Page 10 of Recipe for Romance (Applewood #2)

~A iden~

Aiden groaned loudly at the sound of his doorbell chiming.

He wasn’t and never had been a morning person, but the longer he worked in food service, the worse his aversion to the ante meridiem became.

Bedtimes occurred after midnight on such a regular basis that he was practically unable to function before ten in the morning, especially on this particular morning.

The plane landed just after midnight, but after driving back to Applewood and dropping Nicole off at her motel, Aiden hadn’t collapsed into his bed until nearly two o’clock.

That also didn’t factor in the hour and half he spent thinking back on the day prior, how he had agreed to mentor Eddie’s gorgeous daughter, and how she had caused his stomach to flip more times in the few hours they’d spent alone together than the pancakes they served at the local diner.

Nicole’s beauty and inherent charm were disarming, her seemingly boundless energy and ability to shift from one topic to another so quickly intriguing, and her helping him through his bout of flying anxiety baffling.

Aiden was used to just gritting his teeth and bearing it when it came to being airborne.

He’d done it often enough in his life that it was almost ritualistic in nature.

Board the plane, take a seat, fasten the seatbelt, clench your jaw and breathe through the panic as best you can until drinks are served, and then get blindingly drunk to ease your worry.

It had worked for many years and he had planned to do the same thing last night, but then Nicole had interrupted his practice by not only sitting near him, but performing a breathing exercise with him to get him through it.

She had told him to focus on the rise and fall of her chest, to breathe with her, and he did.

What he’d also done was to concentrate on the feel of her soft, smooth skin beneath his calloused fingers, the steady thumping of her heart as it beat against his palm, and the smell of sunflowers that wafted off her skin and surrounded him in a cocoon of comfort.

Then afterward she kept on looking after him as she ordered his drink and the warm towel.

Her brown eyes boring into his did something to him he still couldn’t quite wrap his head around.

Aiden hadn’t felt that cared for since he was a boy, and it was nice.

It was also both unsettling and encouraging at the same time, the mix of emotions she stirred in him.

The drink and towel had helped relax him, and of course Nicole had been right about those as well.

The fizzy ginger drink and heat from the towel eased his body into a more relaxed state, so much so that after her bizarre yet entertaining search of the plane for boiled peanuts, he was able to actually fall asleep.

Aiden could easily brush aside her part in it, attribute his nap to the length and craziness of the day, but he wouldn’t.

He’d lived far crazier days than that one and stayed awake for hours, so he knew without a doubt that she was the reason he had felt so at peace.

The doorbell chimed again in quick succession, and as he groaned and rolled from his bed, Aiden was also fairly certain that Nicole was the reason he was no longer at rest. When he’d dropped her at the motel the night before, she mentioned wanting to get started right away.

Aiden hadn’t realized that would mean showing up at, he glanced at the clock on his nightstand, seven o’clock in the morning.

“Fuck,” he muttered, wiping his face. After grabbing a soft t-shirt, Aiden tugged it over his head as he padded down the hardwood stairs, the doorbell now forgotten and a soft knocking sound coming from the front door instead.

A severe lack of sleep and irritation at the constant noise caused Aiden to wrench the door open a little harder than necessary.

“Must you be so persistent in your knocking?” he barked.

The morning sun was already up past the horizon, the rays bright enough to highlight the butter yellow strands of Nicole’s hair, creating a halo effect around her and not helping with his whole seeing her as an angel thing.

When he looked at her face, he saw a slight frown there, no doubt a result of his rebuke.

It vanished quickly and in its place was a bright smile.

“Sorry about that.” She shrugged. Now seeming completely unbothered by his lack of friendliness, she held a to-go coffee cup toward him. “Did I wake you?”

“Yes,” he grunted. Ignoring the proffered cup, Aiden opened the door wider and gestured for her to enter as he tried to will the irritation to leave his body. “How is it you aren’t still asleep? I left you barely six hours ago.”

Grumbling about needing at least seven hours to function properly, Aiden walked into the kitchen and shuffled around the cabinets until he found his French press.

