Stirring the Pot

 

A shower, sweats, and slouchy sweater revive me before I join Leo in the kitchen. Unloaded groceries lie piled on the island while he scrounges for a pan.

“Cooking twice in one day—you’re spoiling me!” I hitch up my sweater where it’s slipped off one shoulder. Toffee eyes follow the movement. He’s not flirting, so I can’t gauge his mood.

“Would you prefer to cook, Juliette?”

My attention is snagged by olive skin contrasted against a stark white shirt, open at the neck, and tucked into faded jeans.  “Depends. What are you plying me with tonight?”

He rolls up his sleeves, revealing muscular forearms with thick veins. “Seafood risotto?”

“Yum. You cook. What can I do to help? Need an apron?”

My nose scrunches in response to his sidelong glance. “Set the table, sassy princess, open the wine, then just keep the chef happy.”

Sassy princess is good, more his usual self, right? “Doable—I can handle that.”

Duties finished, glass in hand, I hunker on a bar stool. Leo sips the wine I poured for him and melts butter in a saucepan circuited over the flame. How would those big, square hands feel, running all over my body? Would those long fingers with their groomed nails discover all my secrets? I want to find out, if he’s game. I climb down off the bar stool.

“Brown butter,” I murmur at his shoulder, referring to what’s going on in the pan, the heated glow of his gaze this morning coming back to me. I plan to sear those eyes to brown butter again before the night is out. His lips soften in sensual invitation. I dip my pinky in wine, and slide it over my bottom lip.

He sautés the scallops and lobster meat, then removes them to a plate. “Will you get the asparagus ready?” To keep the butter from burning, he rolls the pan over the flame.

“Nuked or steamed?”

His eyes widen in mock horror, then crinkle with amusement. “You decide. I’m fine either way.”

The knife glints as Leo minces uniform bits of shallot not much bigger than the grains of rice awaiting their turn in his pan. I risk offending the culinary purist and decide to use the microwave.

The spears get rinsed and trimmed and spread out in a glass vessel. He glances over at the same time I take one long, firm stalk deep into my mouth. His hand stops stirring as I draw the spear back out, tongue tickling the head. I bite, the crisp snap making Leo’s eyes widen. He swallows and turns back to the stove. With a smile, I zest a lemon over the remaining spears, sprinkle some salt and pepper, and place the dish into the microwave to wait until the risotto is almost done. Between the wine and the rhythm of cooking together, my shoulders have dropped their stress.

Leo’s shoulders, on the other hand, have scaled to his ears.

The shallots sizzle as they hit the sauté pan. he coats the Arborio rice in the remaining brown butter, and deglazes the pan with some of the wine. Then he ladles some hot stock from one pan on the stove into the saucepan, and begins slow, rhythmic stirring. Wine glasses refilled, I study the way his back undulates beneath his shirt.

Time to happify the chef.

I reach out and run one hand down his arm. He tenses, but continues stirring. My hand finds its way to the top of his tightened shoulder, liking the sturdy breadth it finds. The curve of the joint is taut and rounded. My fingers roam, tracing the dips and valleys cut into bicep and triceps. His upper arm ripples in response.

“I like how the grains of rice rub against each other, getting creamy, Leo."

His breathing changes. “You have to make risotto slowly, tenderly."

I step in closer to Leo, my front touching his back, and feel his torso expand with indrawn breath. He’s warm and solid against me. My puckered nipples, chafing inside loose knit, press against his well-developed body.

My left hand curls around his waist to brace myself, the fingertips of my right hand drifting until they rest over his. I like the view of my pale hand on top of his tanned one. He  continues to stir, moving both our hands together, in steady circles.

I lay my cheek against his back and relax into his controlled motions. “You make me feel good, Leo. I like the way our bodies feel together.”

“Princess.” He clutches the arm I have around his waist.

When he releases the spoon to ladle in more stock, I move both my hands to the tops of his shoulders again. They follow his spine, then fan out over the broad blades. His muscles are thick and warm; their ripple tantalizes me as Leo resumes stirring the risotto. I let my thumbs melt into those muscles, relish the feel of them rolling underneath.

“Mmm,” Leo sighs. I wrap both my arms around him, and he folds his left over mine, pinning it there. Eventually I pull away and use both hands to untuck his shirt from his jeans.

“Is this all right?”

He turns his head and brushes his lips across mine. Emboldened by his acquiescence, I slide both hands up his torso, underneath his shirt, sweeping across his pecs. My fingers stop to play in the smattering of hair, fluttering down the sides of his body, the rasp of a fingernail changing the texture of our contact. I’m supercharged, tingling from touching his naked flesh.

Leo shivers. I hold him tighter, then push my hands up his back, along the spine, with more pressure. He curls into it, rolling his upper back and shoulders.

I unbutton his shirt and peel the left side of it away. He drops the spoon into the saucepan to help shrug off the right side. Shirt off, he ladles the last of the stock into his risotto, and stirs it in.

My cheek returns to his back, unimpeded this time except by a sheen of sweat, causing me to hum in contentment. The vibration sparks reciprocal throaty sounds from Leo.

“Your voice is so deep,” I breathe, my chest reverberating into his back. “I love it. It melts things deep inside.” His free arm reaches behind to find me. I release his hair from its clip, run my hands through its length, enamored of its silkiness. Then I lean in close, rubbing myself against him like a cat.

This time he groans and tries to rotate in my arms. I grasp his hips to face him back toward the stove. He tenses as if to turn around anyway.

“Juliette,” he growls in frustration, but at my calm insistence he stops fighting and remains facing the stove. I reward him with soft kisses across his shoulder blades and smile at the hiss of his long, indrawn breath.

The sense of power from that single, tortured hiss feeds me as much as the food he’s preparing. I let my hands stray into Leo’s front pockets. His jeans are stretched tight and low across his hips, telling me without words of his reaction to my sensual exploration.

My hands withdraw from his front pockets, grazing the swelling hardness, and I slide them instead into his back pockets. His glutes tighten from both stimuli.

“You rock these jeans, Leo,” I whisper in his ear and give a quick squeeze to his backside before swiping my hands up the front of his torso to tweak his nipples. His patience evaporates.

With a flick, the flame under the saucepan dies. Leo whirls around to capture and clasp me to his chest. Our gazes lock, then he assaults me with his mouth, pouring all his tension into the contact. I absorb the masculine energy and direct it back at him, my kisses wild, urgent, hard. He clutches me, one hand in my hair, the other splayed over my bottom, and drags me against his erection. My mouth opens for him and he delves inside to plunder.

I tangle my fist in his hair to break his momentum. He rears up and the brown butter I wanted to see is bubbling in his eyes. Our chests are smashed together, and his gaze latches onto the fleshy mounds plumped above the neckline of my sweater. His head dips, then stubble abrades my soft skin while his dark curls tickle it. I pant from the suction of his mouth on my breast.

“Leo?”

He lifts his head reluctantly, face flushed and chiseled from stone. I expect to see lust, and it’s there for me to recognize and appreciate. But there’s something else there, too, I can’t decipher, don’t want to see. I shove it aside to analyze later.

“The asparagus?” My question is a bare whisper.

He rests his forehead against mine, loosening his embrace with an exasperated huff. “You’re playing a dangerous game.” His voice is as rough and ragged as a gravel road.

I trail a fingertip down the side of his face thrilling in the virility of his evening shadow. “But is the chef happy?”

He snorts and fondles my backside one last time, his voice now like molten chocolate rolling down my spine. “Go nuke the asparagus, Bambi."