by Ana E Ross
“He will. We have to hope.” He returned the bag to the vault and closed it. “Now,” he said, placing his hand on her shoulder as he walked her toward the door. “Let’s talk about when and where we’ll tie the knot tomorrow while I prepare us a late lunch to hold us over until dinner. Then after lunch, I do have to spend some time setting up meetings and conferences for next week, so I’m afraid you’ll be on your own for a few hours. I can’t have my father showing up on my doorstep unannounced, especially not immediately following our marriage.”
“No, we can’t have that,” Tashi agreed on a tremor.
As they walked along the corridor toward the kitchen, Tashi had to remember that their marriage was temporary, and that whether or not they found Agent Dawson alive, it would still come to an end. Even during their most intimate moments when they danced over the waves of passion together, she would have to remember that Adam had married her out of a sense of duty, not love.
Fantasizing about him as a lover was one thing, but as a permanent husband and father of her children was a far cry from reality. Her heart ached within her. She didn’t want to be alone in the world again. She wanted to belong to somebody.
She wanted to be loved.
Was that asking too much of fate?
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
While Adam took a shower, Tashi measured out the portions of polenta, butter, chopped garlic, freshly ground black pepper, fresh sage leaves, prosciutto, grated Gruyère and crumbled torta di Dolcelatte cheese, as she reflected on the past few hours since they’d agreed to get married.
During lunch, Adam had suggested that they exchange their vows in the garden, but Tashi, feeling that it was too intimate and meaningful for a temporary arrangement, opted for the first floor parlor.
Reverend Reuben Kelly, the pastor of Granite Falls Community Church, where Adam worshipped, would officiate the ceremony. He and his wife, Dr. Samantha Kelly, would make up the wedding party. There would be no music or flowers, or bridal walk. They would merely stand in front of the minister and pledge themselves to each other.
That was the way Tashi wanted it. Her wedding ceremony to Adam wasn’t an event she wished to remember with warmth and happiness in the years to come. It would just be too heart-wrenching. She had to remember it for what it was—a temporary arrangement.
Satisfied that she had all the ingredients Adam had asked her to prepare, Tashi sidestepped to the stove and opened the lit to the pot of water she’d put on earlier.
“Good, the ingredients are ready.”
Tashi looked up as Adam walked into the kitchen. “Well, it wasn’t that difficult,” she said. “I was good at math in school.”
He chuckled. “I bet you were good at a lot of things.” He moved behind her and placed the metal handle of a whisk in her hand.
Tashi’s breath caught in her throat and heat instantly and rapidly spread throughout her body—heat she knew had nothing to do with the steam rising from the pot of boiling water on the stove. The sparks that had been triggered when she’d awakened in his arms hours ago were beginning to glow between them again.
“Ready for the next stage?” he asked.
“Yeah, I guess.”
“You’re going to whisk gently as I pour the polenta into the water. Okay? And you’ll continue whisking until it begins to thicken.” His voice, low and steady and spiced with seduction, sent a lurch of excitement through her.
As he reached for the cup of raw polenta on the countertop, his bare knees brushed against the backs of her thighs, just below the hem of the dress. The nimble caress, coupled with the faint scent of sandalwood exuding from his recently showered body alerted her senses, making her acutely aware of his proximity, more so than she had been for the past weeks. He was brushing against her on purpose, deliberately, yet subtly trying to arouse her.
“Hold the handle of the pot with your other hand so it doesn’t topple off the stove.”
Rendered speechless, Tashi followed his instructions and began to whisk as he poured the polenta into the water in a slow steady stream. Polenta Elisa was a simple dish, and one of his favorites when he was a child he’d told her while he’d helped her collect the ingredients from around the kitchen. It came in second to saffron risotto alla milanese, which he would have loved to cook for her, but he was fresh out of carnaroli rice. He was out of a lot of things, seeing he hadn’t left the estate for two weeks.
“Easy. Not so hard,” he cautioned. “You don’t want the polenta to thicken prematurely.”
Her heart fluttered wildly. Why did it sound like they were making love, and he was giving her instructions on how to please him? Her mind immediately rewound to their first day in the garden and how she’d been fascinated by the way Adam’s penis had thickened and lengthened before her eyes. She could still feel the heat and strength of it pulsing in her hand as they’d stood in the shade of the willow tree. She tightened her grip on the whisk and kept her gaze riveted on the pot as the flutters in her heart turned into a heavy thumping against her chest.
“Slow down, Tashi.”
