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She laughed. “The grand pooh-bah of tomatoes.”
“Without a doubt, but these little ones will be good practice for you. They’re slippery little suckers and have a tendency to roll away, which can cause you to cut your finger.”
She gave him a skeptical look. “Maybe we shouldn’t start here. These sound like the villains of the tomato world.”
“Not if you know how to handle them.” He grabbed two white plates he’d taken out of her cabinet. “Here’s the trick.”
He flipped the plate over and then put a layer of tomatoes onto the bottom of the plate where the rim kept them from rolling off. Then he took another plate and set it atop, trapping the tomatoes between.
He took her elbow gently and guided her in front of him. “Now, they’ll stay put and you can slice a bunch in half at once.”
His arms came around each side of her, and his body pressed gently against her back. A hard wall of muscle. She sucked in a breath at the heat and feel of him.
“This okay?” he asked.
She swallowed past the tightness in her throat. Part of her recognized she was caged in by a guy with a knife, but the other part of her felt every inch of strong, beautiful man behind her. The two sides warred for control of her thoughts. The better side won. “I’m good.”
“Great,” he said softly. He placed the knife in her right hand. “Put your left hand on top of the plate to keep the tomatoes from escaping. Then take this knife and slice horizontally between the plates. Use a small sawing motion back and forth.”
Andi wet her lips and placed her hand on the plate. Hill’s breath coasted against her neck. She took the knife and placed it sideways between the plates. Her first attempt, a tomato rolled out.
“Push down a little more,” he said in a quiet voice. He put his hand over the one that held the knife. “Like this.”
He guided her hand in a gentle sawing motion while she increased pressure on the plate, and soon the knife had made it to the other side of the dish. But she couldn’t remember how it had gotten there because all she could think about was how good Hill felt against her, around her, how he smelled like mint and fresh-cut grass.
“There you go,” Hill said. He lifted the plate, revealing a bunch of perfectly halved tomatoes. “And we didn’t draw any blood.”
Andi smiled down at their handiwork. “Score.”
“Now they’ll be safe to quarter with the smaller serrated knife,” he said. He handed her a different knife. “They won’t roll away now.”
He showed her how to protect her fingers while she was chopping. He guided her through dicing an onion, and laughed along with her when she promptly ruined her mascara with onion tears. He taught her that she could ignore when recipes said to pick off individual cilantro leaves, that the stems could be chopped up with the leaves and it all tasted good. Before long, they were squeezing lime into brightly colored pico de gallo. And all the while, he hadn’t stopped touching her. Not aggressively. Not with innuendo. But in a way that made her feel more and more comfortable.
Hill stepped from behind her and grabbed a spoon. He scooped up some of the pico and held it out to her. “Now for the fun part.”
Andi smiled. “I feel like we’ve already been having the fun part.”
His eyes sparked with pleasure at that. “Truth. But go ahead and taste the fruits of your labor.”
She stepped closer and let him feed her a bite. The fresh, tart taste hit her tongue and she groaned. It was so much better than that jarred salsa she bought.
“So?” Hill asked, looking sweetly anticipatory, as if he was afraid she’d hate it.
She swallowed her bite and grinned. “It tastes like summer on a spoon. We’re amazing at cooking.”
He laughed and took a bite. “We definitely are.”
She grabbed a jalapeño that was still on the cutting board. “What about this guy?”
“That guy needs some extra attention, and we have to decide how hot we want the pico to be.”
She eyed the pepper. “Extra attention?”
“Gloves,” he explained. “If you cut a chili pepper without protection, the oils get in your skin and it can burn for hours. And it will make everything you touch burn, too—your eyes, your lips”—he raised a brow—“other things.”
She pressed her lips together to stanch a laugh. “Sounds like you’re speaking from experience.”
“You only make that mistake once,” he said with a sage nod.
