Page 17 of Reckless
So, of course, he didn’t.
“Being reckless isn’t the same as being stupid,” he said, letting the thin thread of curiosity on Zoe’s face dare him close enough to watch her lashes fan up into a honey-colored arc. “While I can’t lie and say I’ve ever met an adrenaline high I didn’t like, I’m not interested in becoming finger paint, either. So, yes, I like to jump out of airplanes. In fact, I like it a lot. But there are guidelines, and I follow them every time I jump.”
“Oh.” Zoe blinked twice, her breath sliding in on an audible inhale as she opened one of the drawers beneath the island, unearthing a flat, rectangular carrying case. “So, um, the instructor guy has a lot of experience then?”
Alex watched as she freed the zipper rimming the edge of the bright red nylon, revealing a set of flawlessly gleaming kitchen knives. His own curiosity popped like a campfire over dry kindling, but he stuffed it back and stuck to the topic. “Kyle—the instructor I went with before I got my solo certification—he jumps a lot, yeah.”
“Okay,” she said, handing him a five-gallon bucket with a weird, plastic insert inside that looked like a widely-woven basket. “Define a lot.”
He bit back a chuckle. It figured Zoe would want a concrete measurement like a number. “Last time I checked I think he was at nine thousand something.”
Her chin jacked upward, hands stilling over the polished black knife handles. “Oh my God, he’s not a skydiving instructor. He’s a career lunatic,” she breathed, realization filtering across her face in slow motion. “Wait. How many times have you gone?”
Alex’s smile tasted way better than it should, but he let it take control of his mouth all the same. “Twenty-nine.”
“You do realize that’s deranged.”
“And yet still a far cry from nine thousand.”
“I think we’re going to have to agree to disagree,” Zoe said, and although the unyielding line of her spine backed up all theno wayin her affirmation, her lips curled just enough to put a mostly playful spin on the words. She slid a knife from one of the reinforced pouches sewn into the case she’d propped open over the countertop, and despite the fact that the thing looked menacing enough to belong on the set of a horror movie, she palmed the handle with obvious ease. Sliding over to the cutting board, she sank the blade into the first bunch of lettuce with a crunch, her hands becoming a blur of fluid motion as she made quick work of chopping each section into tidy pieces.
The ridge of her shoulders, normally set in firm determination, loosened beneath the softly edged neckline of her shirt, and the wisps of hair that had broken free from her high ponytail did nothing to scale back on the surprisingly wide-open vibe suddenly pouring off her. She repeated the process with each head of lettuce, sending the curiosity in Alex’s gut into comeback mode and the words spilling right out of his mouth.
“Okay, so it’s my turn in the question department.”
Zoe motioned him forward, scooping the now-chopped lettuce into the plastic container he still held between his palms. “Go for it, although if you’re looking for something bold and daring, you’re probably not going to find it in my wheelhouse.”
“Actually, I beg to differ,” Alex said, but before she could translate the shock on her face to an actual, out-loud protest, he asked, “Clearly, this kitchen means a lot to you. If you didn’t think I was going to come through with fixing the mess in the pantry, why did you give me a second chance this morning?”
She gripped the lid to the container, her knuckles blanching to match the shiny white plastic. But rather than back down from his straight-up candor the way most people normally did, Zoe lifted her shoulders into a shrug and answered. “I figured you’d either fumble the job and then I’d cut you loose, or you’d manage to pull enough out of your hat to earn the chance to stick around, for now at least. Seemed like kind of a win-win considering the circumstances.”
“But it was still a chance you didn’t have to take, especially since you’re so down on the idea of my being here anyway.” Alex put the container full of lettuce on the counter at his hip. He measured Zoe with a sidelong glance, and fuck it. No sense in pretending that decorum was anywhere in his batch files. “Speaking of which, why is that? I mean, I get that I screwed up yesterday’s delivery, but you haven’t wanted me here from the word go, and it’s clear you need the hands. So tell me.” He took the lid from her fingers, putting it on the counter and closing the resulting gap until only mere inches stood between them. “Why don’t you want me in your kitchen?”
“Because everything about you is a risk,” she said, her voice just a notch above a whisper even though her tone was bedrock firm. “Fifty bucks says you’re so stuck in the shoot-first-ask-questions-later habits that landed you here that you’re not going to be anything other than a huge problem in my kitchen.”
Alex’s defenses uncurled in his belly, low and hot, like the first few flames of a brushfire jumping to life. “Those habits happen to make me a good firefighter. The kind who saves lives.”
But Zoe shook her head, ruffling the loose strands of hair around her face. “Not for the next four weeks they don’t.”
His molars went on lockdown, with barely enough room for his words to escape. “I don’t need a reminder, Gorgeous.”
“Don’t call me that.” Zoe’s eyes glittered with high-octane emotion at the same time her cheeks flushed a dark, sexy pink, and Alex would’ve been shocked if he wasn’t so busy being turned on from his brain to his balls.
“Why not?”
“Because.” Her ripe-cherry mouth pressed into a thin line. “You’re already not taking me or anything else about this placement seriously. I don’t need you to make fun of me on top of it.”
Alex’s gaze traveled the length of her, from the crown of her honey blond head to the provocative swell of cleavage peeking up from the V of her shirt, lowering still to the matching flare of her sweet, sinful hips, and his words grated up from the darkest part of his chest.
“And what if I’m not making fun of you?”
Zoe paused, her pupils dilating enough to darken her stare to a deep, chocolate brown despite the harsh fluorescent lights overhead. For a bare fragment of a second, she tipped her chin toward him, just enough to reveal the wild flutter of the pulse point where her neck sloped into her shoulder. But then she snapped to attention, as if her spine had suddenly discovered it was made of triple-reinforced titanium, and the molten heat in her eyes morphed into cool determination.
“You’re not going to flirt your way into my good graces, Donovan. Your reputation and your recklessness are written all over your resume. Feeding these people is important, and there’s no room for your brand of risk-taking in my kitchen, period.”
“I’m not completely incapable of following the rules.” Hadn’t he just proved it by telling her about all those safety regs for skydiving? There had to be dozens of them, for Chrissake, and he followed every last one, down to the syllable.
Zoe scooped up the container holding the lettuce, handing it back to him with the kind of polite smile reserved for your least favorite ex and door to door salesmen. “Right. And I’m not completely incapable of taking risks, as you already pointed out.”
