The Chocolate Touch

by Laura Florand

  “I’ve got to do something for the Chocolatiers’ Expo next week, but I’m still thinking.” His hand flexed into her back, and he studied the great block as if his gaze could pierce through it. “Sometimes you have to see what comes out of the chocolate.”

  She smiled, wondering suddenly if she could talk him into letting teenagers from the cacao farming cooperatives have an internship in his laboratoire. She could create a four-week scholarship, rotating through different farms, giving one teenager at a time that month in Paris. Make them part of the beautiful final end product their work went into creating.

  The image of an excited adolescent was blotted out, knocked from her mind by darkness as if by a blow to the head. She took a deep breath of that comforting scent of chocolate and concentrated on the feel of Dominique’s hand against her back.

  He kept his hand there, her body yielding to his lead as if she was waltzing, as he guided her down the length of the room, stopping spontaneously at anything he thought would please her. “Try this.” He offered her an éclair fresh from a tray.

  His eyes brightened at her expression when she bit into it, the dark, dense flavor of the soft, cold cream, the spark in it of something fresh, something tantalizingly different she could not identify.

  “Pâtes de fruits.” He stopped in front of a tray of gleaming sugared jewels of color. “Have you ever tried my pâtes de fruits?” He started to hand one to her, realized her mouth and hands were still full of his éclair, and hesitated, then ate it himself.

  Her eyes snagged on his mouth, jealously, wondering what flavors were melting in it. Not chocolate. Something brighter, clearer, tart maybe, making his tongue sting just a little—

  Something sparked in his eyes, lambent, hot. She looked away before she could blush—oh, damn, too late. What had been going on with that beautiful brunette downstairs? What had he been thinking to send her away in order to show Jaime his kitchens? Had he gone blind? Could he possibly know Jaime’s name and need financial backing? He had opened this extravagant new space quite recently, and the economy was probably affecting people’s indulgence in exorbitant chocolates; maybe he had over-extended.

  He turned them into a doorway and shifted her in front of him. The heat from his body sank into her back and butt, curled through her body, the way the heat from the cream steaming in front of her wafted over her face, bringing with it the scent of some witch’s secret garden. “This is the cuisine, where we do all the hot work, the baking, the caramels. Amand’s working on a caramel right now, see?” She looked across the workspace to the tall, brown-haired man stirring a large pot, releasing scents of butter and sugar into the air. The pot had not yet started to boil, but he concentrated on it intently, biting down hard on his lower lip. The corners of his lips twitched.

  “Do you know anything about how chocolate is made?” Dominique asked eagerly. His presence only inches behind her was melting every muscle in her spine and thighs until it was all she could do not to sway back against him.

  She still hadn’t decided what to say to that question when he started explaining it to her. “See, we have verbena infusing right here.” He guided her to a pot full of cream in which floated a branch of long, narrow green leaves.

  The lemony, fresh scent of the verbena wafted over her face, brightening the tranquil scent of the cream. His big hand on the small of her back was like some hot stone in tribal massage, its heat dissolving her.

  “Once it has infused, we’ll add the chocolate for the ganache.”

  His hand curled over her hip and whirled her around, to guide her into another room. “And this is a cooler room, where we set our ganaches and keep our new batches of chocolates to refill the displays.”

  The young woman in the black chef’s jacket stretched her body far out over two long metal frames, scraping chocolate ganache smooth between them. She focused diligently on that smoothing, and every couple of seconds her lips trembled and she had to press them tightly together. She shot one glance up at Dominique and Jaime, her eyes alive with laughter, and bent her head quickly over the marble table again.

  Past the marble table at which she worked were wheeled wire shelves, scattered with metal flats, half full of lovely finished chocolates. “Tiens, try this one, it’s one of my favorites.” Dominique proffered a chocolate, his thumb almost brushing Jaime’s lower lip.

  She caught her breath and looked up into his eyes.

