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“I hope you enjoy your time with Ryder away. Sometimes moms need a vacation too.”
I smile and turn around, stepping into the elevator. He has a point. The break will be good—if only I didn’t have to spend it with Dominic Mancini.
* * *
I knockon the door to Dom’s condo, my bags dropping to the creases of my elbows.
The door swings open and he spreads out his arms. “Welcome home, honey.”
I blow the strand of loose hair off my forehead and step into his space. A space I’m familiar with. A space where memories of us naked and screwing are present in every room and on every piece of his expensive furniture. I drop my bags by the door. He’s nice enough to wheel in my big suitcase.
“Is there a moving van with the rest of your stuff?” He laughs and steps away from the door and into the kitchen.
His stainless steel gourmet kitchen.
One thing most people don’t know about Dom is that he’s an excellent cook.
Do you know how intimidating that is for an Italian woman who can barely follow directions on the back of ramen noodles? I was raised thinking the key to a man’s heart is through his stomach. Maybe that’s why I’ve never fully won Dom’s heart.
“I made you something.” The timbre of his low voice pulls me from my thoughts.
He’s busy chopping an onion, and when I look at the breakfast bar, I spot piles of chopped up veggies and garnishes.
“Mongolian beef?” I ask. “With lo mein?”
The man can cook anything from Chinese to Indian to Italian. His curry is out of this world.
“Still your favorite?” he asks.
I join him by the cutting board and sneak a piece of the meat sizzling in the pan. “Only yours.”
“Are you saying you only like my meat?” He looks up from what he’s doing and grins at me.
If we were still that couple who pretended they were just fuck buddies, I’d lay my hand over his crotch and whisper in his ear exactly how much I love his meat. But we’re not. We’re… married now. Somehow that changes everything.
“How are you doing with Ryder gone?” He doesn’t allow me to answer his sexual innuendo because it was meant to make me feel uncomfortable, not as an invitation.
“I’ll miss him.”
“You can always use me as a good distraction.” He drops all the vegetables into the pan with the Mongolian beef and flips the pan over the open flame. His forearm flexes from the weight and it’s so damn sexy I might have to call a truce on that deal we made about not sleeping with others.
“Are you going to keep making sexual advances?”
“I’m not making sexual advances.”
I slide up on his counter, my feet dangling. His gaze skips over my body for a second. “You keep throwing sexual comments out there.”
“That’s because I’ve always loved your blush.”
“I thought you hated me.”
He sighs. “I’ll never hate you, Val.”
I watch him stir the veggies and meat then take the noodles from the water and place them in another frying pan with soy sauce and garlic that’s already simmering. It’s so unbelievably hot, admiring him in the kitchen. The amount of ease and trust he has in his capabilities. I once asked him why he learned and he said that it was because his work was so stressful, he wanted to excel in something he could set the pace around. Being the perfectionist he is, he kept finding new cuisine to master.
He picks up the frying pan and shakes the contents, the muscles in his forearm and bicep flexing as he does.
“Ugh!” I jump from the counter. “You’re playing dirty.”
