Page 22 of Deep Feelings & Shallow Graves

Jennifer

The steakhouse smells like money and dry-aged sins. All mahogany and mood lighting, the kind of place where the wine list has a sommelier and the steak comes with a legal warning.

I step inside, scanning the dining room.

Edgar is hard to miss. Seated alone at a corner table like a gothic oil painting that just learned how to flirt.

He’s wearing plum. Not purple. Plum. Deep and rich and perfectly tailored, like someone bled a prince for dye and stitched it into a three-piece suit that hugs every morally ambiguous inch of him.

The waistcoat is buttoned with surgical precision, his shirt crisp and black as a freshly dug grave.

His tie is a simple, brutal slash of obsidian silk.

He’s not just dressed. He’s composed. Styled like a man who carries extra cufflinks and a body count.

He sees me, stands like a goddamn gentleman, and smiles. Not wide or showy. Just a faint, knowing upturn of his mouth like he’s already imagined me naked and liked what he saw. Or I’m dessert and he’s deciding whether to savor or devour.

I get a full-body flush so violent it should come with a safe word.

He steps around the table and pulls out my chair, one elegant hand brushing against the small of my back. I feel it like a live wire. The briefest touch, and something inside me clutches its pearls, moans, and passes out.

“You look…” he pauses, eyes dragging over me in a way that should be illegal in public, “…delicious.”

I sit before I drop like my panties want to.

He settles across from me, slow and confident, folding into his seat like the night itself just tucked him in.

My voice stays trapped somewhere between my ribcage and the graveyard of all my better instincts.

Do I want to marry him or ask if he’ll help me hide a torso under the mashed potatoes?

He gestures to the wine list. “I took the liberty of ordering a bottle. It breathes better when it knows who’s drinking it.”

I’m not sure if he’s talking about the wine or me. I’m also not sure I care.

The waiter appears like he’s been summoned by the devil or Yelp. Mid-forties, thinning hair, and the haunted look of a man who’s dealt with Edgar before. He approaches our table with the resigned caution of someone entering a lion’s enclosure wearing meat perfume.

“Mr. Templeton,” the waiter says. He nods at me, then back to Edgar. “Can I start you with anything?”

Edgar steeples his fingers like he’s about to cast a spell on the menu.

“I’ll have the porterhouse. Medium rare.

Unless the marbling is too lean today, then I’ll take the lamb.

But only if it’s local and not frozen. If it is frozen, just bring me the soup.

As long as it’s not tomato-based. Or creamy. I despise creamy.”

The waiter doesn’t even blink. “And sides?”

“Charred broccolini, but only if it’s truly charred. Not scorched. Not limp. Charred. Like it’s been judged by fire. And a baked potato. No sour cream, no chives, no butter. I’ll use my own.”

“You brought your own butter?” I whisper.

He turns to me like it’s the most natural thing in the world. “Of course. Theirs is whipped. I don’t trust it.”

The waiter writes nothing down. Just stands there absorbing this chaos with the blank expression of someone wondering if food service is worth the free shift meal. He turns to me next.

“I’ll have…” I glance at Edgar, then the menu, then back to the waiter. “Whatever won’t get me banned from the premises.”

The waiter stares at me. Then at Edgar. Then back at me with the kind of look that says, you’re too pretty to die this way, babe. It’s part pity, part respect. He knows I’m not walking out of here untouched. Emotionally or otherwise.

“Surprise me,” I say, closing my menu with a snap.

The waiter sighs like he’s mentally canceling his plans for the evening. He mutters and disappears into the shadows.

I lean across the table. “Do you just… do that to them? Is this a kink?”

Edgar tilts his head, lips twitching in amusement. “If taking control of my culinary experience is a kink, then yes. But I tip extravagantly. Call it aftercare.”

“You better,” I say. “That man looked like he aged a full decade while you ordered. I saw his soul attempt to crawl out his ear.”

“If I’m going to ingest something, I want to know it deserves me.”

Sweet Lucifer. I may be ovulating.

We’re halfway through dinner when I bring it up. Casual. Like I’m not planning to enter battle under a buttercream banner.

“So,” I say, dragging my fork through a puddle of sauce like I’m drawing blood from the table. “You heard about the bake-off?”

Edgar makes a soft noise. Not quite a groan. More like someone recalling the details of a historical betrayal. “I have.”

“She’s entering.”

He doesn’t have to ask who. His whole face ices over like someone just whispered a slur in fondant. “Of course she is,” he says, sipping his water like it’s gin and regret. “She can’t help herself.”

