Authors: Cheris Hodges
Recipe for Desire (15 page)
“Looks delicious,” she replied.
“Yes, you do.”
Marie blushed as Devon sat down. “Are you enjoying your dinner so far?” he asked. Marie nodded as she cut into the juicy chicken breast.
“Everything has been great, but now that you’re here, it can’t do anything but get better.”
“You mean Jade didn’t ruin the evening for me?”
Marie laughed as she popped a piece of chicken in her mouth. The flavor exploded in her mouth and she shivered in delight. “If she had, you’d certainly make up for it with this chicken.”
The waiter walked over to the table and set a plate in front of Devon. “Thank you,” he said to the waiter. Then Devon turned back to Marie, watching her enjoy her meal. As her lips closed around the fork, he wanted nothing more than to have those lips pressed against his. Tonight, he would have Marie or he would explode. “Make sure you save room for dessert,” he said. “I made something especially with you in mind.”
“And what would that be?”
“You will see, and I hope you love it,” Devon said before digging into his food. The New Orleans chicken, which wasn’t on the menu every night, was one of his favorite dishes. It reminded him of the kind of women he always fell for: spicy, exciting, and savory.
“This is the best chicken I’ve ever tasted,” Marie gushed as she polished off the last of her chicken.
“Are you ready for dessert?” Devon asked as he finished half of his chicken. If he could’ve gotten away with it—at that moment—he would’ve simply scooped Marie up and taken her home. He would slowly and carefully peel those skintight pants off her and have her sweet womanhood for his dessert. The way she tasted, he wouldn’t need the chocolate dessert he’d created.
Devon waved for the waiter and told him to bring the dessert out. “Here’s the extra special dish I made with you in mind.”
“I’m going to have to hit the gym so hard after this dinner and dessert,” she said as she reached across the table and stroked his hand. “Is it chocolate?”
He winked at her and lifted her hand to his lips. “Would dessert be dessert if it wasn’t? You know, when I made this, I thought about you.”
Before she could say, “Really?” the waiter walked out with the chocolate goddess—a creamy chocolate mousse nestled in a sweet torte crust drizzled with caramel and surrounded by dark chocolate curls. Marie couldn’t wait to taste it as the waiter set it in the middle of the table. Devon reached into the pocket of his chef’s jacket and pulled out a silver fork. “When a goddess eats the chocolate goddess, she has to be fed,” Devon said as he dipped the fork into the dessert. Marie leaned forward and allowed Devon to feed her. The flavor of the dessert just exploded in her mouth, and she moaned as if she’d just reached her sexual peak. Devon smiled at her. Marie had her eyes closed and her head tossed back in delight.
“Oh my goodness. This is the best torte ever.” Devon offered her another forkful.
“You know, this would taste even better inside my loft,” he whispered, deciding that dinner service would be just fine without him.
“I totally agree,” she replied.
Devon waved for the waiter and instructed him to wrap up the dessert, and then he rose from his seat, crossed over to Marie, and pulled her chair out, then linked arms with her. “Let’s go, madame.”
Marie smiled and followed his lead. The waiter met them at the door and handed Devon the dessert. As they exited the restaurant, a camera flash went off in their faces. Marie was used to being stalked by the local paparazzo, but Devon certainly was not. He threw his hand up and turned to the photographer. “Get the hell out of here,” he exclaimed.
“So, are you two a couple? Aren’t you Devon Harris, the Food Network star?”
He glared at the cocoa-skinned man with a dyed blond Afro and big sticker on the side of his camera that said
Queen City After Dark.
Queen City After Dark.
“Ignore him,” Marie said as she tugged on his arm. “This is my personal stalker, Giancarlo Alverez.”
Devon shook his head. Despite this interruption, he was going to take her back to his place and they were going to enjoy their dessert. Once they were in the car, he turned to Marie and smiled. “You get that a lot, huh?”
“
Queen City After Dark
is a blog that tries to be a local
TMZ
, and I’m a favorite target.”
Queen City After Dark
is a blog that tries to be a local
TMZ
, and I’m a favorite target.”
“So, that means we’re going to have to spend a lot of nights in, huh?”
