Page 18

Luc

“N o, no, no, you’re being too rough.”

“Not a complaint I’ve ever heard before.”

The double entendre came out of my mouth without any thought on my part. Something about Ava made me talk, and feel, a certain kind of way.

Her fair skin tinged red a bit in the cheeks that was irresistible.

“You’ve got some mind on you, you know that Luc?” In spite of her words, the smile stayed on her face. “Why don’t we focus on the task at hand?”

“Right, the cakes.”

“So, you’re being a little too rough with the crab meat. It’s a common mistake.” She gestured to the bowl in front of me, a yellow and white ceramic dish that contained the crab meat, saltine crackers, and the parsley. “This is one of the most important parts of the process, mixing it all together. You have to do it just right if you want to keep the mixture nice and light.”

“Got it,” I said, holding my eyes on hers for a moment before turning my attention back to the bowl. “So, show me how it’s done.”

She pursed her lips together for a moment, as if considering something.

“Give me your hands,” she said.

“My hands?”

“Your hands.”

I did as she asked, raising my hands in front of her. Ava wasted no time taking them and bringing them into the bowl, setting them gently onto the mixture.

“Now,” she said. “Don’t do anything with them. I’m going to use your hands to do the mixing.”

The idea was so strange that I couldn’t help but laugh.

“Alright,” I said. “You’re the chef.”

“Now you’re starting to get it. You might be the boss of this palace, but in here I’m in charge. Now, watch and feel.”

Her hands on top of mine, she gently pressed my palms against the mixture. In spite of what we were doing, I couldn’t help but love the sensation of her skin on mine, her touch as she worked my hands into the mixture.

“See?” she asked. “Just barely. The secret to Ava’s crab cakes is how they’re rich and filling but somehow light at the same time. This is how I achieve that. Next, you want to form your hand into a loose claw. Like this.” She spread her fingers over top of mine, pressing down and curling my hand just a bit. “Now, with your fingers hooked, you sort of… move them up and down.”

She guided me once more, lifting my hand then letting it fall. It seemed strange, but the method worked. The mixture slowly but surely gelled together, the crab meat staying intact rather than being smashed.

“There you go!” she said. “You’d make a fine sous chef.”

“I quite like my job as is, but I’ll keep that in mind.”

We stood close as she helped me finish mixing the dish. I had to admit it was very distracting having her close enough that I could feel the warmth of her skin, smell her scent. I lost myself in her nearness as we worked.

“Alright! That should be good.”

I shook my head, her words snapping me back into the moment.

“What’s next, chef?” I asked, wiping my hands on one of the nearby cleaning rags.

“Next, we mix in the mayo and spices. That should be easy enough. Then there’s the shaping. That’s a little time consuming. But with two of us, it shouldn’t take much time at all. Ready?”

“Most definitely.”

Together, we finished the task of making the mixture. We had quite a bit when that was all said and done, the big bowl filled with crab cake batter.

“OK, let me ask you something,” Ava said. “When Hailey gave you the recipe, did you cut down the serving size?”

“The what?” I asked.

Ava laughed. “Hailey should’ve said something. The amount she gave you, that’s for a lot of people. Like, forty-eight cakes altogether. I should’ve noticed while we were making the mix, but I, ah, got a little distracted.” She flicked her eyes up and down me, making it clear just what she’d been distracted by. “Anyway, it’s going to take some time to shape and cook them all.”

“Well, happy to help. What do we need to do, exactly?”

“The trick is my two-part process. I bake them in the oven for a few minutes just to get them going. Then, when that’s done, I toss them on the stove with a little bit of oil. The oven cooks them through, then the stove gets them nice and crispy. Lucky for us, this is a job for two people. Only question is whether or not you can do it as well as Hailey.” She finished her statement with a challenging smile.

“Never been one to back away from anything just because it’s hard. Let’s do this.”

Together, we went to work on the cakes. She showed me how to shape them, how to form the mixture into perfect patties.

“You want them about the size of a hockey puck,” she said, showing me the first one she’d made.

“Got it.”

She set her first cake on a plate in front of us to give me something to model my own after.

