Flavor of the Month

“And here I would have settled for a burger on a paper plate,” she murmured.

Ben handed her a crystal glass then poured in a finger of red wine. Which type, she couldn’t be sure because the letters on the label of the bottle were covered by the white linen napkin he’d wrapped around it. “Shh,” he ordered.

She suppressed a giggle then sipped at the wine. Merlot. A good one at that.

She tried to get a peek inside the dish he was opening, but he held it where she couldn’t see.

“Close your eyes.”

She widened them instead. “What?”

He grinned at her, making her stomach pitch to her feet. “You heard me.”

“And if I don’t?”

“Then you don’t get any food.”

She made a face. Five minutes ago she probably would have pointed him toward the door and sent him on his merry way if he’d told her she’d have to close her eyes. But now that she’d been treated to the full presentation, her curiosity had been ignited and she really wanted to see what he had in store for her.

The key word being see.

She shifted on her stool then closed her eyes. What could he do, really, if she peeked?

She felt cloth settle over her eyelids. She immediately reached for it. “Um, you didn’t say anything about a blindfold.”

She felt as well as heard him say “trust me” very near her ear. She fought a shiver, but was helpless to prevent it from sliding up her arms then down her back to settle finally between her tightly clenched thighs. He took her silence as acquiescence and continued tying the material around the back of her head, careful not to get her hair caught in the knot.

Oh, boy.

While Reilly knew her kitchen better than she did her upstairs apartment, she felt decidedly strange sitting there, being able to touch everything, smell everything, but not see it. Beyond the scent of the éclairs, the hint of cinnamon that still lingered and the honey syrup she’d used on the sticky buns that morning, she became aware of another pungent food scent and salivated.

“Open your mouth,” Ben requested next to her ear.

Reilly’s throat closed so tightly she could barely breathe but she somehow managed to part her lips, foggily trying to remember the last time she’d brushed her teeth.

Something rested against her tongue. She was vividly aware of the burst of flavor. Of something cheesy and tangy and spicy. Spots of yellow, orange and red exploded behind her closed eyelids as she closed her lips so Ben could extract the fork.

“Mmm.” She’d never connected food to colors before. But without the aid of sight, her mind seemed to compensate in other ways.

“That’s my own recipe for brie.”

Brie. She’d never had brie before, so had no way to connect it to a different type of cheese. She did, however, decide that she’d been missing out.

“More?” Ben’s breath disturbed the hair over her left ear, making her nipples harden and her thighs clench more tightly.

“Definitely…more,” she whispered.

There was a heartbeat of a pause, then she heard him moving again, and within moments another bite of the delicious brie was resting against her tongue along with something crunchy and tasting of wheat germ. A cracker? Whatever it was, paired with the brie, it was pure heaven.

“Take a sip of wine.” He took her hand and placed the wineglass in her fingers. She slowly drank, then he took the glass back. “Open.”

She swallowed hard, her heart beginning to pound at the easy cadence of his words. His voice was deep and more intoxicating than the fine wine. His closeness did strange things to her, making her feel as if she stood in the beam of an electrical current. Her skin felt alive and tingly, her toes were curled up in her tennis shoes, and it seemed to take all of her concentration to keep her breathing from becoming a rasp.

Seafood.

Shrimp.

No, a prawn.

Cooked in a sweet coconut mixture that set her mouth to watering and her throat to humming.

While she’d always been a great lover of food, sweets had always been more her thing. The more sugar the better, was her motto. And her mother had come from a sturdy meat-and-potatoes background, with lots of cabbage stuck in for flavor. Having Ben introduce her to a whole new spectrum of culinary delicacies and tastes made her shiver in anticipation.

She slowly chewed the food. “So, um, how did the desserts go over at the restaurant? I hope there weren’t too many complaints?”

“Shh. It’s not polite to talk with your mouth full.”

She giggled then caught herself. “Who died and made you the manners police?”

He slid the fork inside her mouth again, filling it with a mixture that would take her a half hour to try to identify. Then she felt his breath against her other ear, indicating he was no longer sitting but was moving behind her. “No, I’m just a man hoping you’ll let him sample some of your…desserts when I’m done.”

