Page 36 of Recipe for Romance (Applewood #2)

~N icole~

In the few days that followed her return to Applewood, Nicole found herself slipping back into her life with Aiden.

The memory of more passive rejection from her father was the only reminder that she had ever left.

Coming home to a crowded house for Thanksgiving hadn’t been entirely unexpected, but it still stung.

What was worse was that she might as well not have been there at all.

It seemed her father was more interested in entertaining his guests than anything else, including her.

Nicole felt like such a baby sometimes, whining about her father’s lack of attention, but she couldn’t help it.

His behavior as well as knowing how things could have been different had her mother not passed on only served to make her miss the woman that much more.

It helped that they’d spent a little more time with Aiden’s family, something she was certain they were doing for her benefit as much as his.

Just as Nicole knew how to gauge the level of his prickliness, Aiden also seemed to possess a keen awareness of how she was feeling at any given moment.

Maybe she was just easy to read, but Nicole had the feeling it was more than that.

When he didn’t think she was looking, she would sometimes catch Aiden staring at her, a serene expression on his face that was so incongruent with his mood most days that it would have looked out of place if not for the simple fact that it lit him up from the inside.

He looked happy, almost hopeful in a way.

About what, she had no idea. Nicole liked to think it was about a future for the two of them.

At the end of a long day after they’d made a thousand different decisions about his restaurant, and he’d taught her different techniques using plates from what would be his new menu, they would lie together in his bed, sweaty and spent from their lovemaking, and that’s where her mind would naturally drift to.

Before her little adventure into cooking with Aiden as her tour guide, Nicole always dreamed that her future would be in the kitchen at one of her father’s restaurants with him smiling on proudly.

The image of that had held up in her mind over the last decade, crystal clear and completely in focus.

Now, that image was distorted. A kitchen was still there, but not in the foreground.

It was the backdrop of a painting where the only image that stood out amongst the smear of colors was Aiden.

His dark hair and light eyes shining, a strong hand reaching for her, beckoning her to join him for whatever lay ahead.

It was a picture she wanted to be more real than anything else in her life, even more than she wanted to be a chef.

The more time she and Aiden spent cooking together, the more she realized a number of things.

The first was that, holy shit , Aiden Kemp was an incredibly talented chef.

She’d known this already, but knowing it and witnessing it on a daily basis were very different.

His movements in the kitchen were seamless, like he was performing a dance that only he knew the steps to and that were presented perfectly.

Sometimes when she watched him go from smashing garlic, to searing a filet, to sautéing vegetables, Nicole would hear music in her head, different notes following him along as he completed various tasks.

The second conclusion she’d reached was that while Aiden danced around effortlessly in the kitchen, Nicole had two left feet.

Every movement was bungled unless she moved with so much intention that the action then took three times as long as it should.

She was getting better, but at her current rate of progress, she would be ninety years old by the time she got anywhere near Aiden’s level.

What was most surprising about the whole thing was that Nicole wasn’t nearly as upset about it as she thought she would be.

In August, improving her cooking skills was just about the only thing on Nicole’s mind.

Sure her crush on Aiden was there, but she wasn’t going to let it distract her from what she wanted.

Her inability to do even the simplest tasks in the kitchen devastated her, but three months later, the fact that her progress had stalled didn’t seem as big a deal as she had originally made it out to be.

Nicole knew that being a chef had everything to do with pleasing her dad, but somewhere along the way she had bought into the lie she’d told herself that it was what she wanted as well.

Now, she wasn’t sure exactly what she wanted, only that she wanted Aiden to be there as she figured it out.

Nicole smiled as she thought more about the man who she was starting to think of as her home.

Earlier, Aiden had come back from meeting with a supplier and declared that they both needed a break and that he was making her dinner.

Grabbing her hand, he’d dragged her up to his bedroom where he’d drawn her a lovely bath in his garden tub she’d become very familiar with.

As she soaked, the light from the candles Aiden had placed around the porcelain edge of the tub joined with the low glimmer of the setting sun through the window.

The dim orange glow and the aroma of lavender from the salts he’d added for her had her feeling more pliant and relaxed than she had in a while.

Sore muscles were soothed by the warm water as she let her mind wander.

Nicole’s hands slipped over her soapy body as she pictured Aiden in the kitchen, cooking for her, muscles on display and moving as he twisted and turned every which way.

Then she imagined the look of intensity he always wore while working being directed at her.

Nicole had already experienced the ferocity with which he did everything else carrying over into the bedroom, but lately there had been something else in his eyes when they had sex, something she hoped was love.

As she pictured that look on his face, suddenly her hands became his, sliding down beneath the surface and cupping her mound before he slipped his fingers inside, curling them in the way he knew drove her mad.

A gasp was pulled from her lungs when she realized that her imaginings were real and Aiden’s hands were actually twisting inside of her.

Her eyes blinked open to see his handsome face hovering just above hers as he sat next to the tub.

Aiden’s heat filled gaze nearly burned her skin as his eyes roamed over her body before they rested on her face. “I came up to tell you that dinner was ready, but suddenly I’m in the mood for something else.”

His fingers curled against the spot inside her normally only reached by her toys, a small squeak of pleasure leaving her as she stared at him. “What about the food?”

Any concern over burned ingredients left her mind as he leaned down and pressed his lips over hers, kissing her deeply as his movements became more intentional, more powerful.

Water sloshed about the tub as her body squirmed, her limber muscles tensed once again as her orgasm came rushing upon her.

Aiden moved an arm to the back of her head, cradling her away from the hard surface as she came with a cry against his soft lips.

He brought her back down slowly before slipping his fingers from her.

Helping her to stand, he wrapped her in a fluffy towel fresh from the dryer before kissing her lightly again. “The food will keep. I made sure of it,” he explained.

Scooping her up in his arms, he smiled softly at her and walked them into the bedroom.

Laying her out for him, he slowly peeled off his shirt, revealing his dark chest hair and soft stomach.

Aiden was muscled, but not hard, and she loved that about him.

He was real, and for now, he was hers. Smiling, she sat up while he discarded the rest of his clothing and peeled away her towel.

His breath caught at the sight of her naked body again, something she would never get tired of.

Nicole beckoned him with open arms, only instead of drawing him into an embrace when he got close, she pushed him gently to lay on the bed.

Needing to feel him, she ran her hands up and down the length of his body, enjoying the feel of hair and skin under her fingertips.

Stopping to grip his thick cock, she pumped it a few times before taking him into her mouth.

She’d done it many times to him before, but every time was just as wonderful as the first.

Nicole loved Aiden’s cock, the weight and feel of it as it sat heavy on her tongue, leaking salty drops into her mouth as she sucked him.

After giving ample attention to the slit at the top and swirling her tongue around the head, she took him in as far as she could while continuing to drag her hand up and down the base, using her other hand to massage his heavy sac.

She could feel his balls tightening up, hear his breathing become more rapid, and taste more precum leaking from him, but just as he was about to spill into her mouth, she backed off.

“Don’t tease,” he groaned. There was no censure in his voice, only desperation. They’d played around a bit with delayed gratification, but she could tell that right now he needed the release more than anything else.

Granting mercy on him, Nicole crawled up above Aiden, placing a kiss at the tiny dimple on his chin. It was barely there, but it was just one of the many small things she’d noticed about him that she loved. “I’ll go easy on you this time if you promise to go hard on me the next,” she smirked.

An animalistic growl rumbled in his chest before he rolled them. With their positions switched, he blocked out nearly all other light from the room, but that didn’t matter as long as she could still see him. “Why wait until next time?”