Marie smiled brightly. She liked that Devon was talking about a future with her. She definitely wanted a future with him. “That works for me,” she said.
“Good, because I’m about to show you how much fun it can be to spend a night in,” he said.
Chapter 15
When they reached Devon’s loft, Marie was happy for the quiet and the darkness. The moment he opened the door, Marie pulled his keys from his hand and tossed them across the room. Then she pressed her body against his. “Can I tell you that I’ve wanted to do this since you fed me that delicious dessert?” she said, then brushed her lips against his.
“That’s why I fed it to you,” he said, then ran his tongue across her lips. Marie moaned as Devon slipped his hand between her thighs and stroked her through her leggings. “These have to come off. I want to feel your heat.”
“Take them off me,” she moaned, her heart beating in overdrive as she stepped out of her shoes. Devon slowly eased the leggings down her hips, kissing each inch of exposed skin while squeezing her ample bottom. Once the leggings were off, Devon lifted Marie into his arms and carried her upstairs to his bedroom. He laid her on the bed and drank in her sensual image against his black bedding. With her hair fanned out on the pillow, she reminded him of something both erotic and angelic. Devon’s desire grew against his zipper. His plan had been to feed her the goddess in bed, but it was time for him to have his chocolate desire. He snatched his chef’s jacket off, tossed it aside, and eased onto the bed, spreading Marie’s legs apart. He could feel the heat radiating from her body as he pushed the flimsy lace crotch of her thong to the side. “Umm,” she moaned as he slipped his finger between her wet folds of flesh. Devon pulled his finger out and brought it to his lips.
“Tastes good,” he said as he licked her essence from his finger. “I want more.” He dove between her legs, lapping her sweetness and kissing her deeply. His tongue danced around her clitoris, making her desire rain down like a thunderstorm in the middle of a Carolina summer. Marie’s moans and screams boomed like a trumpet and urged Devon on. He sucked harder, kissed deeper, and grew harder. By Marie’s second climax, he knew he had to lose his pants and melt with her. Pulling back, he stripped out of his pants and boxers in one quick motion. Marie rolled over and crawled to the edge of the bed where Devon stood.
“Can I get a taste of chocolate, too?” she asked as she reached out and stroked his penis. He didn’t think that it was possible for him to get harder, but the moment her lips touched the tip of his throbbing erection, it happened. Marie gripped the base of him as she licked him like the rich dessert he’d fed her earlier. Devon quivered as he felt the explosion inside him building, but Marie would not take her lips off him. Then he looked down and saw her hand between her legs, touching and pleasing herself. It was all he could do to stay upright. Finally, she pulled back, just moments before he was about to climax. Devon reached over to his nightstand and grabbed a condom. Marie took it from his hands and rolled it down his erection, then he joined her on the bed.
Devon pulled Marie against his chest and lifted her shirt above her head and tossed it aside. He wrapped her legs around his waist as he brought her lips to his and kissed her slowly, his tongue tangoing against hers as their bodies melted together. They rocked in the center of the bed, finding each other’s rhythm. Marie liked it when Devon thrust forward and touched her most sensitive spot. Devon loved how she squeezed tightly against him as if she were milking the desire from him.
She reveled in the way his palms felt against her breasts, stroking and kneading them like she imagined he did with the dough he baked. But more than anything else, she loved the lick of his tongue against her nipples as they ground against each other. Devon took Marie’s pleasure seriously, something she’d never experienced with another man. While he made her body feel sensations she’d only read about in steamy novels, she went hoarse from calling out his name and screaming her pleasure.
Devon tried to hold back the burning desire to spill himself inside her, simply because he wanted to prolong her bliss. But the deeper she drew him into her wetness and the more she called his name, then licked and sucked his neck, the more powerless he became to his own climax. He tumbled backward on the bed and Marie collapsed against his chest. Their bodies were still connected and sweat covered them like a damp satin sheet. “Umm,” Marie moaned, kissing the center of his chest. “Wow.”
He brought his finger to her lips and smiled. “And just think, you haven’t even finished your dessert yet.” Neither of them felt as if they could move, but when Marie shifted against Devon, he felt one part of his body move and so did she.
