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So someone had fixed that safety lock, then.
Her former comrade, the frying pan, emerged like a mutant hand puppet, soon followed by a wrist and a hairy arm before the whole package materialized. Vaguely, something big, bad, and dangerous registered in her mind. He held the pan aloft to ward off any imminent attack, but he needn't have worried. Still grounded, super powers severely diminished, she blinked and focused. Then she wished she hadn't bothered as the tight knot of fear unraveled to a cold flood of embarrassment.
“Jesus Christ, you could have bloody killed—” Fridge Bandit said. His mouth dropped open. Scantily-clad superheroes flat on their butts often have that effect.
Thick, black hair, green eyes flecked with gold, and a face straight out of a Renaissance painting were his most obvious assets. Lili postponed the full body browse because she knew she was in trouble.
It was him.
He touched the back of his head, a not-so-subtle reminder of her transgression, and placed the pan down with all the care of someone disposing of a loaded weapon. His casual wave at the countertop behind her cut the music abruptly. Probably a skill he had acquired during an apprenticeship with the dark side of the Force.
“You all right, sweetheart?” he asked in the casual tone of one who doesn’t really care for the answer. He pocketed a remote and made a half-hearted move toward her. She held up the okay-hand. Too late, buster.
Lowering her eyes to check the girls, she exhaled in relief. No nip slips. She jumped to her feet, surreptitiously rubbed her sore rump, then cast a glance down to her red, knee-high Sandro boots for inspiration. Nothing doing.
You’re wearing a Wonder Woman costume and you just went all out ninja on one of the most famous guys in the Western hemisphere.
At last, she raised her eyes to his face, now creased in a frown.
“I'm Jack.”
“I know who you are.”
Lili figured anyone sporting a painted-on outfit like she was probably had, oh, a ten-second ogle coming her way. Her ego might have taken a shot along with her behind, but she knew she had started the evening looking pretty darn good. Hell, four out of five flabby-muscled Supermen at the party had thought so. With her overweight teens firmly in the past, she’d since embraced her size fourteen figure, and on the days she felt less than attractive—for every woman suffered days like those—she had enough friends telling her to own it, girl, revel in those curves.
So here she stood, owning and reveling, while simultaneously forging a somewhat unorthodox path for feminism with her own leering appraisal.
Jack Kilroy's extraordinarily handsome mug was already branded into her brain. Not because she was a fan, heaven forbid, but because her sister, Cara was constantly babbling about its perfection, usually while nagging everyone she knew to watch the cooking show she produced for him, Kilroy's Kitchen. (Monday nights at seven on the Cooking Channel—don't forget, Lili!) A hot-as-a-griddle Brit, his star had risen in the last year, first with his TV show, then with his bestseller, French Cooking for the Rest of Us. And when not assailing the public with the sight of his chiseled good looks on food and lifestyle magazines, he could invariably be found plying his particular brand of brash foodie charm on the daytime talk show circuit. He wasn’t just smokin’ in the kitchen, either. Recently, a contentious break-up with a soap star and a paparazzi punch-up had provided delicious fodder for the tabloids and cable news outlets alike.
The camera might add ten pounds but in the flesh, Jack Kilroy was packing the sexy into a lean six-and-change frame. The matching set of broad shoulders didn’t surprise her, but apparently the tribal tattoo on his right bicep did, judging by the shiver dancing a jig down her spine. It seemed so not British and just a little bit dangerous. Her gaze was drawn to his Black Sabbath t-shirt, which strained to contain what looked like extremely hard, and eminently touchable, chest muscles. Sculpted by years of lugging heavy duty stockpots, no doubt. A pair of long legs, wrapped in blue jeans that looked like old friends, completed the very pleasant image.
Jack Kilroy was proof there was a God—and she was a woman.
“Is that your usual M.O.? Frying pan first, questions later?” he asked after giving her the anticipated once-over. He had used up his ten seconds while she had stretched her assessment to fifteen. Small victories. “Should I hold still and let you use your lasso to extract the truth from me?” He gestured to the coil of gold-colored rope hanging through a loop on her hip. If he expected her to act impressed by his knowledge of the Wonder Woman mythology, he'd be a long time waiting.
Maybe she was a little impressed.
“I thought you were stealing. I was about to call the police.”
“You're telling me there's something worth stealing around here?”
Her body heated in outrage at his dismissive tone, though it could just as easily be down to the way his dark emerald eyes held hers. Bold and unwavering.
“Are you kidding? Some of this equipment has been in my family for generations.” Right now, most of it had been pulled out from under the counters and was scattered willy-nilly on every available surface. “Like my nonna's pasta maker.” She pointed to it, sitting all by its dusty lonesome on a countertop behind a rack of spices.
“That rusty old thing in the corner?”
“That's not rusty, it's vintage. I thought you Brits appreciated antiques.”
“Sure, but my appreciation doesn't extend to food-poisoning hazards.”
A protest died on her lips. Her father hadn't used that pasta maker in over ten years, so a zealous defense was probably unnecessary.
“So either I’m being punked or you’re Cara's sister. Lilah, right?”
“Yes, Cara's sister,” she confirmed, “and it’s Lil—”
“I thought you were the hostess,” he cut in. “Are frying pans the new meet-n-greet in Italian restaurants?”