Oh, boy…

“In fact, do you mind if I take a little taste now?”

Reilly gasped when she felt his tongue against the right side of her neck. A long, probing lick that nearly melted her into a puddle at his feet. The sensation was doubly powerful because she hadn’t known it was coming.

“Mmm. Just as I thought.”

What? she wanted to ask, but found that she couldn’t. Did you pick up baking grit?

“You taste as good as you look.”

She somehow managed to swallow the bite in her mouth and crossed her arms over her breasts in case he could see how very powerfully his attentions were affecting her—that is, making her nipples fully erect. “Sorry to disappoint you.”

She heard his chuckle on the left side, throwing her equilibrium off even further. “On the contrary, Reilly, you’re the most appetizing thing I’ve seen…tasted, in a long, long time.”

She couldn’t help an indelicate snort, the sound ringing loud in the cavernous room.

Oh, now that was sexy.

She cleared her throat, wishing she could disappear as easily as the world had behind the blindfold. “Sorry.”

“You’re determined to ruin this seduction scene, aren’t you?” he whispered, making her shiver all over again.

“Is this, um, what this is? And here I thought it was just dinner.”

His abrupt chuckle told her he could still be surprised. “It will be if you don’t shut up.”

He put another forkful of food into her mouth when she might have said something. She ignored his earlier rebuke about talking with her mouth full and said, “You and my mother will have to have a talk. Because she wasn’t very good at getting me to be quiet, either.”

She felt fingers against her knee and nearly hit her head on the kitchen ceiling.

Had she thought, oh boy? Yes, she had. But this definitely deserved a more panicked one.

Reilly had never been very good with seduction. Neither as the seduced nor the seductress. She’d quickly found out she was too high-strung for that. While she was patient with nearly every other aspect of her life, when it came to sex she liked it fast and hard and spontaneous. Something that didn’t require her to think. Or didn’t call for her to sit still without squirming for an extended period of time.

“Tell me what you’re tasting, Reilly,” Ben said.

She realized that she hadn’t registered that bite. “I don’t know. All I can think about is your hand on my knee.”

He moved to her other ear. “Then tell me how you’re feeling.”

Like I want you to remove your hand. “Like I want to jump out of my skin.”

Another quiet chuckle. “Not quite the imagery I was after.”

Of course it wouldn’t be. He was probably thinking more along the lines of hot ovens and temperature probes. But all she could think about was how…awkward she felt having one of L.A.’s hottest men trying to seduce her.

She whispered, “Sorry. That’s all I’ve got to give.”

His fingers budged up the inside of her leg.

Oh, God.

“How do you feel now?”

Like ripping off this blindfold and having my way with you on my kitchen island…

The thought caught Reilly so far off guard that she gripped the sides of the stool to keep from falling off. Was she, inexperienced Reilly Chudowski, really considering taking Ben Kane up on his offer for hot sex?

Yes, she realized, she was.

And as he inched his hand farther up her inner thigh, the desire inched up along with it. Oh, yes. She liked that. She liked that very much. She reached out and grabbed a fistful of his shirt then pulled his mouth down to hers, deciding that his idea of skipping straight to dessert was a pretty good one after all.

4

BEN WOULDN’T BE a man if he hadn’t wanted to ratchet things up a notch, but he was wholly unprepared for Reilly’s move.

He’d guessed she hid some pretty impressive muscles under all those clothes. As she yanked him against her, his guess proved right on target. And he was helpless to do anything but give her what she wanted as he claimed her mouth, the blindfold still tied tightly over her eyes.

Good God, but she had an incredible mouth. She also knew how to kiss. Not in a practiced way, but in a hungry, uninhibited way that left Ben speechless and motionless, accepting her attentions as she nipped and bit, sucked and licked.

His hand still rested between her thighs. He slid it the little bit needed to meet home plate, taking pleasure in her soft moan as she entwined her fingers in his hair.

As a rule, he didn’t like when women messed with his hair. Hey, it took a long time to get it to look like this. But Reilly made the move natural. Made him feel that if she hadn’t thrust her hands into his hair, things wouldn’t have been right.

