Page 32 of Recipe for Romance

Chapter Sixteen

~Nicole~

A low grumble stirred Nicole from her slumber. She shifted slightly, her body aching in the best way imaginable. Parts of her body that had been dormant for too long felt well used, like they’d been tightened and stretched on a taffy puller. Memories of the night before flooded back, her skin heating at each image that flashed in her mind. Aiden above her, teasing her to the point of no return before diving lower and gorging on her like a man driven crazy with lust. He’s eaten her through countless orgasms, letting her push him down again and again as she sought her pleasure. Guilt and shame nudged at Nicole, reminding her of how selfish she had been, but he’d been so willing to give her what she needed. How could she refuse that? No one had ever made what she needed a priority, and it was too intoxicating to pass up on.

As the memories turned over in her head, the image of Aiden’s face under hers as she rode him came to the forefront. While she’d been a little greedy last night, she had taken care of him as well. Everything about him was beautiful, but even more so when he relinquished himself to the pleasure she could provide. His eyes had burned into hers as she rolled her hips over and over, feeling every delicious inch of him as he sat inside her. His cock was wonderfully thick, and he’d been so hard for her by the time she’d topped him that she’d succumbed to multiple aftershocks as they moved.

When he’d finally come, his cock throbbing as he spilled into her, Aiden’s eyes pierced her with a look so affectionate and disbelieving at the same time. Nicole had wished she was a mind reader if only so she could know what he had been thinking in that moment. She knew what she had, but there was no way she could voicethosefeelings to him. Not yet, maybe not ever.

The low growl reached her ears again and Nicole chuckled against Aiden’s chest, reaching down to pat his stomach that was protesting loudly. She looked up at him, expecting to see him sleeping soundly only to find that he was staring at her, a soft smile on his face. Nicole hadn’t seen all of his smiles yet, but the one he bestowed upon her in that moment would live in her mind forever. When she was old and gray, her skin wrinkled and her mind foggy, this smile would be the one thing she would recall with absolute clarity. He just looked so damn...happy.Knowing she’d contributed to that look made her feel proud of who she was.

Reaching up, she cupped his cheek and rubbed her thumb along his sharp jaw, the stubble pricking her fingertip. “Good morning.” His stomach rumbled again, making her smile. “I think we should get you fed.”

“Not yet,” Aiden rasped. His voice was rough with sleep, and perhaps a little something else as evidenced by the tenting of the sheet over the top of them.

Strong hands gripped her tightly before the world spun and she was on her back, blinking up at him as his eyes darted around every inch of her face. Leaning down, he captured her mouth in a kiss, one gentle touch followed by another until he was the only thing she could taste. As they drank from one another, other senses were soon taken over by him as well. The feel of his hot skin against hers, the sound of him moaning into her mouth, his evergreen scent wrapping around her like a warm day spent exploring the forest, and finally the sight of him as she broke the kiss, Aiden gazing down at her like she’d personally shot the brightest stars into the sky.

Nicole’s hips canted, her center reaching toward his when a buzzing sound came from the nightstand. “Ignore that,” he commanded. Diving back to her mouth, he nibbled at her bottom lip when the buzzing started up again, this time more persistently. Growling, he snatched at his phone, looking like he might chuck it across the room before pausing. “Shit.” He shot her an apologetic look before rolling off of her and sitting up. He answered the phone with his trademark bite. “Yes. What? When?” He continued to offer the other person one syllable responses, his hand raking through his rumpled hair as the scowl on his face deepened. This was another she was familiar with, the expression indicative of some urgent crisis with his restaurant.

Sighing at what would likely be a day-long interruption to her plans of doing nothing but exchanging orgasms with Aiden, Nicole sat up and placed a kiss on his shoulder. “I’ll go get the coffee started,” she whispered. Before she got very far, Aiden caught her hand, his head shaking as he dragged her back to him. Kissing her hand, he pulled her down and into his lap, wrapping his free arm around her waist and holding her tightly.