“What should I make to beat her?” I ask, like it’s a joke. Like I’m not dead serious and considering seduction via crumble topping.

He doesn’t answer right away. Just stares into the middle distance like he’s watching a movie only he can see, and it’s set in a small-town kitchen full of passive-aggressive frosting swirls and pain.

“When I was fourteen,” he says at last, voice smooth but dipped in something bitter, “I entered that same competition. It was junior division, and the theme was ‘nostalgic treats.’ I made hand-pulled toffee and vanilla marshmallows from scratch. A three-day effort. Caramelized sugar ribbons. Br?léed tops. Perfect.” He pauses.

His jaw tenses. I swear he’s reliving the war. “I placed second,” he says.

“To who?”

He looks at me like I already know. Like the universe already knows. “Cookie,” he says.

My stomach drops. My ovaries stage a tiny protest, throwing rolling pins in solidarity.

“She made… Rice Krispies. With pink sprinkles,” he says, nearly spitting. “She called them ‘unicorn bars.’ One judge cried. Said it reminded him of his daughter’s birthday. There was glitter. On the plate.”

I reach across the table, touching his wrist lightly. “You were robbed.”

“I was seventeen when I tried again. Chocolate babka, swirled with pistachio. I braided it into the shape of a heart. She brought muffins shaped like puppies and named them.” He runs a hand down his face. “One was called Mr. Snickerdoodle. I got honorable mention.”

“I think I hate her,” I whisper, awed.

“That woman has weaponized whimsy and uses her ‘charm’ to colonize every fairground within a sixty-mile radius,” Edgar says.

I lean in closer. “So what’s the plan?”

He meets my gaze. Something sparks behind his eyes, something that smells like collusion and possibly lemon zest.

“We find out what she’s making.” He smiles. Slow. Sinful. “Then we beat her the old-fashioned way. With something so delicious she weeps frosting in the parking lot.”

“Sabotage is still on the table, though, right?” I ask.

“Always.”

God help me, I think I’m falling in love.

But the moment doesn’t get to linger. The interruption starts as a whisper. A rustle of polyester and righteous indignation.

We’re between bites of dessert, his plate nearly spotless, mine sacrificed to the gods of emotional overeating, when the voices drift over from two tables down.

A clutch of middle-aged women in matching capri pants and the kind of lipstick shade only sold with a free side of passive aggression.

They’re leaning toward each other like they’re trying to form a coven of condescension.

“He was always so strange,” one says in the kind of whisper designed to carry. “Wore gloves to the farmer’s market. And didn’t he talk to his food?”

Her friend gasps. “And isn’t she the one from that Tramble thing? The missing man? I swear I saw her picture on the news site. Or was it Facebook?”

“Oh, definitely her,” another chimes in, eyes flicking toward me like I won’t notice. “You can tell by the lipstick. And that mole, like a witch’s mark.”

They giggle. A fourth one mutters, “Two of a kind. Creeps belong together.”

And then, the kill shot: “He might’ve met his match. Even that nice boy Derik she dated vanished.”

I still. Just for a moment. Fork mid-air. My blood pressure ascending like a fucking phoenix.

Edgar reaches across the table and, without breaking eye contact, gently slides my steak knife out of reach.

“Dessert,” he says calmly, like he’s recommending a spa treatment, “is better when it’s not served with a side of felony.”

My fingers are still curled in attack formation, but my killer instinct short-circuits, too busy imagining dessert as a euphemism. “You heard them?”

He hums, inspecting the knife like he’s deciding if it deserves to be returned to me later. “The one in the pink visor is basically live-streaming her contempt.”

“I could throw a shrimp tail directly into her throat from here,” I say, eyes narrowing.

“You could. But then we’d have to flee, and I was hoping to dance with you later.”

That slows me. “Dance?”

His lips curl. “There’s a live band in the park. Jazz standards. You in my arms. The kind of thing that makes gossips spontaneously combust.”

I look down at my empty plate. Then back at him. “Tempting.”

“More tempting than public manslaughter?”

I sigh. “Barely.”

He reaches for my hand this time, not to disarm me, but to lace our fingers together. He doesn’t squeeze. Just anchors me with the warm, steady weight of his touch.

“They don’t know you,” he says softly. “And I’d wager they’ve never won a bake-off in their lives.”

I smile. “They’re about to choke on their crème br?lée when they see how good I look dancing.”