  What in the world was going on here? Did he like sycophants so much he would turn down a beautiful woman in order to melt a perfectly ordinary specimen into a puddle at his feet? Or did he know who she was? Or . . .

  She closed her mouth around the chocolate, because, whatever his reasons, hers were . . . that it allowed her lips to brush the hard tips of his thumb and index finger. Their warmth and texture shivered from the sensitive skin of her lips all through her, as his chocolate hit all the taste sensors in her mouth, from a touch of fleur de sel to bitter to sweet, and started melting on her tongue.

  She didn’t care what his reasons were. She didn’t care if he could be attracted by money, and she didn’t care if he just liked groupie sex. No matter what his motivations, she would still be the person who ended up receiving the most. All his sun and warmth and intensity . . .

  “Dom,” someone said, and it took a moment for the word to penetrate, both for him and for her. She blinked, confused, as those dramatic black eyebrows slashed down and he finally turned toward the speaker.

  “Excuse-moi,” said the speaker, a short, broad-shouldered man who sounded genuinely regretful. “I’m not sure I understand what you want me to do here. Could you—?”

  Dominique gave him a dark look, but excused himself to Jaime and moved away into the cooking room. Jaime looked after them with raised brows. His team called him Dom? Used tu? Sylvain’s team called him Chef, or Monsieur, and kept a punctilious vous at all times.

  She tore her gaze away from Dominique’s broad back and wandered around the laboratoire. The enrobing machine’s flow of chocolate had a hypnotic pull. Such a delicate, intimate cascade compared to the great flows of chocolate in the giant enrobers back home in Corey. Much darker, too. Little chocolate centers disappeared under it, fed by an older woman in white who set them quickly and rapidly on the wire mesh, coming out the other side glistening with their chocolate robes. A tireless acrobat, the younger woman wielded the tiny tip of her knife like a fairy godmother’s wand, bending to fascinating right angles to touch those robes up to be perfect for the ball.

  Jaime wanted to be those ganache centers. Disappearing in melted chocolate, hidden from the world inside that warm darkness. She glanced involuntarily toward Dominique, half-turned toward her as if he was trying to keep her in sight, and bit her lip.

  She realized the two women at the enrobeuse were sneaking bright, curious glances at her, smiling a little, and flushed, shifting away.

  All the walls around the stairway were pure glass. Could she see that beautiful salle from here? Maybe the white rosebud wall? She slipped around to the point where the glass, framing the open spiral stairs, made a tiny one-person space against the farthest wall from those rosebuds.

  Yes, just here you could see parts of the salle. That was the table where she usually sat, right there. A waiter was clearing off her uneaten pastries.

  A movement back in the kitchens drew her eyes. Dominique Richard had returned to find her. On the other side of the stairwell and through two walls of glass, their eyes met. He stood very still. Very big.

  Something in his stance made her glance around for her escape routes, like prey. But there were none. If she left this slim, final corner of glass, she would be moving toward him, and he would be able to track her movements every step of the way.

  A hungry predator, he didn’t wait for her to come to him. He prowled after her, closing her into that final corner of glass.

  Predator? Where did she get these ideas? She wasn’t the yummy brunette. He was too big a predator to track someone
her size as his prey. It would be like a panther tracking a cricket. Something a panther would only do if it was starving, and he could not possibly be starving.

  He stopped in front of her, blocking her into that little corner between glass and wall, his shoulders brushing either side of it. The void of the stairwell fell away behind her, just the other side of a sheet of glass.

  His body heated the whole space. She shivered in it, stroked all over before he even touched her. He was so close she could see even the faint pink breaking out along his smooth jaw, and that sent another wave of heat through her. Was his skin so soft then? Or did he just shave too fast, impatient to burst on with his life?

  “Do you ever stand up here and peek at the salle, if there’s someone famous?” she asked.

  He glanced toward her usual table and back at her, an odd, wary expression on his face. “There’s often someone famous. And we’re usually very busy.”

  “And you’re famous yourself.” Too famous to linger here, spying on clients, of course.