She scooted on the stool until her knees were on either side of his hips then gave another yank, nearly knocking him off balance and herself off the stool. When the world stopped spinning briefly, he found himself tightly cradled between her thighs, her corduroy-covered sex pressed insistently against the hardness under his slacks.

It hadn’t been all that long ago since he’d been with a woman, although this moment with Reilly made it seem like years. Decades, even. The need that suffused his body and heated his blood made him feel ridiculously like a teen getting his first taste of sex. And, damn it if he couldn’t seem to get enough of it. Of Reilly. Of the burning in his groin, the tautness of his muscles, the anticipation of the moment he could bury himself deep inside her.

He realized he hadn’t moved his hands from where he’d placed them on her back and immediately remedied the situation, diving for her plump backside and the waist of her pants. He hurriedly undid the knot on her apron then slid his fingers inside the back of her waistband, finally reaching sweet, silken flesh. Meanwhile she fussed and pulled and yanked until his shirt hung out of the front of his slacks and her palms flattened against his abdomen.

Sweet Jesus, but she felt good. Tasted good. Damn good. And he was so hot for her it was impossible to believe that she hadn’t been in his life before today. Before now.

He plucked the apron from her and let it drop to the floor then popped the button on her cords and pulled on the material so the zipper skimmed down by itself. He leaned back slightly to take in the skin he’d revealed, only to see what seemed like a yard of pink cotton topped by a frayed elastic band.

“Wow,” he said, not readily recalling having seen underwear that huge since he and his middle school friends had raided a slumber party and gotten into Big Bertha’s drawers.

He’d worn the mammoth underwear on his head.

He was thirteen and hadn’t known better.

But now…

“Oh…my…God.” Reilly seemed to catch on to what he was looking at as she grabbed for her blindfold and peeled it away from one eye to stare at him. “I can’t believe…”

She tore the blindfold off then jumped from the stool and began doing up her cords. When she faced him again, she had her apron bunched up in front of her pants and her T-shirt had been pulled down so far he suspected it was permanently damaged.

He grinned at her. “I assume we’ve finished dessert?”

Reilly ran her hand through her hair several times, her gaze flying everywhere but to his face. “You assume correctly.” She briefly squeezed her eyes shut. “I should have listened to my mother.”

“Pardon me?”

She shook her head. “Nothing.”

Ben knew an acute moment of regret that they hadn’t been able to finish what they’d started. Then again, there was always tomorrow….

A HALF AN HOUR LATER Reilly paced the entire length of her apartment above the shop, alternately smacking the heel of her hand against her forehead and cursing herself in imaginative ways.

“You silly, stupid, unthinking…moron,” she muttered, wearing down the matting of her inherited area rugs even further.

What had she been thinking, giving in to her desire to kiss the oh-so-kissable Ben Kane? She knew she wasn’t the type of girl that type of guy went in for. She didn’t even know what a pore minimizer was, much less own a bottle of the stuff. And her underwear…

She pulled to a halt and stared at the front of her cords. She could almost hear her mother’s voice. “And always remember to wear a decent pair of underwear in case you get in an accident.”

Reilly made a beeline for her bedroom at the back of the upstairs apartment, undoing her cords as she went so that by the time she reached the room they nearly tripped her where they were bunched down around her ankles.

Knowing Ben had seen this underwear was worse than thirty doctors staring down at her lifeless body and taking in the butt-ugly underpants.

She kicked her cords to the corner of the room then shimmied out of the offensive clothing. She held them up, disgusted. Who, besides her, wore such dreadful underwear? She groaned then stalked to the connecting bathroom and threw them into the old claw-foot tub.

“Oh, but there are plenty of others where those came from,” she muttered to herself.

She strode back into the bedroom and rifled through her underwear drawer, coming out with a single pair of acceptable bikinis and putting them on before yanking out every last pair of undesirable, repulsive cotton panties. Her eye caught on a brand-new blue-and-white striped pair, then another two pairs of plain white. Okay, so she could still use them as period panties. But the rest of them? They had to go.

