A low purr punctuated with a growl escaped him when she stood on her toes and quickly kissed him on the cheek.
Her smile dimmed as she scanned his face. “Are you alright? You look tired. Did you sleep okay?”
“Yes, love. May I enter?” Luka loved the way her pupils dilated and her body seemed to vibrate with pleasure every time he used the pet name.
Distracted from her worry as he’d intended, she blushed and stepped aside to let him in.
Once inside, she grasped his hand and tugged him toward the kitchen, unaware of the effect the small contact had on him.
“I wanted to repay you for dinner last night, so I tried to make you dinner myself. Izzo helped me pick foods you liked and showed me how to cook them on that weird stove-counter thing. I have to go freshen up. Go sit down, I’ll be right back.” She waved her hand at the table, then scurried away into the bathing room.
He glanced toward the dining table and his jaw slackened.
Glass orbs had been programmed to hang over the table in a long delicate pattern, and the lights in the rest of the house were turned down, creating an intimate, warm glow. The softly lit table was covered with a large cloth and decorated with the plants he’d given her. On either end sat their covered plates and a soft napkin folded into an intricate pattern. He glanced to the kitchen and saw piles of used dishes and bits of chopped food. She must’ve been working on this for quite a while.
She’d done all this for him? The door opened again, and she emerged from the bathing room. He felt himself growing hard as he took in her stunning appearance. Instead of the smock, she wore a vermillion dress that was tight around her chest, accentuating her breasts, and flared delicately around her waist, ending mid-thigh. Stuck in the hair by her ear were a few small flowers plucked from the ruhi bush he’d sent to her today.
His eyes couldn’t take in enough of her, and after a prolonged silence, she began shifting on her feet. When she raised her small nails to her mouth, a gesture he’d began attributing with stress, he was startled out of his hypnosis.
Dropping the food on the ground, he crossed over to her and ran his palms down her arms. “You look…beautiful.” The compliment was not enough, not by a long shot, but she preened all the same.
“I hope you like the food.” She dashed to the kitchen and bent to retrieve something from a refrigerated compartment. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you and you brought food too, but I was worried I might mess it all up and if we didn’t have a backup, we’d go hungry.”
She removed two glasses filled with amber liquid. Setting one by the plate on one side of the table, she moved to take a seat at the other.
He stayed in place, gazing at the scene before him, and tried to temper all the different emotions roaring in him. Nobody had ever done anything like this for him, and he was completely puzzled as to what he’d done to earn it.
“You don’t like it?” A look of concern crossed her face, and her gaze darted around the table.
“I’m not used to it,” he said, walking to the plate she’d set out for him. He peered over at her. “I can’t express how much I appreciate it.”
Alice shifted in her seat and nibbled her lip. “It’s not that big a deal. The food probably isn’t even that good.”
Luka snorted. He’d have happily eaten tar if she’d gone to the trouble of putting it on a plate. “There’s only one problem.”
She scanned the table again, seeking the offending “problem,” and frowned. “What is it?”
“You’ve put me much too far away.” He hefted his chair and placed it catty-corner to hers, moving his plate and drink next. He sank into his chair and grinned at her. “How am I supposed to admire all the parts of you I can’t touch from over there?”
She blushed. “Sorry. Old habits die hard.”
He quirked his brow and thought about the interesting saying.
“I made you a cocktail,” she said, eyeing the glass. “I hope you like it. It was really difficult to find the right flavors in liquid form, but based on what your brother said you enjoy, I thought you might like this. It’s my closest approximation to what we call an old-fashioned.”
He took an experimental sip and savored the velvety concoction as it slid down his throat.
Alice leaned toward him, brows raised.
“That’s incredible,” Luka said honestly.
She leaned back, smiling, and her shoulders relaxed. “Good. I thought I’d start with a classic before trying to make something more complicated. You have no idea how many different fruits I tried before finally finding a vegetable that worked in place of orange.”
A magenta light pulsed in time with a low ding on the house’s programming pad.
“I’ve never seen it do that before.” Alice turned an inquisitive eye toward him. “What does it mean?”
For a moment, Luka had the devious urge not to tell her that some impertinent person was interrupting their dinner, but it might be an emergency. Covering her hand with his, he explained, “My communicator connects to your house when I walk in. That color means I’m getting a call.”
“Oh,” she said. “You should answer, then.”
“Let me just tell them now isn’t a good time.” He snatched the sleek gray communication device from the bag he’d dropped near the kitchen. His brows
