
Bianca’s watching me, hazel eyes sharp but carrying a new softness that shifts something in my chest. "Mine too.” Her voice is quieter, holding a note I haven’t heard from her before. “And not just him, either…”
Her words rest heavy in the air, weighted with rawness.
“You do this often?” she asks, changing the subject. She props her chin on her hand, the pose making her look more relaxed, more open.
“Do what?”
“Make pasta for strangers?”
“I cook for a lot of strangers. Everyone who comes through that door is a stranger, and I prefer to keep it that way,” I say. It’s the truth. I’m not a people person and I like it that way.
