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It was great that he was already leaning into my plans. “I love it. Let’s dive straight into it and go over some of my favorites.” I reached over to pick up my note cards, as if I didn’t have every word he had ever said about me committed to memory. “The first thing you ever posted about me was, ‘If you need a warning label to eat it, then it’s not dessert. It’s assault.’ Which, fair.”

“I stand by that assertion.” His deep chuckle raised chills on my skin. “Especially since you’re about to punch me in the face with your chilis.”

“Oh, we’ll get to that.” I grinned at him with all the sadistic glee I felt. “But first, I want to go over a few more of your excellent reads. ‘That dessert looks like a million bucks but probably tastes like a firefighter’s jockstrap after a twelve-hour shift,’ is certainly an evocative way to describe my Carolina Reaper chocolate truffles.”

“The only fire that dessert brought was the one it should have been thrown into.” The arrogant tilt of his jaw made me want to squirm in my chair. “You committed arson and dared to call it a dessert.”

I snickered at the comment. “So what you’re saying is you’re not looking forward to tasting a dessert that’s the equivalent of licking the surface of the sun?”

“If I wanted to breathe fire, I’d join the fucking circus.”

The setup was too easy. “If I joined, I’d be a sword swallower. I havelotsof practice with that.”

I gave myself a point when both of his eyebrows arched up in surprise. But the challenging gleam in his eyes sparked excitement and arousal in equal parts. “It’s good to know you have other talents besides feeding celebrities desserts that are spicy enough to strip the paint off cars.”

I laughed hard, feeling the exhilarating rush of bantering with Niccolò. “If you survive, maybe I’ll show you some of those other talents off camera.” I set the cards aside, ready to move on to the fun. “Now, regular viewers of this show know this is the part where I show five desserts that bring the sweet heat for our guest to admire before we eat them together while we talk. But Chef Niccolò de Rosa isn’t just any guest. He’s a three-Michelin-star chef, which means today, we’ll be doing something a little different.”

Niccolò watched me warily as I stood up. “Oh, what fresh hell have you come up with now?”

I couldn’t keep my excitement out of my voice. “Here’s the thing. When you say things like, ‘That dessert looks like a million bucks but probably tastes like a firefighter’s jockstrap after a twelve-hour shift,’ it makes me realize that your critical gaze will make assumptions about the dessert before you ever put it in your mouth.”

“You don’t just eat with your mouth, darling,” he said with the condescending Italian drawl that made my dick hard, especially when combined with the term of endearment. “If you’re not engaging all your senses, you’re not doing it right.”

“True, but in honor of your amazing show,Under Pressure, I have a different idea in mind for someone as special as you.” I held my hand out, and Roland placed a black cloth in my hands while staying off camera. “After all, you’re notorious for your tough blind tastings.”

“You’reblindfoldingme?” Niccolò demanded, his expression incredulous.

I walked behind him, grateful for our higher chairs with low backs. With great relish, I made a show of holding the blindfold out as I pressed against his back, my voice low next to his ear. “I sure am.” My closeness allowed me to feel the shudder that ran through him as my breath brushed over his ear.Interesting.

It was an incredible fantasy to tie the fabric behind his head, wondering if it would look as sensuous on camera as it felt. When I finished, I pressed my lips to his ear again to murmur, “Show me how talented that multimillion-dollar tongue of yours is, Chef.”

His next breath sounded shaky, which made it even more of a struggle not to get hard. But his voice was full of challenge. “Are we filmingSweet HeatorFifty Shades of Flambéfood porn?”

“A BDSM love story in Scoville units? I’m into it.” I forced myself to stay focused as Roland slid the tray of my five desserts close enough for me to reach. “But let’s see if you survive the gauntlet first.”

I picked up the spoon with a bite-sized piece of sriracha honey cheesecake. “Since this is a true blind tasting, I’ll be giving you helpful hints about what you’re eating as you try to guess what dessert I’ve given you, along with the SHU, which stands for Scoville heat units, the measurement of the spiciness or heat level of chili peppers. The Scoville scale determines how much capsaicin is present in a pepper. The higher the SHU, the hotter the pepper. Got it?”

“Sure.”

“This first one is about 4,000 SHU to start you off easy. It tastes like a baby dragon just learned how to sneeze.”

His unrestrained laughter made my stomach flip like an upside-down pineapple cake. “That’swhat you call a helpful hint?”

“Tell me if you disagree.” I placed the spoon on his lower lip, watching as he opened his mouth enough to let me slide it in. It was stunningly sexy to watch him tasting it as his expert tongue tried to make sense of what I had given him. What I wouldn’t give to have him use that same talented tongue on me…

“I’m almost disappointed. I’ve had more heat from a lukewarm cappuccino,” he said with that cocky attitude that got me every time.

“Well, like all good things, it’s better to start slow and then turn up the heat. Don’t you agree?”

His sexy little smirk that close was almost blindingly beautiful. “I’m merely saying I’ve had hotter kisses than that.”

Oh, if he wanted to play, I was fucking game.

ChapterThree

Niccolò

“My kisses are hotter than my desserts, but you aren’t ready for that,” Adler’s voice teased me. Even though I was blindfolded, I could easily picture his cocky smirk.