  He grinned, quite pleased he hadn’t had to point his fame out. “Are you?”

  It sounded like a genuine question. Maybe he didn’t know who she was, after all. “No,” she said honestly. Not for her accomplishments, anyway.

  He leaned in a little closer. No, that was her wishful thinking. She was definitely the world’s most pathetic groupie. She wanted him to pick her up and press her back against that glass wall. She didn’t want to remember how exposed the glass left them to the world. She tilted her head, her lips soft and openly begging. What stroked his skin all over? “Your kitchens are so beautiful. I’ve never seen anything like them.”

  For once, a compliment seemed to glance off him. She wasn’t sure he even heard it. He closed one of those big hands around her wrist and rubbed his thumb over the bone there. “You don’t eat enough,” he said softly.

  A shaft of anger shot through her. She wanted to yank her wrist away to spite . . . to spite her own face, since she was the only one who would suffer for it. All she did was eat and go to the gym and wander around this city, which was another kind of exercise. She was devoting her whole existence to getting strong again. Damn it, she was doing the best she could.

  His gaze drifted over her set jaw. A frown flickered across his face. Then he rubbed his thumb over her wrist again, and she dissolved. She couldn’t think past the feel of his thumb on that ultra-sensitive skin. “Do you ever go out with strange men?” he asked, low. “And let them feed you mortal food?”

  Her gaze shot back to his face. Heat bloomed all through her, taking over her sex and her nipples and the color of her face, that hated scarlet blush of hers flaming, a red flag to guarantee he noticed all her weaknesses. “It’s hard to stoop so low. After yours.”

  Again the compliment seemed to glance off that absorbed focus of his. Okay, if that didn’t please him, what about her could? Hero-worship was pretty much the only arrow she had left in her quiver.

  His gaze roamed all over her face, seeing every bit of that blush. Thank God she had pulled on a scarf, so he couldn’t see the way it swept over her throat and breasts, too. “I’ve got to go,” he murmured. “I promised to do this stupid cooking show session.”

  Oh. She would have pulled back in acceptance of the rejection, but she couldn’t pull back. She was in a corner between glass, stone, and him.

  “Are you doing anything tonight?” he asked very softly.

  The blush swept back through her so hard she felt as if she would burn up from the inside out. Burning oh-so-particularly in all the parts of her body that she wanted to have pressed against him.

  She was—she was probably supposed to go have dinner with her sister, so Cade could worry about what she ate, but she could cancel. She wobbled her head uncertainly.

  “Can I come pick you up?”

  She nodded unsteadily and every muscle of his body surged in response. And a very quiet rabbit looked up and realized she was cornered by a tiger.

  And shivered in helpless delight at the fact that he wanted to eat her.

  “Where are you staying?”

  Staying. Not Where do you live? So impermanence was one of the base assumptions here.

  “I’ll, ah—” She dug into her purse for pen and paper. She turned toward the glass as a writing surface, his breath on the nape of her neck as she tried to make the pen work at that angle. Excitement kept licking over her skin. And yet at the same time, he smelled so deliciously of chocolate she could curl up in him like a comforter. She felt a deep, intense sense of coming home after too many years away. He leaned over her as if he couldn’t help it, watching her write hungrily.

  His hand closed carefully around the paper when she gave it to him. Not crushing it at all. He took a long, long breath, staring down at her. Then he turned his body like a heavy, reluctant gate that had not had its hinges oiled in some time. If she hadn’t handed him her address as a password, would he have blocked her in that corner with his body forever, until she yielded?

  Damn. Maybe she should have written more slowly. Dropped her pen a few times. Gotten their bodies tangled as they both reached for it.

  Any second, and she would just lean into him, layer her weight onto him, let him do with it what he would.

  Fighting resistance, as if trying to get her body into motion through thick melted chocolate, she forced herself to take a half step. It was either that or look so desperate he would retract the invitation.

