Page 29 of Things We Burn

I cleared my throat. “No, my parents weren’t. My father was an amateur chef, a foodie. He’s where my love of it stemmed from, but it grew into something bigger than that for me.”

I was anxious to get off the topic of my parents, especially my father, so I did something I rarely did; I babbled without thinking entirely about what was coming out of my mouth.

“Food is chaos and control in one. You get to nourish people and give them an experience they’ll never forget. There are rules. Some you can’t break, some you absolutely can and have to if you want to be remembered. But there is order underneath it all. Or that’s what I like to think.”

I shrugged, feeling self-conscious about what I was saying.

“You don’t want to hear this.” I looked downward at the comforter.

Kane stopped playing with my hair so he could tilt my chin upward.

“I want to hear everything there is to know about you,” he said softly. “Every word.”

Again, he was being completely sincere. He wanted to know me. He was interested.

“Continue,” he demanded.

“Um, well... I just, like it. Like the order and the chaos. Like that I can be comforted and surprised in the kitchen, and it gave me something I wanted—no, something I needed. Without it…” I traced the ridges of his abs. “Without it, I don’t know who I’d be.”

I stopped talking because I needed to take a breath.

“Aside from Kiera, I don’t have friends,” I confessed. “No interests, hobbies. I don’t travel unless it’s for work. I don’t take vacations. I don’t really speak to my family. So this is it. Inferno is my life. Food is my life.”

It was a rather shameful admission, one I hadn’t fully intended on giving. Kane, by all appearances—and some heftygoogling—had a full life. Bursting at the seams, really. He didn’t specialize in a single profession. His main sport seemed to be motocross, but he also had Olympic medals for snowboarding, and he raced cars ‘for fun’ yet had qualified for some of the top races in the country.

He’d climbed Everest, for heaven’s sake.

In addition to those accomplishments, he had what appeared to be a glittering social life. He was pictured with countless celebrities at parties, on yachts, walking down the streets of various cities with his arm slung around the shoulders of famous models and actresses.

Yes, it was rather shameful to admit to this man that my kitchen was all I had.

I was attempting to burrow into myself, hiding behind my shields.

But Kane flipped us so I was on my back, and his body was covering mine. He braced himself on his forearms, his lips inches away, barely brushing mine.

He stroked my eyebrow, searching my face.

“I’ve never had a passion like that,” he murmured quietly. “Never had something so deeply embedded in the core of me.” He clicked his tongue. “At least not in the past.”

My throat burned upon hearing that last sentence. It couldn’t mean what I thought it meant. It couldn’t mean me. No. Absolutely not. I was hearing things.

“It’s precious, something to be immensely proud of that you have that talent,” he continued, his voice low. “I find you very fucking impressive, Avery Hart.” He moved so I could feel his hardness pressing into my core.

I gasped, instantly responding.

His lips pressed down on mine, kissing me slowly, purposefully, lazily. But it was also a claiming. His kiss felt like a brand.

With devastating slowness, he pushed inside of me.

My body writhed with the unexpected pleasure of it. I arched my back against the bed, clawing at the sheets as he took his time filling me.

Once he was fully seated, he didn’t give me the friction I sorely needed. Everything inside me felt raw. Not just from the sex earlier in the night but from the admission, from opening up in a way I hadn’t before.

This didn’t feel like the sex we’d had before—hot, animalistic, carnal. No, sex after learning personal details was intimate in a way that felt terrifying and exhilarating at the same time.

“Chef, open your eyes.”

I hadn’t realized I’d squeezed them shut.

---