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“Thanks, I guess.” How are you supposed to respond to something like that?
Using a pair of tongs, he pulls the manicotti shells out of the water and sets them in the pan before looking my way. I’m extremely aware of the way his eyes glance at my ass first and then move to the bowl, where I’m mixing the crab and cheese together. It only makes me blush more.
If he’d looked at me like that earlier, I’d have been annoyed and probably said something, but now, I can feel my body responding to his gaze in ways that it hasn’t in a very long time.
Adrenaline flows through me in a slow drip, and my heart pounds just a little faster and stronger. The hair on my body stands up straight, like I need to be ready for anything.
Emery doesn’t act any different than he did the night we sat and drank together while my ass burned. I guess that’s expected, but it’s a new thing for me.
I’m starting to question why I’d push him away. We couldn’t have anything real, but does that really matter if I’m just there for a good time?
“Let me spice the filling,” he says. When he brushes up next to me with several jars of spices, I step aside. Torn between a desire to be close to him and a fear of what being close to him will end with, I watch as he pours garlic, Italian seasoning, salt, and pepper into the bowl and quickly mixes it up almost like he actually knows what he’s doing.
Then he reaches into a cabinet and pulls out a gallon-sized plastic bag and begins spooning the mixture into it. I take deep breaths, trying to will myself to calm down, but I already know it won’t work.
I knew that Emery Brooks was a lot of things before the end of my first day at Aspire, but it’s just now that I understand his secret power. Once he gets his hooks in you, there’s no turning away. Just like his cult at work. If you let him in even the slightest, there’s no way you can just walk away.
Because he’s a fantasy come to life. At work, he’s perfect. A genius with so much energy and more dedication to the job than anyone else. He cares about his employees and gives them all the freedom they need while still supporting them. He treats each member of the team like they’re his partner rather than his subordinate.
Everyone except me. That’s why I’m not part of the Cult of Emery. He needs me there, and he doesn’t know how to be my partner.
But here? He’s just as much a fantasy, but it’s in a completely different way. He’s a fantasy man with a single fatal flaw. But that flaw has nothing to do with how much fun we could have.
He’s charming, funny, sexier than any model, and he can cook. He’s built like a god, and he’s made my body throb without ever touching me.
“Since I’ve done all the hard work, you get to fill these things. Every time I’ve made manicotti in the past, I broke the shells, so this way you can’t blame me for ugly pasta.”
I blink, and a smile crosses my lips. Don’t say it, Madison. Don’t say it. “Do you normally break things when you stuff and fill them? Or is it just pasta?”
He pauses as though I said something surprising. Then he grins. “I only break things that ask for it. Maybe even beg for it.”
He hands me the pair of scissors and bag of filling. My brain is in that fuzzy state, almost like I’ve had a glass of wine too many, but I try to get myself together as I step in front of the pan of empty pasta.
I try to let the joke die as I focus on dinner as best I can. “How does this work? I’ve never filled pasta before.”
Without missing a beat, he steps behind me and reaches those long arms around me, taking the scissors and bag from me. His chest presses against my back as he looks over my shoulder. His hot breath kisses my neck and ear. “You just snip the tip of the bag, and slowly squeeze the filling into the shell.”
I want to pay attention to what he’s doing. I really do because I know I’m going to make a fool of myself if I don’t, but when I feel his arms press ever-so-softly against my shoulders, I feel that fuzzy feeling come back with a vengeance.
God, I love how big he is compared to me. He lifts a shell off the pan at an angle and squeezes the bag with the other hand, forcing the cheese mixture into it. “See, it’s easy, but I always end up breaking the shells.”
The shell rips and the bottom falls to the pan just like he said. He laughs and says, “See! I don’t know what I’m doing wrong. Maybe my fingers are too big, but I’ve never been able to do this without breaking them, so it’s your turn to try.”
He pulls his arms away as I take the bag, but he doesn’t move back to his original position. It’s incredibly distracting, and my mind won’t stop flitting to images of him pressing me against the counter, one huge hand pulling my hair back as the other pulls my dress up over my waist.
While my body reacts to those images, I try to focus on the dinner. I pick up one of the manicotti shells and feel it bend. No wonder it always tore on him. As he filled it up, it got heavier. Instead of angling it, I just set it on the pan, standing up, and fill it. Some of the filling falls to the bottom, but when I flip it back to its normal position, it looks right.
“Well, I guess that’s one way of doing it. Clever.” Hearing Emery’s voice in my ear like this makes everything even worse. I may have been able to brush off all the physical sensations, but his whispers are my kryptonite. If he whispered certain things, I’d be throwing myself at him.
He watches me as I do my best to continue to fill the manicotti, and when they’re all done, he grabs a can of red sauce that he unceremoniously pours on top of the pasta. Then he goes to the oven and opens it up. “Go ahead and put it in.”
I pick up the pan, and my breathing is ragged after Emery unknowingly teased me for ten minutes in the worst way. Then he says, “I’m betting you’ve got a black lace bra and matching thong on right now.”
I whirl around, not at all okay with the fact that he knows what kind of underwear I’m wearing. The snarky words are on the tip of my tongue, but I hear a cracking sound, and the pan of manicotti stops suddenly. I barely keep a hold of it as the sound of rushing water fills the air.
And I’m getting rained on. What the hell?
I step back at the same time that I notice the sink faucet is leaning at a weird angle. Shit. I just broke his sink. Water sprays out of the broken pipe straight into the air and rains down around us. I don’t know how long all of that took to process, but I’m still mostly frozen. What am I supposed to do in a situation like this?
