her hips. After a moment of visible internal struggle she said, “No, not just like that. And not for the reason you’re thinking.”
Kane’s brain had gone to a very visceral place at the sound of her moving against the leather.
Yeah, this was a make-or-break conversation in which he was seriously emotionally invested, but he was still a guy.
“I promise, you have no idea what I’m thinking,” he told her.
Something in his voice, some hint of the X-rated memories playing out in his mind’s eye like the best-ever porn, made her dark brown gaze snap to molten hot chocolate in an instant.
“I need to pull away from this”—she gestured between them languidly—“because when I’m with you, I lose my balance. I don’t feel calm and happy.”
She leaned forward, and Kane swallowed down his immediate urge to leap across the table and crush her thin lips under his.
“When I’m with you,” Claire said, her accent rolling through the words like distant thunder, “I am a starving lion, raging at my captivity.”
And as she sat back, the fires in her eyes banked again while she gathered up her laptop and left, Kane realized two things.
He’d never wanted to be eaten up so badly in his life.
And if Claire could still look at him like that, then nothing— nothing —was over.
Chapter 6
Eva was supremely grateful she spent a good portion of her life strapped into ridiculously high heels. If these Louboutins were out of the norm for her, there was no way she’d be able to keep upright after that knee-weakening, eyebrow-singeing, no-holds-barred kiss back there.
The kiss itself had thrown her off balance with its intensity, the immediacy of the connection between them. It felt … real, in a way she wasn’t used to, and wasn’t a hundred percent sure she liked.
But if the kiss had her wobbling, it was his parting shot that nearly knocked her flat. The idea that Daniel Lunden might make new rules for the game they’d just started, a game she hoped, more than ever, would continue—it gave her chills.
Maybe good, maybe bad. Who could say at this point? All Eva knew was that she felt something, something interesting and unusual and worth exploring.
Although not right at the moment, maybe, because holy crap, what did I just walk into?
She’d taken a moment, no more than thirty seconds, truly, to untwist her metaphorical panties and de-wobble her knees. Half a minute after Lunden went on through to the kitchen, Eva stepped in after him.
And plunged directly into the middle of a fistfight.
That tall, heavily muscled chef from the East Coast Team crouched in the middle of a knot of kicking, punching Limestone chefs. The Limestone executive chef, and head of the Rising Star Chef competition’s Midwest Team, lay on the rubber mats at Muscle Man’s feet, clutching his jaw and spitting curses. The other East Coast chef, the cute black kid with the freckles and green eyes, had a bruise coming up along one cheekbone, but was valiantly engaged in a struggle with the Limestone saucier on the edge of the fight.
Beside her, Daniel Lunden yelled, “Break it up, guys. Come on.” Which, of course, accomplished nothing other than to add to the din of crashing bodies, loud insults, and heavy breathing. He must’ve known they were past the point when talking could solve things, because before the words were out of his mouth, he was pushing up his sleeve and grabbing hold of the nearest combatant.
Assessing the situation in a blink, Eva dropped her Chanel purse safely to the left of the door and prepared to wade into the fray.
“What the fuck are you doing?” Lunden snarled at her as he strong-armed his flailing opponent away from Eva. “Stay out of this.”
“Like hell,” Eva said, ducking a flying fist. “I run restaurants for a living. You think this is my first kitchen brawl? All right, boys, that’s enough!”
She stuck two fingers in her mouth and whistled, loud and shrill. The
Kane’s brain had gone to a very visceral place at the sound of her moving against the leather.
Yeah, this was a make-or-break conversation in which he was seriously emotionally invested, but he was still a guy.
“I promise, you have no idea what I’m thinking,” he told her.
Something in his voice, some hint of the X-rated memories playing out in his mind’s eye like the best-ever porn, made her dark brown gaze snap to molten hot chocolate in an instant.
“I need to pull away from this”—she gestured between them languidly—“because when I’m with you, I lose my balance. I don’t feel calm and happy.”
She leaned forward, and Kane swallowed down his immediate urge to leap across the table and crush her thin lips under his.
“When I’m with you,” Claire said, her accent rolling through the words like distant thunder, “I am a starving lion, raging at my captivity.”
And as she sat back, the fires in her eyes banked again while she gathered up her laptop and left, Kane realized two things.
He’d never wanted to be eaten up so badly in his life.
And if Claire could still look at him like that, then nothing— nothing —was over.
Chapter 6
Eva was supremely grateful she spent a good portion of her life strapped into ridiculously high heels. If these Louboutins were out of the norm for her, there was no way she’d be able to keep upright after that knee-weakening, eyebrow-singeing, no-holds-barred kiss back there.
The kiss itself had thrown her off balance with its intensity, the immediacy of the connection between them. It felt … real, in a way she wasn’t used to, and wasn’t a hundred percent sure she liked.
But if the kiss had her wobbling, it was his parting shot that nearly knocked her flat. The idea that Daniel Lunden might make new rules for the game they’d just started, a game she hoped, more than ever, would continue—it gave her chills.
Maybe good, maybe bad. Who could say at this point? All Eva knew was that she felt something, something interesting and unusual and worth exploring.
Although not right at the moment, maybe, because holy crap, what did I just walk into?
She’d taken a moment, no more than thirty seconds, truly, to untwist her metaphorical panties and de-wobble her knees. Half a minute after Lunden went on through to the kitchen, Eva stepped in after him.
And plunged directly into the middle of a fistfight.
That tall, heavily muscled chef from the East Coast Team crouched in the middle of a knot of kicking, punching Limestone chefs. The Limestone executive chef, and head of the Rising Star Chef competition’s Midwest Team, lay on the rubber mats at Muscle Man’s feet, clutching his jaw and spitting curses. The other East Coast chef, the cute black kid with the freckles and green eyes, had a bruise coming up along one cheekbone, but was valiantly engaged in a struggle with the Limestone saucier on the edge of the fight.
Beside her, Daniel Lunden yelled, “Break it up, guys. Come on.” Which, of course, accomplished nothing other than to add to the din of crashing bodies, loud insults, and heavy breathing. He must’ve known they were past the point when talking could solve things, because before the words were out of his mouth, he was pushing up his sleeve and grabbing hold of the nearest combatant.
Assessing the situation in a blink, Eva dropped her Chanel purse safely to the left of the door and prepared to wade into the fray.
“What the fuck are you doing?” Lunden snarled at her as he strong-armed his flailing opponent away from Eva. “Stay out of this.”
“Like hell,” Eva said, ducking a flying fist. “I run restaurants for a living. You think this is my first kitchen brawl? All right, boys, that’s enough!”
She stuck two fingers in her mouth and whistled, loud and shrill. The
Similar Books
