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"Sit.Café da manhãwill be served in a moment."
"The what now?"
He smiled and laughed. "Café da manhãis what Brazilians call breakfast. It literally means morning coffee. This is a special variation known as Café Colonial."
I waited on a stool across the island from him while he gathered the delicacies he'd already whipped up for a separate meal, this one exclusively for the two of us. My stomach growled. Loudly.
He grinned at me over his shoulder. "Hungry?"
"Sorry for the rude noises my body made. I'm starving, and the food smells soooo good."
"You can start with this." He reached into the oven and brought out a small basket overflowing with golden muffins, or maybe they were biscuits. He set the basket down in front of me. "Pão de queijo, or cheese bread. It's a Brazilian specialty made with Minas cheese from the southeastern part of Brazil."
"Is that near where you're from?"
"Further to the northeast." He retrieved two glasses from the refrigerator and set them down on the island. "I've noticed you don't drink coffee, so I made chocolate milk. I've never been a coffee drinker myself."
"Thank you."
"You're welcome, but I'm not done yet." He spun around, grabbed a bowl out of the fridge, and spun around again to plop it down in front of me. "Papaya and açaí."
I barely had time to notice the dark-purple berries nestled among the orange papaya slices before Val produced another basket of some type of bread from the oven and placed it in front of me.
"Pão francês. Literally, French roll." He gathered jars of jam and jelly from the fridge and placed them beside the rolls. "I've already buttered them."
The hunks of butter melting on the rolls had already clued me in to that fact.
"Looks yummy," I said, rubbing my palms. "May I dig in yet?"
"One last thing." He grabbed a plate off the counter which had been covered with a dish towel and put it in on the island. "Cuca de banana. That means banana cake. It has German origins and is something like streusel."
"German? I thought you were making me a Brazilian breakfast."
"I am. Brazil has a deep German connection." He eyed the items he'd laid out before me. "I don't normally eat this much for breakfast but being with you has given me a powerful appetite."
"Me too." I picked up a piece of cheese bread and plucked a sliver off it, chewing the bite before I spoke again. "Delicious. You're quite the cook."
"I had wanted to make more, but I didn't have time. Couldn't resist making love to you in the shower." He smirked. "Twice."
Making love. Until this morning, he'd called it fucking or ravishing me. Should I ascribe meaning to his change of phrasing? Probably not. Lots of people called it "making love" even when no love was involved.
I ate some of everything—most of everything, actually—because Val's cooking was incredible. I loved all the traditional dishes he'd made me, and I loved learning more about his homeland through those foods.
"Where did you get all the ingredients?" I asked. "The grocery store in town doesn't have Amazonian fruit or Brazilian cheese."
"I had them rushed here by overnight delivery."
"All the way from Brazil? That must've been expensive."
"You're worth it, and I can afford it."
I gnawed on my lip for a moment before deciding to just ask him. "Do you go all out for every woman you sleep with?"
"No." He picked at a hunk of cheese bread, peeking up at me with his head down. "Only for you."
His statement set my tummy to fluttering and gave me a strange glowy feeling behind my ribs. To avoid thinking about why, I redirected the conversation to general topics unlikely to lead to accidental intimacy.
After we'd finished our breakfast, Val tried to wash the dishes. I shooed him away. Since he'd made breakfast, for us and for the guests, I insisted on taking care of the cleanup.