Nicole’s head dipped against his shoulder as she listened to unintelligible words pour out of the speaker and Aiden’s curt, grunted replies. She smiled at it, finding the sound of his voice comforting despite the thread of irritation running through it. When he finally ended the call, he tossed his phone to the side and pulled her back to his chest, breathing harshly, the air stirring her hair.

“This was not the morning I anticipated.” He pulled her to face him before kissing her lips again. It was soft and sweet, not a promise of more, but an apology. Sighing, he rested his forehead against hers. “I don’t suppose you’d want to spend an entire day in my half-finished restaurant, would you?”

Nicole’s mind practically sprinted into the list of possible activities she could do with an entire day to herself. There was so much of the small town she had yet to explore, she could make good on her promise to call Autumn and hang out, she could grab the e-reader she’d been neglecting and enjoy a good book and a bath, but none of those appealed to her as much as spending the day with Aiden.

“I would love to,” she confessed, smiling at the surprise in his voice.

“Really?” He pulled back to study her, looking bewildered that anyone would willingly spend time with him. It was a shame he felt that way because Nicole would do any number of boring activities if it meant she got to be near him. “It won’t be much fun, mostly me making a lot of boring decisions and menu planning.”

“I can help,” she told him. Standing, Nicole slipped on her robe and walked to the door. “If nothing else, I can make sure you take regular snack breaks so that you don’t make one of your contractors cry.”

Aiden huffed a laugh. “It’s been a while since I made anyone cry. Could be fun.” His eyes shined with mirth as he stood and walked over to her. Nicole tried very hard not to get distracted by all of his nakedness on display, but her eyes kept darting to a certain appendage every few milliseconds. He cupped her face, his eyes growing serious as they searched hers. “Not as fun as other things though, things we should probably talk about.”

Nicole placed her hand over his and nodded. “We will,” she promised, kissing his jaw. “But first, coffee and food.” Aiden smiled as she slipped from the doorway and padded back down to her room, feeling a little lightheaded and definitely not from a lack of nourishment. She was dizzy because of something else,someoneelse, and there was only one cure for that. The question was, how did she get it?

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Black text swam onthe white paper, images of shaped bread and twisted pastry blending until they looked like nothing more than a brown smear on the page. Nicole raised her eyes from the cookbook, unable to look at it a second longer. This time it wasn’t boredom that had the words blurring, but a distraction in the form of one very hot chef. She peered across the table, watching Aiden from underneath her lashes. Near black hair fell across his forehead, hiding the frown lines she knew were there. He chewed the inside of his cheek, his eyes that were partially hidden behind his wire-framed reading glasses laser focused as he scratched off whatever he’d just written in his leather bound journal.

Aiden had passed it over to her on the drive to get coffee earlier that morning, a shy smile on his face as excitement lit up his eyes to an icy blue. “It’s where I keep all my ideas,” he’d explained.

Nicole had flipped through the book, seeing short lists of ingredients alongside crude drawings of plating concepts. Unsurprisingly, the most recent ideas centered on apples. It was different, not just the apple-centric menu, but a world class chef opening a restaurant that was more accessible to the public as well. Aiden often spoke about proving people wrong, but Nicole wondered if he wasn’t actually just trying to prove something to himself. He was demanding and grumpy, bordering on rude at times, but he was a good man. Nicole saw it in him, and she hoped he would start to see it too.

A sinewy forearm came into her view, distracting her from her thoughts. Nicole watched it flex, tendons and veins rolling as he angrily flicked eraser shavings off the table and onto the floor, her teeth digging into her own cheek to keep from reaching across and grabbing it just to feel his skin against hers again. It wasn’t the first time she’d had that thought today and it wouldn’t be the last. There was no way she could spend even a moment with the beautiful man in front of her, watching his broad shoulders and chest stretch underneath his collared shirt or his ass shift in his tight khakis and not think about the sex they’d had.

It had been amazing, Earth-shattering, and she couldn’t stop thinking about it. Aiden had said they would discuss it, but he seemed about as eager to do that as she was. Logistical discussions weren’t her favorite, especially when she had the feeling he’d want them to maintain the pretense of professionalism. Nicole snorted. That ship had sailed the moment he’d kissed her in the brewery, probably even before that.

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