Hands full, she stalked back to the bathroom and dumped the offending underwear into the bathtub with the other pair, not stopping until she stood above the pile with lighter fluid and matches. Only she was unprepared for the huge flame that shot out from the mess, licking at her fabric shower curtain, determined to take that with them, as well.

Oh boy…

The smoke alarm in the hall began buzzing as she reached to turn on the faucet then used the handheld showerhead to attack the threatening flames.

Great, just great. Only she could nearly burn the house down trying to destroy any evidence of the ugliest underwear known to man. So what if they were comfortable? So what if they were affordable? Ben Kane had seen her in them.

She put the last of the flames out, gave the smoldering black pile another squirt of water, then went out into the hall to fan at the earsplitting alarm. Over the racket, she made out pounding on her door. She looked in that direction. The building stood apart from the others and hers was the only one that boasted an apartment overhead. She groaned. If it was Ben, she’d die. Just absolutely die.

Coughing, she rushed to open the door that overlooked the back alley and that was accessible by an iron-wrought staircase, to find herself staring at one of her regular customers.

“Johnnie!” she said. Computer geek Johnnie Thunder was the last one she expected to see on her doorstep at this time of night.

“Is everything all right?” he asked, trying to look beyond her.

Reilly fanned at the smoke filling the apartment. “Fine. Everything’s fine. Just a little…accident in the kitchen, that’s all.”

Oh, that was grand. Her, a baker, setting fires in the kitchen. If her insurance company ever found out she’d said that, her premiums would go through the roof.

“What are you doing here, anyway?” she asked.

Johnnie’s gaze lowered. Seemed she had forgotten to put her pants on over her skimpy bikinis.

Oh, why couldn’t it have been Ben at the door?

She reached for a magazine and held it over herself.

Johnnie said, “I heard the smoke alarm across the street. You know, from my apartment.”

She hadn’t known he lived across the street. “Oh.” She smiled. “Sorry to have disturbed you. I’m sure the stupid thing will stop just as soon as I get some of this smoke out of here.”

“Do you need some help?”

“No!” Reilly bit her bottom lip then sighed. “I mean, thank you, but it’s nothing I can’t handle, really.”

“Are you sure?”

Oh, yes. The last thing she wanted was for him to discover what she’d really been doing. “Positive. See you in the morning.”

He nodded. “In the morning, then.”

Reilly closed the door after his retreating back then collapsed against the hardwood. The smoke alarm finally shut off, leaving the apartment almost eerily silent and smelling like acrid smoke. It would probably take a month for her to get rid of the smell.

Which was no less than she deserved, she supposed. I mean, who forgot they were wearing granny panties when there was a remote chance that one of the hottest guys in L.A. might be stopping by at midnight?

Her, that’s who. And she wasn’t very happy with herself about it.

“Fate,” she whispered.

Yes, that’s what it was. She hadn’t been fated to sleep with someone of Ben Kane’s impressive caliber so fate had stepped in to interrupt. To remind her of who she was, who she used to be, and who she would never be with.

She clamped her eyes shut. Just once. Just once she would liked to have gone out with the captain of the football team.

And just once she would have liked to have had sex with Ben Kane.

“Not in this lifetime.” Reilly tossed the magazine back onto the hall table then stepped back toward the bathroom and the mess there. Better a little mess now then a big mess later, a quiet voice in her head said.

“Tell that to my raging hormones,” she responded.

Even as she scooped the charred cotton out of the tub and into the wastebasket, she wondered where that gift was that Mallory had given her a year or so ago. The one that took fifty dollars worth of batteries and could give a jackhammer a run for its money. She figured that nothing less would be able to take Ben’s place in her bed that night. Though she suspected even the deluxe vibrator wouldn’t come close.

Something clattered in the alley outside. She slowly straightened, straining to hear. Was Johnnie still out there in case she should change her mind and need his help?

Another clatter, this time closer. Reilly jumped. She slowly put the wastebasket down, searched around the bathroom, then picked up a can of aerosol hairspray. She made her way back out to the door and wrapped her fingers around the knob. If it was Johnnie, she’d just tell him…what? That she’d been fixing her hair?

