Harlequin KISS August 2014 Bundle (46 page)

But when she came back she was beaming, and he couldn’t find
the will to tell her to go and watch TV while he made dinner.

He took one look at the slogan on the front of her apron—
Classy, Sassy, and a Bit Smart-Assy
—and had to bite
the inside of his cheek to stop the smile. He was
not
going to be charmed. Like Gary and Ben—and probably Marco. Iain.
And the tinker, the tailor, the soldier, and the spy.

‘Come on, it’s cute—admit it!’ she said, possibly wondering
about the strangled look on his face. ‘You know, I used to be called Sunshine
Smart-Ass in school, so seeing this in the shop today was like an omen. Not a
creepy Damien omen. I mean like
a sign that I am going to nail this pasta
thing.’

‘Smart-Ass. Why am I not surprised?’ Leo asked through his
slightly twisted mouth. Damn, he wanted to laugh.

She’d messed up her hair, getting the apron on. He could see
part of her temple, where her fringe had been pushed aside. He realised he was
holding his breath. Because...because he wanted to kiss her there.

Half the male population of Sydney is in
love with her,
he reminded himself.
And you are
not—repeat
not
—going to become a piece of meat
in the boyfriend brigade.

* * *

Leo unpacked his knives and chopping boards, liberated
extra plates and dishes from the cupboard, unearthed additional gadgets from his
magic boxes.

‘Come here so you can see properly,’
he said as he started
arranging ingredients on the counter.

Sunshine moved enthusiastically to stand beside him. The wave
of heat emanating from him was very alluring. She edged a little closer.
Breathed in the scent of him, which was just...well, just
him
. Just super-clean Leo. Could she manage to get just a bit
closer, so that she was just—
nearly
—touching him,
without
him panicking and hitting her with a cooking implement?

His arm, naked below the short sleeve of his T-shirt, brushed
hers—
that
was how close she was, because there
was no way he would have done that on purpose—and she felt like swooning.
Wished, quite passionately, that she hadn’t worn sleeves so she could feel him
skin to skin.

And it had absolutely
nothing
to
do
with exposure therapy either.

It was, plain and simple, about sexual attraction.
Mutual
sexual attraction—at least she hoped the
impressive bulge in his jeans that had taken her by surprise earlier was
Sunshine-induced and not some erectile dysfunction...like that condition called
priapism she’d read about on the internet...

Not
that she was going to ask him
that, of course, because men could be sensitive.

But with or without erectile dysfunction, she wanted to have
sex with Leo Quartermaine!

Was it because he was cooking for her? There was definitely
something off-the-chain seductive about a man—a
chef
man—making her dinner.

But...no. It was more than that.

Something that had been sneaking up on her.

Something
to do with the way he jumped a foot inside his skin
when she kissed him on the cheek. The little tic at the corner of his mouth that
came and went, depending on his level of agitation. The slightly fascinated way
he looked at her, as though he couldn’t believe his eyes. And listened to her as
though he couldn’t believe his ears. The way he gave in a lot, but not always.
And how, even when he let her have her way, the
way
he did it told her he might not always be so inclined, so she was not to take it
for granted.

How bizarre was that? She liked that he gave in—and also that
maybe he wouldn’t!

She even kind of liked the fact that he tried so hard never to
smile or laugh—as though that would be too frivolous for the likes of him.
It
was a challenge, that. Something to change. Because everyone needed to laugh.
The average person laughed thirteen times a day. She would bet her brand-new
forest-green leaf-cut stilettoes that Leo Quartermaine didn’t get to thirteen
even in a whole year! Not good enough.

Now that she’d acknowledged the attraction it felt
moth-to-a-flame mesmeric, standing beside
him. No, not a moth—that was too
fluttery. More like the bat that had flown smack into the power line a block
from her apartment. She’d seen it this morning, fried into rigidity, felled by a
jolt of electricity.

Poor bat. Just going along, thinking it had everything under
control, contemplating its regular upside-down hang for the night, then hitting
a force that
was greater than it and—
frzzzzz
. All
over, red rover.

Poor bat—and poor her if she let herself get too close to Leo.
Because she had a feeling he could fry her to a crisp if she let him.

