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The list was large, and though it took me some time to get the hang of it, to understand how exact each instruction and ingredient needed to be perfect, over time I became very good.
A neglected Dante cornered me one afternoon in Gram's pantry when Mrs. Stewart was grocery shopping, and Gram was at a friend's house playing cards.
"I'm busy making macaroons," I told him, warding him off with my hands when he tried to move close.
"You made your point," he said, catching me when I tried to go past him and back into the kitchen. "I won't eat anyone else's cookies." There was a smile in his voice. He was teasing me.
"I'm busy," I said again. My voice came out almost singsong lyrical, like a taunt. I hadn't quite meant it that way, but I wasn't all that sorry.
Teasing him back when he was in this kind of mood rarely disappointed.
"You're not, but you're going to be."
I eyed him insolently. "What's that supposed to mean?"
He crowded me deeper into the walk-in pantry, one step and another, past the long shelves until my shoulders hit the wall at the very back of the room.
"Oh, I think you know. Macaroons are off the menu for today."
"You don't like macaroons?"
"Right now, I hate macaroons."
I bit back a laugh. "Now you hate macaroons?"
"I hate everything you bake if you ignore me to do it."
"Fine, then. You can't have any." I tried to move past him, to leave, but he got in my way, bumping his chest into mine. "Excuse me," I said.
"I don't excuse you," he said, and there was heat in it. Past teasing into outright foreplay.
"Let me out," I ordered.
"No," he taunted back.
"You can't keep me in the pantry forever. What's your plan here?" I renewed my efforts to squeeze past him, rubbing against him in the attempt.
With a groan, he backed me up to the wall again, this time advancing until our bodies were flush, and I could feel beyond a doubt what he wanted to do.
He gripped my ass with both hands, hoisted me up against the wall, and said, sounding nearly out of breath, "I think you can guess."
He slanted his mouth over mine and I was lost.
It was some time later and we were straightening our clothes when I said smugly, "So you know that you basically promised me you wouldn't eat anyone else's cookies."
His smile was warm as he crowded me back against the wall, rubbing his big, hard chest against mine. "Angel, I promised you that a long time ago."
CHAPTER EIGHT
"If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die? And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge?"
~William Shakespeare
PRESENT
SCARLETT
I was drunk. Good and stinking drunk.