“This is going to be so easy,” I said. “Give me ten minutes and I’ll be after your job.” I gave her a wink and a challenging smile of my own.

“That’s where you’re wrong, my friend. Caking is like… hmm, it’s like chess, easy to learn, but difficult to master.”

“How hard can it be?” I replied. “You form them into a puck.”

“Just wait.”

With that, I went to it. Then, to my surprise, the first cake turned out… strange. It was almost the right size but somewhat misshapen. When it was ready, I set it down and regarded it with curiosity.

“What’s wrong?” I asked her. “I can’t get it to come out quite right.”

She chuckled as she set down her own cake, which was perfect.

“Now you’re getting what I’m saying. The mixture’s tricky. Here, hold out your hand, palm up.”

I did as she requested. Once my palm was up, she grabbed a hunk of mixture, giving it a quick once over to make sure it was the perfect amount before plopping it into my hand.

“Now, give me your other.”

I offered her my other hand, and she turned it palm-down and brought it over the lump. Gently, she used my hands to squeeze the mix flatter. Just like before, the sensation of her skin against mine was enough to send a wave of excitement through me, my cock twitching to attention. I thought of the dream, of what it felt like to have her bent over in front of me.

“There. Now, once it’s done, you set it down on the counter and neaten up the edges. Like so.”

She slipped the patty off my hand and set it down, going to work on the edges. With a press here and a squeeze there, she quickly had the patty perfectly shaped.

“That’s amazing,” I said, wiping off my hands and putting them on my hips. “I don’t even know what you did.”

She flashed me a smile. “When you’ve made a few thousand of these, you start to get the hang of it. The shape’s going to come out a little in the cooking process, but this helps them at least be a little uniform. Now, you try.”

Together, we started shaping. We worked through the mix, Ava giving me the business for my lack of skill. I laughed, all of it in good fun. About halfway through, something that had been stuck in the back of my mind came to the forefront.

“I wanted to ask you something, Princess, if it’s alright.”

She glanced up for a second from her shaping. “Depends on what it is, master of the castle.” She said the last words with a friendly, ironic tone.

“Hailey is your half-sister, correct?”

“That’s right.”

“And that means Ada, I mean, your mother, had remarried?”

Her expression fell a bit. “No. I don’t know the exact story, but when she met Hailey’s dad, she said that she’d been insistent on not remarrying. I’m guessing now that it’s because she was technically still married to my father. Don’t you know all of this already? My father didn’t fill you in?”

I shook my head. “He mentioned in passing that you had a half-sister. But the way he’d said it made it clear that he wasn’t too keen on discussing the matter of your mother being with someone else. I didn’t want to press him about it.”

She turned her eyes from me, nodding in a way that suggested she understood the king’s response.

“Now, this is just what Mom told me. When she moved to Seattle, back when I was a little girl, she’d sworn off men for good. Her goal had been to be single for the rest of her life, to focus on me and work and that was it. And that’s what she did for a time. She got a job at some company in one of those towers downtown, and before too long she was an executive. Mom made a good life for me, for us.”

Her expression fell a bit. “She had a hard time of it, though. She never quite fit in with the other parents. She told me that they always knew she was different, thought she came off as too good for them or something. But that’s bullshit. I know Mom, she wasn’t like that at all.”

“And I knew her too. She was a queen, but she never let her title go to her head. She was as comfortable in the royal court as she was in any of the villages in Edoria.”

My words brought a smile to Ava’s face. “That’s the Mom I knew. Either way, she never really made friends, always found herself an outsider. She never let it get to her, though. Anyway, one day, around when I was six or so, she met this guy named James, he went by Jimmy. He was different than the people she knew, a woodworker who owned a little furniture-making business in town. I think she was drawn to his blue-collar nature, the fact that he was a guy who made things with his hands instead of some office drone who was secretly intimidated by her.”

I said nothing as I listened and continued to shape, letting her continue. As she spoke, I could sense that her life story was something she didn’t tell many people. I listened with great care, eager to know more about her.