Not that she would let him. She
never
got too close. That was the whole point of her ‘four goes and
goodbye’ rule. Protecting her core.

Leo had managed to move a little away from
her—which she
rectified.

‘This is a simple fettuccine with zucchini, feta, and
prosciutto,’ he said, clueless.

He moved once more, just a smidgeon. And Sunshine readjusted
her position so she was just as close as before.
Poor
Leo—you really should just give up!

He managed another little edge away. ‘We’re going to fry some
garlic, grated zucchini, and lemon
zest, and then toss that through the pasta
with some parsley, mint, and butter. Finally we’ll throw in some feta and
prosciutto—again tossed through—with a little lemon juice, salt, and
pepper.’

He was—gamely, Sunshine thought—ignoring the fact that she was
practically breathing down his neck.

He cleared his throat. Twice. ‘This—’ he was showing her a
container
‘—is fresh pasta from Q Brasserie. I thought about making it here, but
that might have been too much for a two-minute noodler to cope with.’ He shot
her a teeny-tiny smile—more of a glint than a smile, but
wowee
!
Be still my heart, or what?

Sunshine watched as Leo started grating the zucchini with easy,
practised efficiency. There was a long scar on his left thumb, and what
looked
like a healed burn mark close to his right wristbone. Assorted other war wounds.
These were not wimpy hands.

And, God, she wanted his sure, capable, scarred hands on her.
All over her. It was almost suffocating how much she wanted that.

She kept watching, a little entranced, as Leo set the zucchini
to one side, then grated the lemon rind. Next he grabbed some
herbs and started
tearing with his beautiful strong fingers as he talked...

His voice was deep and kind of gravelly. ‘...into strips,’ Leo
said.

Hmm... She had no idea what the start of that sentence had
been.

He unwrapped a flat parcel—inside were paper-thin slices of
prosciutto—and put it in front of her. ‘Okay?’ he asked.

‘Sure,’ she said, figuring out
that she was supposed to chop
it, and grabbed a knife.

‘No,’ Leo said, and took the knife away.

Lordy, Lordy.
He’d actually touched
her.

Sunshine felt every one of the hairs on her arm prickle.

She was staring at him. She knew she was.

He was staring back.

And then he stepped back, cleared his throat again. ‘Tear—like
this,’ he said, and demonstrated.
Another clear of the throat. ‘You do that and
I’ll...I’ll...find the...cheese.’

* * *

She was humming again as she massacred the
prosciutto.

And blow him down if it wasn’t a woeful attempt at Natalie’s
signature song—the truly hideous ‘
Je t’aime-ich liebe-ti
amor You Darling’
.

He started crushing garlic with the flat of his knife as though
his life
depended on it.

She was still tearing. And humming.
Please
tell him she didn’t have the same insane cheesy love song
obsession as Natalie. Who was
not
going to be
performing at his brother’s wedding! Once when he’d been mid-thrust, and Natalie
had sung a line of that awful song, he’d choked so hard on a laugh he’d given
himself a nosebleed; that evening had
not
ended
well.

‘Done,’ Sunshine said, and looked proudly at the ripped meat in
front of her.

Leo winced.

‘What do you want me to do next?’ she asked, with that damned
glow that seemed to emanate from her pores.

‘Salad,’ he said, sounding as if he’d just announced a
massacre.

Which it was likely to be—of the vegetable kind.

‘We’ll keep it simple,’ he said.
‘Give these lettuce leaves a
wash.’

Sunshine took the lettuce leaves and ran them under the tap,
her glow dimming.

‘What’s wrong?’ he asked as he took them from her.

‘Salad. It’s so...vegetarian.’

She looked so disgruntled Leo found himself wanting to laugh
again. He swallowed it. ‘It’s just a side dish. And there’s meat in the pasta,
remember?’

She
wrinkled her nose.
Oh-oh.
Convoluted argument coming.

‘I’ll do it with a twist,’ he offered quickly. ‘I’ll put some
salmon in it, and do a really awesome dressing that doesn’t taste remotely
healthy. All right?’

Her nose unwrinkled. ‘Okay,
if
you
go a little heavy on the salmon and a little light on the lettuce.’

