Don't Tempt Me (34 page)

She took a deep breath. "I love you." With the words, the reality of it swelled up inside her. "I really do love you. More than I can say. I love you so much, it scares me."

"It scares me, too." He took her into his arms and held her tight.

She pulled back to see his face, and the love shining in his eyes. Of all the things she'd expected out of life, loving a man like Adrian and having him love her was the most miraculous surprise of all. "Wow."

"Exactly." He kissed her lips, lingering over them tenderly. The nerves jumping inside her settled, and she relaxed against him, kissing him back. He lifted his head to smile down at her. "So. If I have to wait for your answer, what do you suggest we do for the rest of the day?"

"Hmm?" She frowned.

"You know ..." He trailed a finger down her neck. "You, me, total privacy, and the rest of the afternoon. Whatever will we do?"

She sighed, infected by his lighter mood. "Can it be something that doesn't involve major life decisions?"

"Absolutely." He grinned. "As I remember, I promised you a cooking lesson before I left."

She nodded. "That's right, you did."

"And I don't know about you, but I'm starving. Do you think you could eat?"

"I don't know." She pressed a hand to her stomach, but it seemed to have settled. "Depends on what you have in mind."

"Well, let's see what we have to work with." He took her hand and led her to the kitchen. "I asked Rory to clean out all the perishables while I was gone, so we're going to be limited."

Leaning against the counter, she watched him rummage through the pantry. At least he provided a nice distraction, wearing nothing but his chef's pants, his hair loose about his bare shoulders.

"Let's see, I have rice, white wine, some dehydrated mushrooms, and Parmesan cheese." He turned to her with a bottle of wine and a wicked gleam in his eye. "I'll teach you to make risotto."

"Risotto?" She frowned at the unfamiliar word.

"An Italian rice dish. You'll love it." He opened the wine and poured them each a glass. "The secret to great risotto is to keep everything very wet while you're cooking."

"Wet?" she echoed, suddenly suspicious of his smile. "Does that include keeping the cook wet, too?"

"Oh yeah." He wiggled his brows as he handed her a glass. "This lesson definitely involves keeping the cook wet."

The suggestive tone of his voice made her belly flutter. "Why do I get the feeling that keeping me wet doesn't mean giving me lots of wine while you teach me to cook?"

"Perceptive woman." Grinning, he pulled her to him for a kiss that ended all too quickly. As he straightened, he patted her bottom. "Let's get started, shall we?"

~ ~ ~

Jackie was still blushing the next day when they headed to the inn for lunch with the family. As she'd suspected, Adrian's idea of keeping her wet had been to stand behind her with his hands up under her T-shirt while she attempted to cook a very complicated rice dish. When she'd complained that she couldn't concentrate with him caressing her breasts, he'd dipped his hands downward, beneath the elastic waistband of the shorts. Laughing and squirming, she'd tried to fend him off, but he'd been determined to be playful.

Not surprisingly, the risotto had been a disaster, but everything else about the evening had been ... fun. She'd never laughed so hard in her life, or enjoyed such open, lighthearted sensuality.

Since the rice had burned, they'd done some more rummaging and come up with a bucket of ice cream.

They'd fed each other with her straddling his lap, facing him. Since they'd been naked by then, they'd done a lot more with their mouths than eat ice cream, and she'd wound up on the table as Adrian's very sticky and giggly dinner. A delayed shiver of delight went through her at the memory of cold ice cream followed by Adrian's hot tongue on various parts of her body.

"You're grinning," he said, as they went down the stairs to the apartment.

"Am I?" She felt her eyes twinkle. "I can't imagine why. Besides, so are you."

"Hmm." He squeezed her hand. "I was just wondering what Rory and Alli have planned for dessert."

She laughed. "God, if it's ice cream, I'll never make it through lunch with a straight face."

"Oh, but there are whole worlds of sweet things we can try." He gave her flaming cheeks a quick kiss before they reached the bottom of the stairs and stepped into the usual noise and chaos of his family.

The sisters stood in the kitchen working while Chance chased Lauren across the toy-strewn living room. Sadie raced about begging for attention as everyone talked at once. For the first time, Jackie didn't feel like an intruder as she entered the madness.

To her surprise, she saw Carl sitting alone at the bar, looking overwhelmed. She nearly laughed, since she remembered the feeling well. The St. Claires could be a bit much to take at first.

"Aunt Viv," Adrian said.

Turning, Jackie noticed an older, more elegant version of Rory setting the table. She wore a yellow pantsuit that belonged on a fashion runway and her red-gold hair had been swept into a stylish French twist with a streak of sliver adding dramatic flare.

"Adrian." The woman opened her arms and let Adrian wrap her in a bear hug that lifted her off her feet. "About time you got home from La-La Land."

He laughed. "An apt name for it. Have you met Jackie?"

"Not yet, since she just got here yesterday and you've been selfishly monopolizing her." The woman extended her hand, smiling. "Hi, I'm Vivian. Aurora and Allison have been telling me all about you."

"I'm very pleased to meet you." Jackie's stomach tightened as she wondered what had been said.

Vivian turned back to her nephew. "Well, tell me about your trip. I hear you're getting all kinds of offers."

As Adrian talked with his aunt, Jackie went to sit by Carl. "How'd the last shift do yesterday?"

Carl scowled as he dragged a chip through some dip. "Still no sign of the powder horn."

"It's so frustrating," she said.

"But common." He sighed. "I can't tell you how many times I've gone after something and found lots of valuable artifacts, but not the one I was hoping for. You'd think I'd be used to it by now."

"Do we ever get used to having what we want slip through our fingers?' she asked.

"Probably not. Giving up on this one, though, is going to be harder than I expected."

"What do you mean, give up?' She stared at him. "I thought we'd keep searching until we find it."