  “Seven thirty, then?” He checked as her body brushed his. She could have gotten past without brushing him, but . . . why miss an opportunity? He might never even show tonight, and then she would regret it.

  Would he stand her up? She glanced over her shoulder at him. He was staring at her with an intent, dazed look as if he was trying to see her through a fever. Maybe he was coming down with something that was making him act insane. “I would like that,” she said, and he grinned, fast and hard.

  That grin warmed every part of her body, even the stubborn achy one that usually refused to be warmed. It kept her warm, a golden, hopeful glow inside, as she forced herself to leave that source of heat, that scent of chocolate, and go out into Paris in the springtime.

  As soon as she was out the door, the laboratoire erupted.

  “Whoot! Whoot!” yelled Célie, clasping both hands and shaking them over her head in victory.

  “Chef, you did it!”

  Someone catcalled. Amand gave a long wolf-whistle.

  “Oh, shut the hell up,” Dom said, rubbing the piece of paper between his fingers over and over as if it was silk. He couldn’t entirely suppress a grin, even though he was flushing.

  Célie propped one fesse on a marble counter. “So what’s her name?”

  “Oh, putain de bordel de merde.” Dom looked down at the piece of paper. A number, a street. No name. “I still don’t know.”

  CHAPTER 8

  It turned out it was a good thing Jaime had to wait nine whole hours for Dominique to come get her, because she had to go shopping. And she had no idea how to go shopping. She hadn’t done it in years, dressing herself entirely from market stalls, or else old clothes out of her closet whenever she visited home. Most of what she was wearing now had been picked out by Cade, while Jaime was still in the hospital. Jaime had added the hats and scarves herself, and expanded her selection of long-sleeved things that hid her arms, but that was about it.

  What did you wear for a date with a man like Dominique Richard?

  Her first instinct was to call Cade, but she absolutely could not stand to have Cade teaching her the ropes of something so basic, as if she was the goof-off, helpless baby sister. Magalie Chaudron had a killer fashion sense, but Jaime didn’t know her well enough to call her. Anyway, she would have had to get her number from Cade.

  So she was on her own.

  Exactly as she was used to, so it would have to do.

  She felt more helpless before this task than before any number of things, although a feeling of
helplessness seemed to be her predominant trait right now, didn’t it? At least this was a much more pleasant way to be helpless than some. Walking the streets of Paris with no limit on the money she could spend to get ready for a hot date, unable to make up her mind. It sounded like most women’s dream. She reminded herself of that, tried to let it be a dream for herself, too—just pleasure. This was all about pleasure. No guilt, no regret, just pleasure.

  The shop windows were full of things that did not look as if they would flatter her nearly as well as they did the mannequins. What kind of thing was she supposed to wear? What would he wear?

  It didn’t matter what he would wear, she reminded herself fiercely. For God’s sake, she had been a major socializer in college. The woman set the tone. The man could wear jeans, what did it matter?

  She wanted to wear a dress, but it was cool in the evening, and what if he drove his motorcycle? And she was still working on the muscle tone of her too-thin legs. Finally, after seven hours of shopping and because she was desperate, she forced herself to settle on patterned thin leggings and a long tunic top of midnight blue, loose enough to soften her body, with a heavy metal belt to draw attention to the Parisian-worthy thinness of her waist. Loose, super-soft knit sleeves narrowed to close-fit wide cuffs that stretched partway up the back of her hands, ending not so much in a ruffle as in the faintest hint of a ripple.

  On her short hair, she tried a pageboy hat and glared at it, because she didn’t look at all like the pictures of movie stars in magazines. Besides, having it on just seemed to emphasize the bareness of her neck, and she hated having her nape exposed.

  Maybe Dominique would make it feel less exposed. The thought of him being right beside her seemed to still all the cold chills down her spine, stroke the hair on the nape of her neck back down with one warm hand.

  She finally left the hat off and very carefully coiffed her short, expertly feathered hair, using a little sapphire butterfly barrette to make sure the left side stayed in place the way she wanted it.