Her throat moves near where my hands still cup her jaw as she swallows deeply, and my eyes watch her mouth as she speaks. “While that kiss sounds wonderfully tempting, it’s the mention of a gag that makes me want to meet you in the pantry for a round of Seven Minutes in Heaven.”
My knees nearly buckle as my cock stands at full attention when I see her face morph instantly from its drooling hypnotized state to a wicked smirk as she finally takes a step back.
Holy. Fuck.
Is she still fucking with me?
I can’t tell for the life of me if she’s playing some sort of game or if she really is a naughty minx who wants to meet me for a quickie.
Her quick glance to my once-again-tented pants and then her satisfied smile tells me it may be a little of both.
At the sound of everyone coming through the front door, I don’t follow her retreat, narrowing my eyes at her chirped “Moving along!” as I continue to wonder about this confident, sexy, and flirtatious woman. She’s so different than any of the other participants I’ve had on the show. Hell, she’s unlike any woman I’ve ever had the pleasure of meeting before.
I don’t do relationships. With all my traveling for the show, plus spur of the moment trips to cook for celebrity dinner parties, or cater weddings for socialites and royals, I have zero time to give to a person I feel would deserve my devotion. I love what I do. I worked fucking hard as hell to get to where I am today.
I’m no celibate saint, but I am also not some love-‘em-and-leave-‘em fuckboy who lets a woman fall for him before dropping her as I hightail it to the next city. I especially never show any kind of interest in the guest I choose for the show. Ninety-nine percent of the time, they’re in a relationship, wanting to cook a meal for their significant other. More often than not, they’re married. But occasionally during my visits to different cities, someone will come along who I want to spend an evening with, but I make it completely clear that night is the only one we will spend together. I have gotten really lucky not to end up with a stalker or two, and I count my blessings nothing has happened to me like my friend Dean, who ended up in the tabloids when that chick claimed she was pregnant with his baby. Not once have I ever had a scare like that, thank God.
I’ve never met a woman I could see a future with. I’ve never met a woman who made me want to learn her every opinion, her every motivation, her every thought. And I’ve certainly never met a woman who affected my body in the ways Erin does—keeping me on my toes as much as she makes my dick hard. It’s a mindfuck, and I’m enjoying it immensely.
And it’s during this realization I decide…
She’s mine.
Chapter 5
Erin
CURTIS PULLS ALL the groceries out of the bags, displaying them neatly across the island before looking around with an expectant look on his face. Spotting the butcher block by the microwave, he chooses one of the knives in order to cut the tape holding the box closed then reveals what’s inside.
Hefting the gadget out, the silver pressure cooker gleams under the kitchen light as he sets it on the countertop, cutting off all the plastic bubble wrap and tossing it back into the box after finding the instruction manual inside. He takes the time to wash the interior, which is super impressive for any guy if you ask me, before plugging it into the outlet on the side of the island.
Grabbing the bag of red beans, he finally looks up at the camera and begins to speak. “Some people would end up using canned beans if they didn’t have time to soak their dried ones. But canned beans are full of not-so-healthy things like way too much sodium and preservatives. Normally, you’d want to soak your dried beans overnight to use the next day, but there’s this handy little feature that allows you to quick-soak your beans in the Instant Pot in half an hour.”
Before he can start rummaging through my drawers, I hand him a pair of scissors out of the pencil holder by the old-fashioned rotary phone sitting on the edge of the counter beneath the cabinets. He smiles at me then snips the bag open, and after requesting a colander and rinsing them off, he pours the beans into the pressure cooker.
“Put the beans inside, and then fill with water until the level is one inch above the beans,” he instructs, so I pull down a measuring cup, turning on the tap.
“Does it matter if it’s hot or cold water?” I ask over my shoulder.