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“Twist a girl’s words, why don’t you.” Carly made a face at him as he turned the chair to face away from the kitchen. In spite of her grousing, she climbed up to sit on the stool with her back to the counter. “At least tell me what you’re going to make.”
“Please. If I was going to tell you, I’d let you watch.”
He had to admit, there was something incredibly sexy about distracting her this way. He’d promised to feed her. Even if the best he could come up with was the can of Manwich sitting in the back of his pantry, Jackson was going to throw everything he had into making it an experience.
He turned to face her, stepping in close enough to sense her breath hitch.
“And no peeking, either. If I think you’re cheating, I’ll be tempted to blindfold you.”
With that, he brushed his lips over hers in the barest of tastes before turning to walk away.
19
“You’re not going to give me any hints at all?”
Jackson couldn’t tell if Carly sounded more miffed than curious, but neither one made him want to tell her what he was up to. Not that he really knew. He walked through the kitchen, which amounted to three good steps, and propped the pantry door open.
“Nope.” He whistled good-naturedly, trying to cover up the distinct possibility he was in over his head. Come on, he thought. He might not be a gourmet chef, but he wasn’t a total dolt, either. What would he want to eat if he were sitting in that chair?
I like to use ingredients that keep things uncomplicated.
Carly’s words from the night they’d spent in the bungalow popped into his mind, and an idea slammed into him with all the subtlety of a three-hundred pound wrestler. If honest flavors, evocative smells, and warm presentation were on Carly’s wish list, Jackson was about to make her the meal of a lifetime.
Either that, or she’d laugh him out of his own kitchen. But it was better than nothing, and at this point, he needed something. He reached into the belly of the pantry, unearthing a sparse handful of things, hoping like hell this didn’t backfire.
Carly cleared her throat, a soft thrum of rich tones that threatened to undo him from across the room. “How about a small hint? Just one ingredient.”
“You don’t like to play by the rules, do you?” It was easier to rebuff her now that he had a plan, and he moved to the counter a few steps behind her to untwist the plastic bag in his hands.
“It’s not cheating if I ask and you tell me,” she said, turning her stubborn chin so he could see her in profile.
Jackson was next to her in the span of a breath, the bag left on the counter, forgotten. “I’m not going to tell you. Now behave, or I won’t be able to finish.”
He curved his mouth into a smile, hovering just over the shell of her ear. She smelled like wildflowers and sunshine, but he resisted the urge to take a taste before going back to the kitchen. One wasn’t going to be nearly enough, and he already wanted her as it was.
“I can’t just sit still,” Carly protested, but Jackson simply laughed.
“You forget, I’m a contractor. I don’t exactly have a four-course meal up my sleeve, so this isn’t going to take very long.”
Returning to the kitchen, he pulled two thick slices of white bread from the bag on the counter. He dropped them into the slats of the toaster and lowered the lever with slow pressure to try to mask the sound.
She stilled, a lone ribbon of dark hair cascading from the loose knot on her crown. “I like simple, remember?”
Jackson thought of his plan and chuckled. “Good.”
Carly sat up straight, ear cocked toward the kitchen, and it occurred to him that she really was using her other senses to try to figure him out. The refrigerator huffed as he opened it, a near-noiseless breath of cold air filtering out to greet him, and a few more ingredients joined the pile on the counter. The efficient snap of the toaster was a dead giveaway—one he couldn’t avoid, unfortunately—as was the warm, yeasty smell emanating through the kitchen a minute later.
“You’re making toast?”
“There’s no breakfast in your future unless you spend the night,” he said, hoping to distract her.
Bingo. Carly sat up even taller, her spine a beautiful plumb line. “Oh! Well, I was just…”
“Cheating,” Jackson supplied, sliding a knife from the utensil drawer. It wisped quietly across the golden bread as he layered the ingredients with measured precision, tawny and thick on one side, dark and sweet on the other. He pressed the two pieces of bread together, marrying the parts to create the whole. The creation in front of him was the very definition of simple, but it seemed strangely perfect, as if he’d been meant to feed her like this all along. He folded a paper towel beneath the plain blue dish, sliding the whole thing toward her on the aging Formica countertop. Leaning forward on his elbows, Jackson propped his body across from hers at the breakfast bar.
“Don’t be. I’m done.”
Slowly, Carly turned around on her stool. The walls of his apartment seemed to press into his ears as he waited for the plate in front of her to register with her brain.
