Tempt Me, Taste Me, Touch Me

He undid the ties on her apron and pulled her against him.

"Good idea:'

Her stomach growled, and she laughed as she smacked his hands away. "Seriously, you need to feed me and quick:'

Jack reluctantly let go of her and turned back to his cupboards, opening up each door, one by one. Finally, he pulled out a bar of bittersweet Scharff en Berger chocolate.

Rose leaned her elbows on the counter and sighed dramatically. "Even I know that chocolate is an aphrodisiac. I thought you were going to surprise me with something like chestnuts. Or watercress:' "Chocolate's an oldie but a goodie. Bet you didn't know that chocolate contains more antioxidants than red wine, did you?"

Rose choked on a laugh. "Can't sentiments like that get you lynched in the wine country? Last I heard, red wine was curing cancer and creating world peace:'

Jack held a finger up to his lips. "I'll be safe, just as long as you keep that little tidbit strictly between you and me."

"Okay, but on one condition:'

Jack raised an eyebrow. "You're quite bossy for a student, you know:'

Rose's smile could have lit up the entire studio without any electricity. "You really think I'm bossy?" "In a good way;' he clarified, but she was already waving away his answer.

"How exciting;' she said softly, and then she added, "I'll keep your secret for a glass of red wine:' "Bossy and easy too' Jack teased as he grabbed a bottle of excellent Pinot Noir from the wine refrigerator beneath the marble island. He deftly uncorked it and poured a glass for Rose, sliding it across the island without spilling a drop.

"Much as I love chocolate' Rose said, tapping the bittersweet chocolate bar with her index finger, "I hope we're not skipping the meal and going straight to dessert. I'm going to need real sustenance to keep up my energy."

Jack dearly wanted to keep her "energy" up, so he dumped his plan for a sensual chocolate dessert and scanned the recipe archive in his brain.

"We're making bittersweet chocolate ravioli."

Rose took a sip of Pinot and licked a drop off her lower lip.

Jack couldn't take his eyes off that beautiful patch of skin, couldn't stop remembering how good her mouth had tasted.

''I'm sensing a theme here," she said. "Chocolate martinis, chocolate ravioli. If I didn't know better, I'd think you were either trying to fatten me up or make me h-" She blushed and took a large gulp of wine. "What was that last word?" he asked in as offhand way as he could manage, even though he was about three seconds from taking her again, rough and fast, on the cold cement floor.

Her whispered word, "Horny' might as well have been a mouth wrapped around his penis, considering the way his c**k grew in his pants.

Okay, he was never going to make it through this meal if he didn't focus. So instead of responding in the way he wanted to ripping off her apron and dress and driving into her again and again until they both exploded all over again. Jack opened the refrigerator and stuck his head in.

The cool air didn't come close to bringing his temperature down. Somehow, he didn't think anything could when Rose was in the same room.

Willing his synapses to fire, he reached for Grade A organic ground beef and a couple of eggs. Shoving his raging libido down as best he could, he pulled sugar, cocoa powder, baking soda, salt, and flour out of his pantry.

"I hope this doesn't come across as insulting' Rose said after a few moments had passed, "but is this actually going to taste good?"

Jack turned around and looked at the ingredients spread across the island. He had to admit, from a layman's perspective the idea of mixing bittersweet chocolate with ground beef and the onion he'd grabbed from the drawer to his left was fairly odd. Not quite disgusting, but definitely on the verge.

Fortunately, Jack had a little magic up his sleeve, in the form of twenty years of culinary experiments. Some bad, some good, some amazing, some vomit-worthy. At the Cordon Bleu they'd thrown worse situations than this at him. Fish and orange marmalade. Soy sauce and cake batter.

Fortunately, he had a feeling that tonight's off-the-cuff recipe was going to be a good one. Who knew, maybe he'd add it to the menu at Gerard's. In honor of Rose, of course. He already knew what he'd call it. "Rose's Chocolate Ravioli;' he said, thinking out loud. Rose sucked in a breath, loud enough that he could hear her.

"Is that what this recipe is really called?"

He smiled into her blue eyes. "It is now."

She looked shy and unsure and overwhelmed, so he said, "Get off that gorgeous bottom of yours. It's time for my student to get to work' He threw her a chef's hat, which she caught with a rather bemused expression.

One sip of wine later, she stuffed her hair into the silly hat, got up from the stool she'd been sitting on, and soaped up her hands beneath a chrome faucet.

"Lay it on me, Chef."

TWO HOURS LATER ROSE LOOKED UP from her empty plate into Jack's eyes. It had been a truly perfect night. One she didn't want to end. He'd patiently shown her not only how to make pasta-chocolate pasta, no less but also how to look beyond the numbers and details in a recipe to what her senses were telling her. For Rose, listening to his lesson on the art of tasting was like looking inside his soul. And it was a glimpse of beauty. She'd never dreamed of meeting a man like this. One who not only encouraged her to eat but who was also teaching her how.' One who was aware of all the little things, of the small pleasures. Food had always been the enemy. The one time she'd actually let herself enjoy a meal in front of Elliot, he'd made a barely veiled comment about the size of her butt. Scratch that. He'd come right out and said, "I don't think your ass really needs all that pasta, do you?" Rose was so used to hearing comments like that from both boyfriends and family (especially her painfully svelte mother) that she hadn't considered dumping him. Instead she'd forgone pasta to try to keep him by her side.

But after Jack had taught her how to hand-roll ravioli, after they'd sat with a glass of wine while it had boiled and Jack had kept her laughing with hilarious stories about working in a restaurant kitchen, after he'd so lovingly fed her succulent bites of pasta from his own fork, Rose found herself looking at food in a new light. She'd never enjoyed a meal more, and yet she had a sense that one of her frozen Weight Watchers meals would have done more damage.

Jack looked at their empty plates, their empty glasses. "Did you enjoy your lesson?"

"So much, Jack. It was wonderful. My friends will be amazed when I make this for them' "Have I convinced you to stick around for another lesson or two?"