Page 23 of Brooke
He almost laughed. She’d probably threaten him with her cleaver for calling her nose cute. But it was, and he was in big trouble, thinking like that. Lust he could handle. But the tenderness chasing it made him feel wild, crazy, unmoored. It lodged in his heart, the part dedicated to her, and there was nothing on earth that would make him carve it out of himself.
“We’re having dinner at home tonight,” he found himself saying. “We’ve been laughing all day over how Dean keeps threatening to hire a hungry fashion designer to create culinary wear for pets. For parrots like Pierre, but also dogs and cats and probably that eccentric soul who bought a monkey and sees makingcoq au vinwith it on a Friday night.”
Her sin-inducing mouth tipped with humor, and her shoulders lowered inches, signaling relaxation. He pressed on. “I’m chopping for you while the duck is slowly rendering on the stove. The cherries are bubbling in the sauté pan. You look over at me. Madison, what am I chopping?”
He held his breath.
“Tarragon,” she said so softly he had to lean forward to hear it.
“Why?” His voice was equally quiet.
Her face started to change, almost as though sunlight was starting to radiate from the very bones of her oval face. Thetransformation from desperation and uncertainty to delight and outright joy knocked him back a step.
She opened her eyes, her breath rushing out. “Because I’m frizzling it. Kyle, I’m frizzling the tarragon!”
Grabbing fistfuls of tarragon, she shot past him in a blur, Pierre flying after her. He sprinted back toward the kitchen. She had a sauté pan already out and was adding butter to it. He noted the gas stove was on low heat, the blue flame barely visible. Cruising to the sink, she gently washed the leaves and then dried them with a paper towel, her touch so tender his throat ached at the sight. What would it be like to have her touch him the same way? He nearly crossed the kitchen to find out.
But the butter started to bubble and sizzle ever so softly in the pan. She took an audible breath and laid the tarragon down. The leaves crisped instantly, and then she was taking the pan from the flame and rushing over to the plate she’d served him earlier, spooning the frizzled leaves on top. Cutting a piece of duck, she shoved it into her mouth and started chewing. She gestured for him to do the same.
But he didn’t need to. The beautiful face he was used to seeing serious, angry, snarky, and guarded was a study in ecstasy as her eyes closed.
“That’s it!” she practically cried, still chewing as Pierre gave a hearty squawk.“Frizzled tarragon!Who knew?”
He still hadn’t reached for the duck, not wanting to miss a moment of her like this. “You did. Way to go, Chef.”
Her golden eyes popped open, lighter than he’d ever seen, and then she was kissing Pierre on his black beak and launching herself at Kyle. He caught her slender frame, Pierre flapping his wings in the air as he was displaced. Before Kyle could process the spontaneity, she wound her arms and legs around him and gripped him with all her might. Joy burst through him as he tightened his arms, falling into the warmthof her skin, the slight dancing of her body against him, and the scent of her.
“We did it, Kyle! We nailed the bitch.”
He laughed, burying his face in her shoulder. She’d called this plate her big bitch more than once. “Vanquished at last. It was only a matter of time. God, Mad, I’m so happy for you!”
Squeezing her tightly to him, he felt his whole world explode. With color. With feeling. With possibility.
“I almost told you I wasn’t into hocus-pocus,” she joked, hugging him with all her might. “But my heart was racing, and all I could smell was tarragon. Even over your aftershave.”
He tucked that away for later dissection. He didn’t wear aftershave in the morning. “It’s called visualization, and you damn well know it.”
“You’re a genius!” she called, tightening her grip on him and igniting a line of fire in him.
“A genius,” Pierre echoed.
“No,you’rethe genius!” Kyle shot back, positioning her better around his waist when her leg slipped.
His hands skimmed her black jeans to support her, feeling the lean muscle under there along with the lust-provoking feminine lines of her body. She tensed against him, her legs clenching in response, and arousal hit him like a flatbed truck. He pressed his face into the area where her neck and shoulder met, smelling her, that intoxicating scent of spices and the promise of sex.
“What are you two doing?”
They both glanced over, her chin almost knocking him in the cheek. Brooke stood there in her red yoga outfit, hands on her hips, her mouth gaping so hard her white teeth gleamed.
“I figured out the duck recipe!” Madison called out, raising her fist to the sky. “Kyle worked some kind of magic with me.”
He savored holding her, the heat of her, the joy of her,because he knew this moment had come to an end. “She just needed to expand her imagination, it seems.”
The tension returned to Madison’s body as she slowly slid off him. He made sure to smile at her as she found her feet. She had to know they were still okay—on even ground. What had happened moments before hadn’t counted. It couldn’t.
“I’m going to take my beautiful bitch over to Nanine for her to try,” Madison said, now working to keep her smile in place. “She’s going to be so excited.”
“Yes, she is,” Brooke agreed with a winning smile. “I’m so happy for you, Madison. We’ll have to celebrate tonight. Dinner is on me.”