"We're running out of funding."

"What's that?' Rory asked from the other side of the bar.

Carl hesitated, and Jackie saw in his eyes he wished he hadn't spoken. "We're, um, running out of money for this project. If we don't find the powder horn in the next few weeks, I'm going to call it quits."

Silence descended on the room. "Nooo," Rory said. "You can't do that. We'll raise more money. Won't we, Chance?"

"It's not just that," Carl said. "There's not that much left to bring up besides the horn. We have a good collection of artifacts now, enough to create an impressive exhibit for the museum. When the cost of searching becomes greater than the value of what you're searching for, it's time to stop."

"But you have to find the powder horn," Rory insisted, making Jackie's heart ache. She looked about and saw the same distress in everyone's eyes.

"If it helps," Carl offered, "I haven't given up yet. There's still a chance we could find it in the next few weeks. Hell, we could find it today."

"Of course you could," Vivian said, coming up to Carl with a smile. She slipped her arms around one of his. "So let's stop all this talk of giving up, and eat. This is supposed to be a welcome-home party. Not a funeral."

"Since we're all together," Adrian said as everyone took their seats around the table, "I have some news to share."

Jackie flashed him a look, half afraid he meant to tell them he'd proposed to her. Instead, he told them about his decisions regarding the show. In their usual fashion, they debated it while passing bowls and bringing up other topics until they were discussing three subjects at once.

Jackie glanced at Carl, who sat catty-corner from her, listening to Vivian, clearly enthralled.

When the meal ended, Allison stood. "Who wants dessert? I made cheesecake."

"With cherry topping?" Adrian asked as he looked at Jackie. "Sounds delicious."

"And whipped cream," Allison added, making Jackie's cheeks go up in flames. Whipped cream and cherry topping? A whole barrage of erotic images came to mind.

"I'd love some." Vivian patted her stomach, which emphasized her stunning figure. "Since I don't have to squeeze into any costumes for the next few months, I can afford it. Carl? Do you want anything?"

His gaze drifted over her body, his cheeks turning nearly as red as Jackie's. "I, um ..." He cleared his throat and looked at his watch. "I can't. Work to do. I should go."

He rose and Vivian walked him to the base of the stairs, wishing him luck finding the powder horn. When he disappeared, she struck a pose with one hand on the banister, the other over her heart. "Is he not the yummiest man ever?"

"Aunt Viv!" Alli scolded with a laugh. "You're scaring that poor man to death. He can barely put a sentence together around you."

"I know." She glided back to the table. "I can't decide which side of him turns me on more. He's such an intriguing blend of shy intellectual and rough adventurer."

"A bit of advice." Scott waved his fork at her. "Watch out for the shy ones. They can sneak up on you when you least expect it."

"Oh, but they're so much fun to corrupt," Vivian said.

"Or to let them corrupt you." Scott winked at Alli, who blushed.

The phone rang. "I'll get it!" Rory jumped up and grabbed the phone in the living area. "Adrian, it's for you. It's your agent."

Adrian gave Jackie's cheek a quick kiss before taking the call. "So, have you heard from the network?"

"I did," Brian said. "Congratulations, it's a go."

"That's great." Adrian glanced over to the table where everyone was waiting for news. He gave them a thumbs-up signal, and they quietly cheered.

"We talked some about what they have in mind for the show's image and publicity. They definitely want to go with the sexy single chef to capitalize on your popularity with the message boards."

"What message boards?"

"You're joking, right? There are message boards all over the Internet where women discuss just about anything you can think of. You're a hot topic on several of them. My assistant ---who spends way too much time cruising those sites ---tells me the boards are all blazing over the photos that went up this morning at NationalEnquirer. com."

"What, the Shawna pictures again?"

"No. The ones of you having a fistfight with a mystery woman on the beach, then reenacting
From Here to Eternity
."

"What!"

"The consensus is split over whether you two were just horsing around or you're dating a real man-basher. With your permission, I think we need to have my assistant play the woman-in-the-know and assure everyone you were horsing around. Anything else makes you look like a wimp, which is not the image we're going for."

"Chance," Adrian called. "Pull up NationalEnquirer.com."

Chance crossed to the computer desk in the corner of the living room and keyed in the address.

"There's also a poll for
Enquirer
readers to vote on who they think you should go with, Shawna Simmons, or the jealous girlfriend on the beach."

Adrian stood behind Chance, watching the page materialize with a picture of Jackie taking a swing at him. The rest of the family gathered around him.

"Oh. My. God," Jackie whispered as Chance clicked on the link, and more photos appeared beneath the headline: "Sexy Chef Goes from Frying Pan to Fire ... Girlfriend Finds Out about Shawna."

He glanced at Jackie's stunned face and wrapped an arm around her as he talked to Brian. "I don't believe this. How did they get those pictures? That only happened yesterday." Then it dawned on him. The boat trolling by the mouth of the cove. "Geez, those weren't fishermen. They were goddamned paparazzi! What is with people? I'm a chef, for Christ's sake. Not a movie star."

"You're a celebrity, whether you like it or not. And the people at the network are eating it up. They're hoping to pull in a whole new audience with this show."

"Look, Brian, this is getting way out of hand. I'm flattered women find me attractive, really, but this playboy image the public has of me is very uncomfortable. I happen to be involved with someone, and I'm hoping to get married."

The moment the words left his mouth, Jackie stiffened and his family turned wide eyes his way. Damn! He hadn't meant to tell them like this.

"You're hoping to do
what
?" Brian half shouted.

Adrian looked at Jackie's pale face. "Married. If she'll say yes."

She stared back at him, conflicting emotions filling her eyes. He saw his sisters exchange a look of excitement and wished he shared their confidence.