“Now that’s the spirit.”

The walk is short, but it stretches, like time’s gotten drunk on candlelight and the scent of overwatered roses.

Glitterlights from hell loop through the trees like the town was decorated by an overzealous Hallmark intern.

A brass band is set up under the gazebo, playing something old and swingy that drips sex and sentiment in equal measure.

There’s a crowd, but it parts for us, Edgar in his dark plum vest and predator calm, and me, vibrating like a tuning fork in heels I picked to feel dangerous.

He offers his hand. No preamble. No question. Just that look that says I already know how you taste, I’m just being polite about it.

I take it.

The first step into his arms is a full-body event. His hand at my waist is warm, firm, and respectful in a way that makes me want to bite him. His other hand finds mine, guiding it to his chest like we’ve done this before in a past life, probably right before setting a nobleman on fire.

We move.

He leads like a man born in the wrong century. No awkward foot fumbling or limp side-shuffling, just fluid motion, confident turns, his palm against the curve of my back.

My brain? Gone. Replaced with soft jazz and the urge to throw my panties into the nearest fountain.

Every time his fingers slide even a centimeter lower, I forget what oxygen is. And then he dips me, not dramatically, just enough to make my dress slide a little, enough to make the air thicken, and I gasp.

His lips are at my jaw. Barely there. Not kissing, not quite. Just...hovering.

“I could devour you,” he says. “But I’d rather make it last.”

I make a noise that is absolutely illegal in at least five states.

He chuckles. Bastard. His thumb brushes the base of my spine like a punctuation mark.

We keep dancing, even though the song changes. Even though my knees are officially out of commission. Even though every part of me is chanting ‘kiss me kiss me kiss me’ while he just… waits.

Edgar Templeton, the man who can make not-kissing feel filthier than anything I’ve ever done in the dark.

He pulls back, just a fraction, enough for our eyes to lock. “Still hungry?” he asks, low and wicked.

“For you? Starving,” I whisper.

His smile is pure sin wrapped in manners. “Then let’s go somewhere quieter.”

The fantasy dissolves into reality with the grace of a well-cut vest and the promise of something thoroughly indecent on the horizon.

Edgar tilts his head just slightly, eyes fixed on my mouth like he’s considering whether it’s art or ammunition. “I shouldn’t,” he says, thumb brushing my lower lip like it’s a lit fuse.

“But you’re going to,” I whisper back as my fingers curl into his lapel.

And he does.

He kisses me like the moment deserves gravity.

There’s nothing rushed, just the unbearable tension of practiced restraint finally snapping.

His mouth is warm and firm, reverent at first, then filthy in the way only a man who’s read every forbidden Victorian love letter and once autopsied a poet could manage.

His hand slides into my hair. His other stays at the small of my back, anchoring, claiming, possessing.

I could die here. Right here in the park under twinkle lights, tongue-deep in a man who smells like sandalwood and expensive grief.

But then…

“Oops!” The shriek pierces the moment like a candy-coated nail gun. There’s a dramatic gasp, the flutter of too much perfume, and the sickening realization that Cookie has landed in a heap at our feet.

“Oh no,” she says, all wide eyes and crocodile innocence. “I tripped. You were in the way, Jennifer.”

My kiss-dumb haze vanishes. I stare down at her, curled on the pavement like a wounded poodle in leopard-print heels.

“Really?” I say flatly. “You staged a pratfall because I got kissed?”

She scrambles upright with Broadway-worthy flair, brushing off imaginary dust and wounded pride.

Her eyes shine like freshly Windexed malice.

“I just think it’s interesting,” she announces, voice lifting for the crowd, “how every man around you ends up missing.” Her smile is tight. Fake. Carnivorous. “Even Derik.”

People turn. Heads tilt.

My fists clench. I am seconds from dragging this woman across the bandstand by her knockoff pearls.

Edgar’s hand closes gently over mine. Redirecting. “She’s not worth it,” he says low. “But I am.”

I stare at him. At Cookie, still preening like she just performed a social service. At the eyes around us. And then I laugh. Just loud enough for Cookie to flinch.

“You’re right,” I say sweetly. “She’s not worth the bail money.”

We walk away without looking back. His arm finds my waist again, and I let it. Let him guide me out of the light and into something darker, quieter, and infinitely more dangerous.

Because there are two kinds of people in this world: those who play games for attention and those who don’t need to, because they’re walking out of the park with Edgar Templeton’s hand on their ass and a kiss like a promise still burning on their lips.