“Wasn’t long before Mom was pregnant. They moved in together, and a few months later Hailey, my little sister, was born. For a time, they were happy— we were happy. Mom was in love, and I had an adorable little sister. Jimmy was always a little weird toward me though. I could sense that he wasn’t crazy about taking care of a kid that wasn’t his.”

“But he did take care of you, yes?”

She nodded. “Not nearly as much as he did Hailey, but I guess that’s to be expected.” Her face darkened, her hands working the cakes slowing down. “Then Mom got cancer. Happened when I was about twelve.” She gave herself a moment to process what she’d said. I couldn’t resist stepping over to her, putting my hand on her shoulder.

“Thanks. But, uh, your hand has crab all over it.”

I glanced down at my hand, realizing that she was right. We both laughed.

“Sorry. Got caught up in the moment.”

She offered me a weak, but genuine smile. I took my hand away and wiped it clean.

“Anyway, I don’t like to get too into that. Mom passed, the treatment draining most of her savings. By this point, Jimmy had gotten way too into drinking to cope with the stress of losing Mom. When the funeral was all said and done, I learned that Jimmy didn’t want me.”

“What?” I wasn’t sure I heard her properly.

“He wanted to take care of Hailey, not his girlfriend’s kid with another guy.”

I narrowed my eyes in anger. “What a prick.”

Her eyes flashed. “Don’t think I’ve ever seen you get that mad, Luc.”

“I try not to. But the idea of someone throwing a child out on the street… I don’t like to hear it.”

“Well, that’s just what he did. Granted, I was fifteen, so almost an adult. But yeah, I ended up in foster care. Hailey and I stayed close. Mom had left me a little money that Jimmy couldn’t get to, and it was enough to pay for my college and get me out on my own when I turned eighteen. I busted my ass in business school, learning how to cook when I wasn’t studying. I set aside the last bit of Mom’s money so when it came time to buy the truck, I had some for the down payment.”

I stopped shaping, leaning against the counter.

“And now you’re here.” I was still processing her story.

She leaned against the counter next to me. “And now I’m here, making crab cakes in the kitchen of my palace. I guess you can prepare for everything, but you’ll never really be ready for what life throws at you, right?”

She turned to me and smiled. Once more I was caught up in her nearness, the warmth of her skin, the radiance of her smile.

“You’ve got a little cake on your face.” I lifted my finger to her chin, slowly wiping off the small dab of food.

“Hazards of the job.”

I continued staring into her eyes, losing myself in them. There was no one else but the two of us. I wanted more than anything to kiss her, to make her mine in the way I had in my dream.

Before anything could happen, she turned away, bringing her hand to her hair and swiping a few stray strands of purple away.

“Anyway, we’ve got cakes to make, right?”

“Right. Let’s get to it.”

We continued to work, shaping the cakes and popping them into the oven, batch by batch. Lucky for us, the kitchen was huge, with enough ovens that we didn’t need to wait. As I took the cakes out of the oven, Ava prepared the stovetop for the final step. She covered the surface in a bit of vegetable oil, and within no more than a minute, the top was ripping hot.

We plopped on one cake after another. I followed Ava’s instructions, letting them stay on the surface for just long enough to develop a crispy top and bottom. It didn’t take long before we’d found our rhythm, Ava handing me the cakes out of the oven so I could place them on the stovetop. The rich scent of the cooking seafood filled the kitchen, making my stomach grumble.

After fifteen more minutes or so, we were done. The cakes were spread out on big serving plates in front of us, dozens and dozens ready to be eaten.

We turned to one another, finding ourselves close once more.

“Well,” she said. “We should let these things cool for a few minutes. They’ve got a way of burning the hell out of the top of your mouth.”

As I gazed down into her eyes, my resistance melted away. I stepped closer, into her personal space. She didn’t resist, smiling instead.

“Then it sounds like we’ve got some time to kill.”

“That we do, oh master of the castle. You have any ideas on how to pass the time?”

I placed my hands on her hips, pulling her close to me, letting her feel my hardness through my jeans.

“I’ve got an idea or two.”

There was no holding back any longer. I leaned in and kissed her hard.