Straddling his hips, she returned his smile with a sultry grin and rode him slow. “Dessert can wait.”
He gripped her ample hips and groaned passionately. “Oh, yes, baby. The whole world can wait.”
Finally spent from their lovemaking, Devon and Marie lay in the bed, polishing off the chocolate goddess. “Well,” she asked as she took the last bite of the dessert. “I hate to say it, but you’re going to have a lot of questions to answer in the morning.”
“I know how to say ‘no comment.’ And I hope you will do the same,” he replied.
“I never kiss and tell,” she retorted. “And I never expected to wind up lying here with you.”
“Really?”
Marie propped up on her elbows, and as much as Devon tried to be a gentleman and look into her eyes, all he could focus on were those cocoa brown breasts. His mouth watered and his loins began to rise again. Obviously, she realized he wasn’t paying attention because she pinched his shoulder. “Hello,” Marie joked. “Eyes up here. It’s not as if you haven’t seen them before.”
“I just like looking at them. But you were saying, beautiful?”
Marie smiled, hiding her inner gushiness at the fact that Devon was just as sweet now as he was before they made love. “When we met, you gave me all kinds of hell.”
“You don’t think you deserved it?” Devon asked. “I believe you accused me of using a charity for ratings. That was a little hard to take, especially from someone I didn’t know.”
“OK, maybe I deserved a little bit of your attitude, but it wasn’t as if I knew anything about you either,” she said, then stroked his cheek. “You know I had to Google you to see what you looked like.”
“Yeah, but you weren’t very impressed, huh?” he ribbed.
“I was, until you opened your mouth. You were so mean to me.”
Devon rolled closer to her and brushed his lips across her shoulder. “How many ways can I make it up to you?” he asked.
“Umm, you can start with breakfast in bed, served by you completely naked,” she said.
“That’s easy,” he said. “I guess you’re not the high-maintenance woman that we’ve all read about in the papers, huh?”
“Only seventy percent of my press has been true. The rest was for fun and attention. But I’m starting to see the error in that.”
Devon stroked her smooth hip. “How so?”
“It’s obvious your girl Jade believes what she reads,” Marie said quietly, recalling the contentious conversation she and Jade Goings shared. “What’s the deal with you guys?”
“What do you mean?”
“Are you simply just friends and coworkers or is there a history there? I know some exes remain ...”
“Whoa, whoa, Jade is like the annoying little sister I never wanted. Ex, no. That’s Kandace.”
“Right. She married the mogul. What did you do to her?”
Devon ran his fingers through Marie’s silky tresses. “What do most men do to ruin relationships? I cheated.”
Marie turned her head and looked directly into his eyes. “You? I would’ve never thought that.”
Devon laughed sardonically. “I’m no saint.”
“I can’t tell.”
“You should’ve known me ten years ago,” he said. “But, that was then and this is now.”
Marie nestled against his broad chest and looked up at him. “Imperfect souls, the two of us,” she said, then kissed his collarbone. “Maybe that’s why we clashed and connected.”
“I like that.”
“And I like you,” she said. “I like you a lot more than I thought I would.”
“Well, it goes without saying that I like you. The bare Marie Charles is amazing,” Devon said, then kissed her cheek. “But if you want naked breakfast in bed, then we’d better get some sleep.”
She reached between his legs and stroked his flaccid penis. Immediately, Devon’s body reacted to Marie’s expert touch. “Sleep is so overrated,” she said as she reached for a condom and straddled his body.
The next morning, Devon woke up to the chiming of his BlackBerry. The fact that he had Marie’s warm body wrapped up in his arms made him want to ignore the ringing. Because, seriously, someone was calling him at five forty in the morning? Voice mail could handle whomever was on the other end of that call, he decided as he held Marie a little tighter. Before he could drift off to sleep, the phone rang again. Marie stirred in his arms and opened her eyes. “That must be you,” she said, her voice thick with sleep. “Everyone who knows me, knows better than to call me this time of morning.”
“Yeah,” he grumbled as he released her and scrambled for his phone on the floor. Picking up the device and looking at the number, he groaned. It was his father—again. There were three missed calls from the Atlanta number.
