He glides his hand across my belly and I groan from the weight on my full stomach. “Name your price, darling. I’ll pay anything.”
“Today’s malloreddus recipe was…surprising.” I snuggle into his side, suddenly too shy to let him see my face.
“Was it? You ‘found’ my notes.”
The quotes around found are explicitly apparent. No, he didn’t. I sit up and turn to him, and growl at his smiling face. “You tricked me into finding them.”
Thankfully the sofa is there to catch him because he falls back laughing, wheezing really.
I fold my arms over my chest and watch the show. I am not amused.
When he finally catches a breath, even though he’s leaning on the floor with one arm, holding his stomach with the other, he responds. “Oh, Amber. You’re blaming me for your thievery?” He falls back into fits of laughter.
I patiently wait on him to finish all this nonsense. “Are you done?”
“Oh my God. Whew.”
“You are not nearly as clever as you think you are.”
He pulls me into his lap and tugs on my pouting bottom lip. “We both know that’s not true.”
I spin around and straddle him, and whisper against his ear, pressing my breasts into his unforgiving chest. “What do you know?”
He chuckles, his breath catching. “I don’t even know my name anymore.”
Mission accomplished. I push back but don’t leave his lap. “Why did you set me up? Especially since it was real.”
“I wanted you to know how I felt. How I feel. How I’ve always felt.” He cups my cheek and strokes my chin with his thumb, moving to my lips.
I bend forward, placing my forehead on his. “Why didn’t you just tell me?”
“You hated me.”
I shake my head, but he stops me. “You did. But we’re here now so that doesn’t matter anymore.”
He’s right of course. And the fact that he created that recipe over two months ago before we even started the competition means that I’m the late one to this little two-person party of ours. Looks like I need to make up for lost time.
I’m close enough to feel his heart pounding and mine breaks just a little for being so stubborn. For not seeing through the bluster. For not having confidence enough in myself and blaming him for all my shortcomings. For not being his friend when he asked.
He still has his hands on the sides of my head, so I place my hands over his and stare into his smoldering baby-blue eyes, scooting forward again on his lap. I guide his hands down my neck, pushing them farther down until they’re resting on top of my breasts.
When he rubs my nipples through the thin cotton T-shirt I’m wearing, the sensation sends a zing through my stomach, and I grind against his hardening erection, placing my hands on his shoulders for traction.
With one hand massaging my breast and the other guiding my hips, he reaches for my lips. I bend and make the connection. He whispers against my mouth. “You have no idea how long I’ve waited for this.” His voice is deep and gravelly, his breath short.
I smile against his lips as his hard cock grinds into the seam of my yoga pants. “I think I’m beginning to catch a clue.”
He grabs both hips, tilting my pelvis up a bit to have better access, and rubs my clit through the fabric. His intent is clear—he means to make me come tonight, and I’m not mad about it. Knox is talented. This is not new information. He works my nub just as he flicked the malloreddus off the board, and now I finally realized why that always turned me on so much.
This time I close in on his mouth and suck his tongue but it doesn’t break his concentration. Not that I wanted it broken. His tongue is soft and rough and tastes like root beer from our feast earlier. I mimic the sucking with the grinding going on below. When the buildup begins, I fist his hair and hold on for dear life. It starts slow in the pit of my stomach and explodes out of nowhere, catching my breath in my throat, suppressing the scream I want to release.
When I come down, Knox is kissing me everywhere, nipping my jaw, my neck. Biting my chin, my lips. Then he pulls me into his chest, and I collapse against him. We’re both breathing so heavily that it’s the only sound filling the room for minutes.
“That was…”
“Yeah, it was.”
I move from his lap because I don’t want our wet spots to meet. We really didn’t do a great job preparing, but I don’t think either of us expected to take it this far.
He palms my face again, and the pure contentment in his crinkled eyes matches my feelings exactly.
I trace his bottom lip with my thumb and he nips it, making me grin. For the four years of culinary school, we could’ve have been doing this instead of pranking each other.
I blow out a shallow huff and shake my head. “I’m still mad about my baked Alaska though.”
*
The knock on the door is urgent, not soft like last time. I don’t care how bad he wants it (I want it too), we’re not sexing until after the competition. There’s only four more days for goodness’ sake. I throw the covers off and look at the bedside clock for the time. It feels like I just got to sleep. Four o’clock in the morning. I did just get to sleep having left Knox’s room at two. Thankfully we have a noon call time.
A knock comes again before I can throw something on so I look through the peephole because this is unlike Knox. It’s him though, and I’m not sure if it’s the distortion of the glass I’m looking through, but he seems haggard. “Give me a second, okay?”
He grumbles something I can’t hear through the door so I rush to the dresser and
