I’ve been working on a new recipe for a few hours now. It’s like whatever was lying dormant inside me after I left Chicago has beenwoken up, and the old flame that I had for cooking is burning brighter than ever.
It’s making me want to rethink trying to buy Sunnie’s. I’ve walked by it no fewer than ten times since the for sale sign went up, and I’ve asked just about everyone who has come into the cidery how they feel about the sale. They want the business to stay local, and I couldn’t agree more. It has my wheels turning and fingers itching to make a move more than I’d like to admit.
I’m inspired and elated and so many other pretty words, and I have a feeling it has everything to do with the man who just pressed his lips to my cheek.
“How was your day?” he asks, then picks up a piece of balsamic broiled halibut I’ve been working on and pops it into his mouth. “Holy shit. That’s incredible.” He buries his face in my neck, and I giggle. “Have I mentioned how much I love having you in my kitchen?”
“You love me making you food. There’s a difference.”
He pulls away. “Uh, no. I meant what I said. I love having you in my kitchen, even if you’re not actively cooking.”
There’s something in his eyes that has my breath catching in my throat. It’s something that wasn’t there before a few days ago, since the tasting with Noah and Odette. I don’t know what it means, but it makes my heart flutter in a way it never has.
I can’t deny that it makes me nervous. What if I’m reading too much into things? What if I’m just seeing what I want to see? What if ... What if what I feel for him isn’t casual anymore?
So I paste on a smile and tease, “It’s still the apron, isn’t it?”
He grabs my waist, pulling me closer, his lips ghosting over mine. “Damn right it is.”
Then he’s no longer flirting with kissing me. He’sreallykissing me. It’s like he’s starved and hasn’t eaten all day.
I’m more than happy to feed him.
I wrap my arms around his neck, tugging him closer, and he clings to me like he’s afraid to let me go.
I’m lifted off the ground and placed on the countertop, and I’ve come to realize it’s one of his favorite places to have me.
“Missed you at the cidery today,” he says between kisses as his fingers undo the strings on the apron. “You should have seen how mad Tootsie was when she realized she couldn’t escape.”
After fixing the coop last week, we had to go back and do itagain. I think we got it this time, though.
“She’s a handful.”
“Speaking of a handful ...” He slips the apron off over my head, then cups my boob and lifts his brows suggestively.
I laugh. “You’re incorrigible, you know that?”
He shrugs unapologetically. “I know what I like, Sunny.” He kisses the tip of my nose. “And Ireallylike you.”
It’s the closest he’s come to revealing how he’s feeling about this thing we’re doing, and I can tell in the way he pauses momentarily that he realizes it at the same time I do.
So when he takes my mouth again, I know it’s a distraction tactic, and I let him have it because it just feels too good not to.
I kiss him back with just as much fervor, and before I know it, I’m sitting on the counter with my dress pushed down over my breasts and Ezra’s lips wrapped around my nipple as I ride his fingers.
“Fuck,” he says with his mouth still on me. “I love the way your pussy squeezes my fingers, you know that?”
“I think you’ve mentioned it before.”
“Have I mentioned how much I love having my face buried between your thighs?”
“Maybe, but feel free to remind me.”
He chuckles darkly as he kisses his way down my body, dropping to his knees in front of me.
Worry over his hip tingles in the back of my mind, but I tell myself that I have to learn to trust him in knowing his limits.
And honestly, all my worries fade when he swipes his tongue against me.