He’d only been living in the house for a month and the kitchen still wasn’t quite organized to his liking, but it would have to do now that he had other projects on his plate.

“I don’t sleep very much,” Nicole informed him.

Glancing up at her, Aiden noticed that despite her own lack of rest, she looked as bright-eyed and bushy tailed as a squirrel eager to gather nuts for the winter.

Even her clothes, a bright yellow blouse and khaki shorts, added to her looking sunny and ready to take on the day.

Seeing her so put together made him irrationally more annoyed than he already was.

Sliding the to-go cup she offered earlier across the large expanse of dark granite that made up the kitchen island, she smiled apologetically as he scowled at her. “Sorry I woke you, but I did bring you something to make up for it.”

Aiden shook his head as he measured his own grounds. “I’m very particular about my coffee.”

He was very particular about a lot of things, something she would come to realize soon enough.

In this case, he only ever drank coffee made from beans purchased from Emerald City Roasters in Seattle which was then doctored with a splash of hazelnut coffee creamer and a sprinkling of cocoa powder.

Since he’d discovered the concoction at the age of seventeen, Aiden had shipped the beans to anywhere he lived, even overseas.

Her trying was a nice gesture, but whatever drink Nicole had gotten him simply wouldn’t do.

Nicole smiled wryly. “I figured that would be the case which is why I searched for your coffee order online and got this from the roasters downtown.”

She slid the cup further until she was practically laying across the island, giving Aiden a very nice view of her cleavage.

Seeing her spread out like that was giving him ideas, ideas he definitely should not be having but that he definitely would fantasize about later that night.

It had been the other reason Aiden had struggled to fall asleep, his mind illustrating in great detail just how wonderful it would feel to have her body under his.

Or over. He wasn’t picky in that regard.

Coughing into his hand to both clear his mind and try and will his dick to go down, Aiden grabbed the cup.

Mercifully, Nicole straightened and took a seat on one of the stools, her body more hidden than it had been moments ago.

Before his lips even touched the lid, Aiden could smell his coffee coming from inside the cup.

Closing his eyes to revel in the scent, he tipped the cup back.

The smokiness came first followed quickly by the chocolate undertones.

As soon as he took his first sip, the slightly bitter flavor tempered by the hazelnut and cocoa hit his tongue, pulling a very satisfied moan from his mouth.

Blinking his eyes open, he looked at Nicole and nodded curtly. “Well done.”

The eyes that were the very color of the coffee he was drinking blinked up at him dazedly before a sly smile appeared on her face.

“Is that how you say thank you?” Aiden must have pulled one of his faces because she was holding her hands up in supplication, a light chuckle falling from her beautiful mouth.

“I’m just asking so I know what to expect in the future. ”

Taking another pull from his drink to hide the smile that was trying to come out, Aiden tilted his head in thought.

Did he really ever say thank you? He communicated his expectations to people.

If they delivered, he was pleased. If they didn’t, he let them know, but he wasn’t sure he ever really thanked anyone outside of his family, or inside of it come to think of it.

Scowling at the thought, he looked over at Nicole to see her studying him.

Sighing, he decided that if they were going to work together, there should be nothing but the truth between them.

“I’m not sure to be totally honest,” he admitted.

“What you can expect is that I will demand perfection of myself and the people I work with, get so completely focused on certain tasks that I will likely forget you are in the room or that you even exist altogether, and that at one point or another, probably soon, you will likely think me arrogant and try to take me down a peg or two.” He glanced at the cup in his hand.

“Maybe you’ll even try to poison my coffee. ”

Nicole scoffed, but seeing the look of utter seriousness on his face, she bobbed her head slowly as she seemed to absorb everything he’d just told her. Biting her lower lip, she looked up at him, her eyes filled with hesitation. “Should I list all of my faults too?”

Aiden’s scoff mirrored hers from moments ago. He finished off his coffee, letting the bitterness linger on his tongue for a moment before he answered her. “I don’t consider those faults,” he informed her.