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“A few rules make life less uncertain. I don’t usually cook with animal flesh,” Alice continued. “But chicken bones, boiled for hours to release their marrow, will feed the soul as well as the body. Jane needs nourishment in order to regain her strength.”
“Alice, about this morning. I know I should have told you the truth earlier.”
“Stir this, will you?” She handed him the ladle she was using to stir the soup. His stomach clenched. He was ravenous.
Taking the ladle from her hand and setting it down, Nick caught her wrist. “Alice,” he said softly. “You know you can’t change me, right? Not with daisies. Or rules. I’m long gone. What’s left of me is what you see.” He held both her hands in his and brought them to his chest. “Not worth saving.”
“I’m not trying to change you or save you, Nick. I’m only making soup.”
She retrieved the ladle and dipped it into the broth. “What do you think, more salt?”
It smelled so good. His lips opened of their own accord, slurping the broth greedily.
At his entertainments he served expensive imported foods. Port wine from Portugal. Platters of cured beef and heavy cheeses from France. This was only a hearty chicken stock. The same soup served in every countryside tavern across England.
Rich with fat and flavored with a basic mixture of onions, carrots, and celery.
Only a simple chicken soup.
Only some woman, some warm, fragrant woman with hair curling around her face and clear, turquoise eyes.
“Do you want to know the secret ingredient?” Alice asked.
He squeezed his eyes shut. “No.”
“I haven’t added it yet.”
He opened one eye.
“The secret is...” Alice reached into her apron pocket and brought out half of a lemon. “Lemons. From your father’s lemon tree, the one in his conservatory. But you can’t add it during cooking, or it may turn bitter. You have to add it right at the end, right before you’re ready to eat. It’s like a little squeeze of sunshine to brighten up the soup.”
Alice squeezed the lemon over the soup.
Nick knew what the secret ingredient to brightening life was, and it wasn’t lemon.
It was Alice.
His mouth watered for more soup and his hands itched to hold her, touch her, savor her warmth. He stopped fighting and wrapped his arms around her, nuzzling her neck. “You smell good.”
“I smell like onions.”
He captured her finger and licked it. “And lemons. And sunshine.”
He had to taste her. Now. This moment.
Three things happened then: He crushed her into his arms and kissed her, which caused the soup ladle to crash to the floor, which startled the cat, who ran away and then returned immediately to lap up the spilled broth.
But Nick didn’t notice anything but the warm, feminine curves in his arms and the sweet, soft lips beneath his mouth.
He lifted her into his arms, never breaking the kiss, and carried her to a kitchen counter, where he swept away a pile of onion peels and herbs and made sure there were no knives before setting her down.
He wrapped her long limbs around his hips, needing her to be closer, and she wound her arms around his neck.
She tasted far better than the soup. Sweet, wholesome woman, heated with steam and flavored with the tang of the basil she’d been crushing.
Moaning his desire, he deepened the kiss, using his tongue in the same rhythm his cock found against the layers of fabric between them.
She drove him completely wild with need.
