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Chapter Ten
Kathryn
I’m nervous. I’m not sure why, exactly, but I am.
Wait.
Yes, I do.
It’s the fact Jensen Grayson, the man who stole my heart in high school and never gave it back, is now sitting at my new island, watching me cook chicken breasts in my new chef’s kitchen. It was one of the features I insisted on when I decided to update the space. The old kitchen was formal and stiff. Plus, it reminded me of our housekeeper, Ingrid, and the fact I saw her ass bent over the countertop, the man standing behind her making her moan in pleasure definitely not her husband. He was the old landscaper, in one of those totally cliché ways.
Now, this almost complete kitchen is mine. I’m not the best cook, but I’m learning. Okay, so I can barely cook at all, but no one needs to know that. How hard can it be to throw a few chicken breasts on the stove?
“Umm, Kate?” Jensen asks softly, getting up from the stool and meeting me on the opposite side of the island. I can feel the heat from his body as he stands behind me, a mixture of dirt and sweat filling my nostrils.
“Yes?” I ask, my voice all crackly and high-pitched.
“Do you know what you’re doing?” he asks, a hint of humor in his voice.
I glance over my shoulder and then back at him. “Of course I do,” I defend, ready to argue until I see the smoke starting to billow from the fancy six burner stove in front of me. “Shit!” I holler, turning off the heat and reaching for a towel. I wave it back and forth to try to move the smoke before it hits the detector on the ceiling.
Jensen starts to laugh as he reaches around me and pulls the chicken from the heat source. Clearly, I’m unable to do something as simple as grill a few chicken breasts. Hearing him laugh should upset me, but it doesn’t. Instead, I find myself laughing right along with him, something only he could make me do when faced with one of my failures.
“So, clearly cooking classes weren’t in order while in New York,” he jokes, grabbing the towel and waving it around more.
I run over and open the back door, thankful when the smoke starts to dissipate quickly. “Umm, no. No cooking classes, though clearly, I could have used a few.”
Jensen stands at the counter, his hip leaned casually against the marble top. A smile plays on his lips as he crosses his arms and watches me. He looks so much the same, yet completely different. He’s older for sure, but his mannerisms and his smile is everything I remember from my time in Rockland Falls.
“Come on, Gordon Ramsay. We’ll call this your first lesson,” he says, heading over to the fridge as if he’s done it a thousand times before.
He makes himself at home as he takes a pork loin and some vegetables out, setting them down on the counter. Fortunately, I picked up a few things at the store to keep in the fridge, even if I didn’t know how to fix them. My plan was to pull up YouTube cooking videos, but this is probably better right? I watch as he quickly washes his hands and grabs the cutting board and knife. He works silently as he seasons the loin with salt and pepper, adding crushed red pepper to the top before placing it on a pan. Once the oven is preheated, he places it inside and sets the timer.
With the meat in the oven, now he turns his attention to me. “That’ll take about forty minutes or so. Let’s get these cleaned and cut up. I love this big double oven. It’ll come in handy when cooking the vegetables,” he says, washing his hands a second time before turning to me.
Jensen reaches for me, gently taking my upper arm in his warm, callused hand and moving me until I’m standing directly in front of him. His body produces heat like a furnace and I can feel it all the way down to my bones. My blood starts to zing through my veins as he places the cutting board and knife in front of me.
“Can I trust you not to accidentally chop off one of these pretty little fingers?” he asks, taking my hand in his own and almost rendering me completely speechless. I nod frantically, the words just not able to slide through my parched mouth. “Let’s cut up these Brussels sprouts. Slice off the end, like this,” he instructs, showing me how, “and then cut them in half, like so.”
Looks easy enough. He leaves me to it, while preheating the bottom oven. Jensen takes a minute to wash four potatoes, trimming off the ugly parts, before setting them next to my board. When I have the sprouts cut, he places them in a bowl and adds coconut oil, salt, and pepper, before stirring it all together and spreading them out on a cookie sheet. Watching Jensen breeze around the kitchen is actually quite the turn-on. I never thought having a man who could cook would get me all hot and bothered, but here I am, practically panting like a dog in heat, and getting lost in his effortless movements in tight jeans as he cooks us dinner.
My word, that ass…
“Cube those, but leave the skins on,” he interrupts the naughty train that was silently barreling down on me.
I do as he instructs, careful to keep my breathing under control, all while watching him out of the corner of my eye. Somehow I manage to not slice off a finger, considering my attention is definitely diverted. He barely says a word as he rinses off the potatoes and gives them the same treatment as the Brussels sprouts. Once they’re seasoned and spread out on a pan, he places it all in the oven below the loin.
Then he turns, his eyes lasered in on my position. My hands are suddenly fidgety, like I don’t know what to do with them, so I hold them tightly at my waist. Jensen doesn’t move, doesn’t give anything away on his handsome face. I have no clue what he’s thinking, something I used to pride myself in being able to figure out, but now, I don’t know if I’m just out of practice or if I just don’t know the man as well as I knew the boy.
The air shifts, warmth spreading through the room and my blood like someone turned up the heat. My breath catches in my throat and before I know it, he’s moving, approaching with the confidence I’ve always admired in him. His eyes bore into mine as he pulls me into his arms and presses his lips to mine, hungry and fierce.
At first, I’m almost in shock. As far as fantasies go, this one’s been at the top of my list for a really, really long time. But as Jensen sweeps his tongue across the seam of my lips, I realize it’s not a fantasy. Not at all. This is real. Jensen has his arms around me, pulling me tightly against his hard body, and he’s kissing me with a decade’s worth of pent-up frustration.
This kiss is everything. It’s alive, breathing and feeding, consuming me in a way only his kisses could ever do. My mouth opens easily as his tongue slides inside, tasting and devouring. Blood swooshes in my ears as he lifts, setting me atop the counter. My legs instantly open and wrap around his trim waist, while his hands are pinned between the globes of my ass and the hard surface I’m sitting on. I can feel his erection pressed firmly in the apex of my legs and it only grows (pun intended) when he pulls me tightly against him.
Lacking any control over my own body, I tilt my hips and grind against him. A low groan crawls from his throat, but he doesn’t break the kiss. His lips are firm and rough as they devour my own, ensuring this kiss is one I won’t be forgetting anytime soon. My pulse is pounding, blood is pumping, and my body is begging for more. More friction. More touching. More Jensen.
But before I can beg him to remove every scrap of clothing between us, he rips his lips from mine with a groan that borders desire and pain. “Shit,” he pants, closing his eyes and resting his forehead against mine.