“What?” Devon snapped when he answered the phone.
“We need to talk, Son,” Devon Sr. said, then began coughing uncontrollably. “I’d like to see you and mend fences.”
“It’s a little late for that,” he said. “And do you know what time it is?”
“Well, the last time we talked, you hung up on me. Devon, Son, I know I wasn’t the best father. I wasn’t there for you and your mother, but I want ...”
“Don’t mention her. You’re not fit to talk about her,” Devon spat. Though Marie wasn’t sure who he was talking to, the venom Devon hurled into the phone made her shudder. How could the man who’d made love to her so tenderly and so passionately be so cruel and cold? She pulled the sheet back and headed into the bathroom. Even behind the closed door, she could hear Devon’s voice booming.
“If you’re going to die, have your people e-mail me a copy of your obit. I don’t want to meet with you. I’ve gone ten years without talking to you and would be happy to go another ten. Evil like yours doesn’t die. You’re like a roach, I’m sure you will outlast a nuclear holocaust.”
Marie jumped when she heard what sounded like Devon’s phone bouncing off the wall. She dashed out of the bathroom and crossed over to Devon, who was kneeling near the foot of the bed.
“I’m afraid to ask what that was all about,” she said in a timid voice.
“Then don’t,” he said coldly as he rose to his feet. “I’m going to start on breakfast. You can go back to sleep if you’d like.”
“No,” Marie said. “You don’t get to sound all angry and psychotic on the phone and then offer to cook me breakfast and send me to bed with a pat on my ass.”
Devon dropped his head, and his shoulders sagged as if he had the weight of the world resting on them. It was times like this when he missed Kandace because he was able to open up to her about his contentious relationship with Devon Sr. and she understood the issues he had with his father. Could he open up to Marie in that way?
He faced her and stroked her tussled hair. “That was my father,” Devon said. “As you can tell, we don’t get along.”
“You were talking to your dad like that?” she asked, then brought her hand to her mouth.
“That bastard is lucky I spoke to him at all,” Devon boomed. “Listen, I don’t expect you to understand my relationship with Devon Sr. You grew up with a decent man for a father. I wasn’t so lucky.”
She shrugged, but her face showed how vexed she was. Marie, though she gave her father headaches with her past behavior, was extremely close to him and couldn’t imagine speaking to him in such a vicious manner. As much as she wanted to ask him what caused such a volcanic rift between him and his father, the look on Devon’s face said he wasn’t ready to share.
He reached out and touched her cheek. “It’s a long story,” he said. “And as bad as that conversation sounded ...”
“You don’t have to explain anything to me if you don’t want to.”
Devon sighed, sounding relieved to Marie, and smiled. “Is it too early for breakfast?”
“It is early,” she said as she eased back on to the bed. “But, I’m not the one who has to do the cooking.” She winked at him and pulled the sheet up to her chin. “I’ll be waiting.”
Devon crawled back into bed and straddled Marie’s covered body. “Well, Miss Charles,” he said, “I don’t want to start cooking, in the kitchen, just this second when your lips look so kissable right now.” Devon captured her lips and kissed her sweetly, passionately, and apologetically. She melted against him, now wishing she’d never pulled that sheet up so far. When he broke the kiss, Devon stroked her cheek. “Listen,” he said. “That conversation with me and my father has a lot of history behind it and I don’t like to talk about it. He’s not a good man, hasn’t been the kind of father that you’re used to.”
“All right, but he’s still your father.”
Devon leapt off the bed. “He’s my sperm donor,” he snapped. “Devon Sr. was never a father to me, nor a husband to my mother. He was a monster who hid behind his jump shot. The man people saw on TV and hugging little kids at the Ronald McDonald hospitals wasn’t the man who came home to me and my mother. He was abusive, and if my mother hadn’t had access to his money, she would’ve been just like many of the women at My Sister’s Keeper. You asked me why I do what I do there, and it’s because I see my mother in all of them. Especially Bria. I know what these women are facing and how no one gives a damn about them until they’re a purple ribbon on the police department’s domestic violence Christmas tree.”
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