Page 83 of Hot and Bothered

Slowly, he started to move inside her again with an incremental tempo that heated her center to sizzle point. A perfect blend of strength and mastery that built her up again until, with a final thrust, they went over the edge together.

Moments passed as they stood in the hall of his house, still connected in a gnarly embrace. He slid out of her and pulled her sweats up, then his own. She loved how he always took care of her like that. His grin blazed wide, all the tenderness of minutes ago replaced by sexy mischievousness.

“Hi, there,” he said, dropping a soft kiss on her nose.

She giggled, feeling foolish for having read so much into those intense looks. “Hi, yourself.”

“Thanks for stopping by to let me sex you up.”

She looked at the imaginary watch on her wrist. “Hmm, less than five minutes. If I didn’t already have a previous Tad DeLuca experience, I would be severely disappointed in that performance.”

“I know you like it fast and raunchy sometimes,mia bella. Lie to me and say it wasn’t good.”

She was good at telling porkies, but not that good. “I’ll let Sylvia know you’re doing much better.”

Grinning, his gaze fell to the floor, where several of the packages she had brought lay strewn on the hallway rug.

“You brought gifts?”

She paused, thinking about what she wanted to say next. “I thought that maybe we could make lunch. Actually, I thought we could cook together.”

A curious look came over him, and she worried that she had made another one of her famous miscalculations.Cook together.Two small words that weighed a ton. Her heart expanded to fill her chest, pushing against her lungs so she could barely breathe.

“I’d love to cook with you,” he whispered.

* * *

“Make sure you don’t overfill it,” he said as she heaped a spoonful of cooked ground beef, ricotta and herbs in blobs about an inch apart on the rectangle of pasta dough. “Then fold it over and seal it up with the egg wash.”

“Like that?”

He moved in behind her and banded his thick, muscle-corded forearms beneath her breasts. The butterfly kisses he trailed down her neck made her shiver.

“Tight as a nun’s knickers. Perfect.”

Just like the whole afternoon. Hot sex with a guy she was crazy about, though even that had felt different. More powerful, more consuming. There had always been an underlying streak of want and determination in Tad’s lovemaking, and today when he held her while taking her to paradise, she had opened her eyes and seen it for the first time.

This guy was going to destroy her.

The blabbermouths on her shoulder had nothing.

“The other morning at your place,” he said softly against her ear. “I noticed you have Vivi’s cookbook.”

Her mind fumbled for a defense. “Frankie lent it to me. If you want it back—”

“Don’t need a book to remember those recipes. Know them all by heart.” His smile against the curve of her neck made her all tingly. “I love that you have it. Feels right. And I love that you’re here. That feels right as well.”

Forget the tingle; she was two seconds from liquefying in a puddle of want.

“Have you given any more thought to cooking professionally?”

“Not really.”

“Hmm, I think you have,bella.”

She sighed. “I’d like to—well, it’s silly, really…”

He gave an encouraging squeeze with his sexy, hairy, thick-as-her-calf forearms. “Tell me.”

---