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Lucas’s hand grazed the skin between my bare shoulder blades, the touch sending a delicious shiver down my arms and validating my decision to wear a backless dress despite the drop in temperature and the dark heavy clouds hovering above New York today.
“You look happy,” Lucas told me in the deep, stern voice he’d been using all night. “Did you like everything?”
“I am happy.” I smiled at him, and when his eyes jumped down to my mouth his gaze darkened. My next words left me in a choppy, breathless way. “Everything was amazing. Thank you so much for bringing me here.”
“I wouldn’t want anyone else with me tonight, Rosie.”
My heart jumped at his words, hungry for more. And even if it was the stupidest thing to say, I found myself needing to make light of the situation: “Not even Taco?”
“No,” he said with a shake of his head, as if I’d said something serious. And then he leaned down his head, closing the distance between our faces until our noses almost brushed. “You’re the only one I want here with me, sharing food with me, and sitting so close I’m having a hard time keeping my hands to myself.”
And I—Okay.
I got this, I told myself. The pounding in my chest was under control. And the way it traveled to all kinds of interesting places in my body was one hundred percent imperceptible.
I just needed to say something. Anything. Keep the conversation flowing. “I think… I think Argentinian Japanese fusion cuisine is my new obsession.”
Lucas chuckled and shifted a few inches away. “Alexia and Akanehave done an amazing job with the tasting menu. I don’t think I can pick a favorite from all the dishes they served.”
We had learned that Zarato’s Argentinian Japanese fusion specialties had only come to be after Alexia had fallen in love and married Akane, her sous chef. And that was what had elevated the restaurant’s reputation and standing, Alexia had told us during the quick tour she’d given us of the restaurant and the kitchen. A tour that had had Lucas eyes flickering with a kind of interest I’d only seen him show while cooking, he’d been so absorbed that he didn’t notice me studying him. Committing him to memory.
Lucas’s fingers skimmed along one of the thin straps of my dress, sidetracking all my thoughts.
“What was your favorite?” he asked in a low voice. “The one thing you enjoyed the most.”
I was tempted to tell him,You, you are. You are the thing I enjoy the most. “I loved everything.”
“I know you have one,” he said with a knowing smile. “And I think I can guess which one, but I want to hear it from you.”
I did.He knows me so well at this point. “It was the mochi.”
He hummed, and the pad of his thumb traced the length of my spine, stopping at the dip of my back. “I knew the moment you took that first bite. It was thedulce de lechefilling, right?”
I nodded, feeling myself sigh at the Spanish words on his lips. I was never going to get over him speaking his mother tongue.
“What was that?” he asked, a new spark of interest in his gaze. “That thing you did.”
Dammit, he could be so perceptive.
I swallowed. “It was nothing. I was thinking of the mochi.”
“It wasn’t nothing. You let out this little sigh,” he said, and to my utter surprise he brought that thumb that had been caressing my back to my cheek. He grazed my now flaming skin. “Then there’s this. This beautiful blush. What’s causing this, Rosie?” He lowered his voice. “What’s making you hot?”
His words echoed in my ears, reaching a spot between mythighs. Seconds ticked by and I didn’t answer. Frankly, I didn’t think I could.
“Hey.” Lucas tugged at a runaway curl that had come out of the loose braid I’d attempted tonight. And only when my lips parted did he tuck the lock behind my ear with a gentleness that made me short of breath again. “Don’t be shy, Rosie. It’s me.”
And wasn’t that the problem? Wasn’t I so transparent, so affected, because it was him who was the one here with me?
After a heartbeat I finally admitted, “It was your hand. On my back. The words in Spanish, too. It was all… distracting. Especially the words.”
That interest in his gaze sharpened. “What was so distracting about them, exactly?”
I went with the truth because what did I have to lose now? “Thedulce de leche,” I tried, sure that I was butchering the pronunciation. “I just thought it was… sexy when you said it.”
Lucas blinked, one single slow blink, then his eyes filled with something else. Something wicked and a little dark. “You like it when I speak in Spanish to you.”
Yes. Obviously. “I guess I do.”