Oh, this is ridiculous, she thought. It was probably just a mouse or something.

Still, she gripped the can tightly as she swung the door inward.

Nothing. Not even a breeze disturbed the night.

She made a face and dared stick her head outside, looking from the left to the right. Not a person to be seen.

She dropped the can to her side and sighed. She was losing it. Really, she was.

The door was nearly closed when she heard a loud screech. She jumped and began spraying. Only the black scrap of fur that she had nearly closed the door on was already inside her apartment, watching her.

A cat.

She rested a hand over her loudly beating heart. “You scared the bejesus out of me,” she whispered, taking in the battered feline. Getting caught in a door looked like it was far from the worst that had happened to the bedraggled black cat. Tufts of fur were missing from his back and hindquarters. Cats didn’t molt, did they?

Reilly opened the door again. “Go on, now. Scat.”

The cat didn’t move. Worse, it sat down, twitching its tail at her.

“Come on, now. It’s too late for this.” Nothing. “If you go back outside I’ll give you some milk.”

The cat got up and meowed, but made no move toward the door.

Reilly looked back outside, then closed the door again. “Fine. You want to bunk here for the night, I’m okay with that. But first thing in the morning, you go.” She put the hairspray down then headed for the kitchen where she put out milk and a half can of tuna. “And no complaints about the smell. It’s a long story.”

The cat shied away from her touch, but the instant she began scratching its ears, it leaned into her palm. Reilly smiled.

“Welcome to my house, Cat,” she said softly.

THE FOLLOWING DAY Ben looked over one of his shipping invoices again. Sure enough, he’d been delivered two hundred pounds of octopus instead of crab legs when Alaskan crab legs were the special tonight.

He rubbed his thumb and forefinger over his closed eyelids and counted backward from ten to keep from losing it with the clueless deliveryman. This was the fourth such screwup so far this morning, and the day was young yet. From a cheap coffee liqueur instead of Tia Maria to rump roast instead of steaks, his stockroom was growing full of stuff he didn’t need and didn’t want.

“What do you want me to do, boss?” asked Lance Dickson, the floor manager who had taken the first three wrong orders.

He looked at the deliveryman. “Take it back.”

“And the crab legs?” Lance asked.

“I don’t know,” he said absently. “Maybe we’ll tell them there was another oil spill in Alaska or something and hopefully we’ll have some in next week.” They both knew how quasi-environmentalist the L.A. community was. “Right now I want you to get on the computer and double check whatever else is due to come in today.”

Lance saluted him. “Right on it, boss.”

Ben shook his head. Definitely not the type of thing you wanted to face when you hadn’t had much sleep the night before. After Reilly had all but chased him out of her shop then slammed the door on his grinning face, he hadn’t been able to get her or her underpants out of his mind.

He stepped down the hall to the back of the restaurant, blinking his eyes at the relative dimness in the large, rough-hewn wood-lined dining area. He just didn’t get it. Under normal circumstances, catching a glimpse of such unattractive undergarments would have had a detrimental effect on his libido. But his reaction to Reilly was turning out to be anything but normal. In fact, when he finally had fallen asleep, he’d had dreams of getting those underpants wet and watching the cotton cling to her swollen womanhood and firm behind. And he’d asked her to keep them on as he positioned her on top of him and watched her bear down on his pulsing erection.

He’d awakened to suspiciously damp sheets to find he hadn’t set his alarm clock. After stripping his sheets, his day had only gotten worse.

He now crossed to the door where a black chalk-board hanging inside advertised fresh Alaskan crab legs, and he rubbed off the selection.

Despite the dark cloud over the day so far, strangely enough all he had to do was think of Reilly and he’d find himself grinning like an idiot.

He rounded the empty bar then picked up the telephone and put it on the counter before looking for the card to Sugar ’n’ Spice he’d slipped into his pocket that morning.

“Sugar ’n’ Spice and everything nice,” a young woman’s voice answered.

Ben frowned, sure it wasn’t Reilly. He couldn’t imagine her saying those words. “Is Reilly there, please?”

A pause, then, “May I ask who’s calling?”