He choked. ‘Am I designing that boot for you?
No? Then just
shut up and see if you can cut these grape tomatoes into quarters. They’re
small, so be careful.’

She mumbled something derogatory about tomatoes, but made a
swipe with the knife.

‘Quarter—not slice,’ Leo put in.

She nodded, wielded the knife again.

‘And not mash, for God’s sake,’ he begged.

Sunshine made an exasperated sound and tried again.

Leo turned his back—it was either that or wrench the knife from
her—and concentrated on the salmon he’d packed as a failsafe, coating it in
herbs, then laying it in a pan to fry.

Sunshine was onto the song about love biting you in the ass,
throwing in the occasional excruciating lyric—and he wanted so badly to laugh it
was almost painful.

Mid-song, however,
she
laughed.
‘Oops—that song is just too, too,
too
much,
Hideous,’ she said.

Damn
if he didn’t want to snatch
her up and kiss her.

Instead he gave her some terse instructions on trimming the
crunchy green beans to go into the salad, which she did abominably.

He put water on for the pasta, then turned back to the
bench.

‘Next, we’ll—’ He stopped, hurriedly
averting his eyes as
Sunshine arranged the salad ingredients in a bowl. ‘We’ll just slide the salmon
on top—’ shock stop as his eyes collided with the mangled contents ‘—and now
I’ll get you to mix the dressing.’

He lined up a lemon, honey, seeded mustard, sugar, black
pepper, and extra virgin olive oil.

Sunshine considered the ingredients with the utmost
concentration.
‘So, I need to juice the lemon, right?’

‘Yes. You only need a tablespoon.’

‘How much is a tablespoon?’

Repressing the telltale tic, he opened the cutlery drawer and
took out a tablespoon. ‘This is a tablespoon.’

‘Oh. How much of everything else?’

Limit reached. ‘Move out of the way. I’ll do it. I put a bottle
of wine in the fridge. I think—no, I
know
—I need a
nice big glass of it, if you can manage to pour that. Then go around to the
other side of the counter, sit on that stool and watch. You’ve already thrown my
kitchen rhythm off so things are woefully out of order.’

‘It seems very ordered to me.’

‘Well, it’s not.’

Sunshine shrugged, unconcerned. ‘You know, I feel like one of
those contestants on your show.’

A thought too ghastly to contemplate!

Sunshine slid past him on her way to the fridge, brushing
against his arm.
God!
God, God,
God
! Her brand of casual friendliness, with the kisses and the
random touches, was something he was not used to. At all.

He didn’t like it.

Except that he kind of did.

* * *

Dinner resembled a physical battle: Sunshine leaning in;
Leo leaning
way
out.

A less optimistic woman would have been daunted.

But Sunshine was almost always optimistic.

As they ate the pasta and salad they argued over assorted
wedding details, from the choice of MC—
‘What are you
thinking to suggest anyone but yourself, Leo?’
—to the need for
speeches—Sunshine: yes; Leo: no!—to whether to use social media for sharing
photos and videos of the function—over Leo’s dead body, apparently.

By the time the pannacotta gelato was on the table Sunshine was
in ‘what the hell?’ mode. Seven weeks to go—they had to move things along.

‘So!’ she said. ‘Music!’

He went deer-in-the-headlights still. ‘Music.’

‘Yes. Music. I hear there’s no dancing, so we can scrap the DJ
option.’

‘Correct.’

She pursed her lips. ‘So! I’ve located a heavy metal band. I
also know a great piano accordionist—surprisingly soulful. And I’ve heard about
an Irish trio. What about one of those options? Or maybe a big band—but did you
know that a big band has fourteen instruments? And where would we put fourteen
musicians? I mean, I know the restaurant is spacious, but—’

‘I know
what you’re doing, Sunshine.’

She blinked at him, the picture of innocence—she knew because
she’d practised in the mirror. ‘What do you mean, Leo?’

‘Suggesting horrific acts and thinking that by the time you get
around to naming the option you really want I’ll be so relieved I’ll agree
instantly.’

‘But that’s not true. Well...not
strictly
true. Because I
have
named
what
I really want. Natalie Clarke.’