She swallowed a gasp as Adam set the empty measuring cup on the countertop and reaching around her, placed his hands over both of hers. “Relax your grip,” he murmured, edging closer to her. “Gently, like this,” he instructed in a husky voice as he began to guide her motions into a gentler, slower pace.
Tight knots formed in Tashi’s stomach as she felt the pressure of Adam’s flexing muscles and the heat from his skin burning through the barrier of their clothes to fuse with hers. If she’d known that cooking with him could be even more intimate than sharing a meal, or engaging in naked couples’ yoga, she might have asked to help him before. No, she argued the thought away. Even though she’d been thinking about it, she knew she hadn’t been ready to go all the way with Adam until today—until she’d told him about her past.
Tashi had a feeling that if Adam’s friends hadn’t called when they did, they wouldn’t be in his kitchen making Polenta Elisa. They would still be in his office or across the hall in his big white bed, making love.
Somehow, Tashi found the strength to bring her focus back to the polenta and her whisking until the motion of her hand and the depths of her strokes were in perfect rhythm with Adam’s. Even that innocent chore seemed like foreplay, a prelude to lovemaking.
“Sì, meglio. You’ve got it, bella.” He released her hands and stepped back.
Tashi’s body yearned for the return of his, but she breathed a sigh of relief, nonetheless. It was getting too hot in the kitchen. It probably wasn’t a good idea to be caught up in erotic visions of Adam and her together while she was standing in front of an open flame.
“How long do I have to keep whisking?” she asked, as Adam opened up a cupboard and took out a large saucepan.
“Until it’s thick enough so it doesn’t settle back on the bottom of the pot when you stop whisking. A few more minutes perhaps.” He moved to the left of her and placed the saucepan on the front burner of the eight-burner stove.
“Then what?”
“Then you’ll turn the heat down to low, cover it, and let it cook for about fifteen minutes. Are you having fun?” he asked, pouring milk and water into the saucepan.
She actually was. “Yes. I’ve never cooked anything this complicated before. It’s usually simple stuff, like baked chicken, boxed macaroni and cheese—those kinds of things, and sometimes I mess them up.” She chuckled. “My uncle used to grill hamburgers and hot dogs on the back porch in the summers, and when we ate out—which was a lot—it was mostly fast food.”
“Well, there’s nothing quick and fast in my kitchen. Stick with me kiddo, and I’ll teach you the benefits of enjoying your own slowly cooked meals. Before long, you’ll be making Polenta Elisa better than my mother, which isn’t an easy feat. She makes the best in all of Como,” he said, smiling with obvious pleasant memories. “I can teach you a lot about the joys of cooking.”
He could teach her the joys of lots of things,
Tashi thought. Since her self-discovery and sexual awakening, she’d been spending a lot of time in the library with some of Adam’s books about Tantric and Taoist secrets of lovemaking. Tashi had been shocked at the numerous erotic positions of couples making love in the sultry pages of the Kama Sutra and other similar books.
She’d had no idea that different and specific positions could increase and prolong the level and depth of one’s passion, and that a woman could have multiple orgasms that went on for minutes. She’d been sensuously amused at the Taoist terms for sexual organs. She had to say that Hidden and Celestial Palace, Valley of Solitude, Jade Terrace, Precious Pearls, Yin Bean for the female, and Jade Stalk, Ambassador, Yang Peak, and Dragon Pearls for the male sounded a lot more sensual and erotic than vagina, clitoris, penis, cock, and the other terms Westerners used to describe private parts of the anatomy.
Tashi had even fantasized about Adam’s ambassador forging its way inside her hidden palace. Back there on the sofa in his office, she’d been close to asking if he’d do her the honor of breaching the walls of her celestial palace, and plant his jade stalk deep inside her valley of solitude. Would he have been shocked or amused at her lascivious request? Perhaps both. An unexpected giggle burst from her.
“What’s so amusing?”
Tashi sobered up at Adam’s question. She’d been so caught up in her fantasies, she’d almost forgotten he was standing right next to her. She cleared her throat. “Nothing.”
“Doesn’t seem like ‘nothing’ to me. What made you laugh, Tashi?” he asked softly.
“I was just thinking.”
“About?”
She quivered when his hand cupped her chin and he forced her to look at him. “Jade stalks and celestial palaces.”
“What do you know about jade stalks and celestial palaces, cara?” His voice was dangerously low and husky. “You’ve been reading my books.”
“Studying them, actually.” She wanted him to know that she was curious about sex, and anxious to learn about what men and women did to each other in private. She wanted him to know she was ready to explore that aspect of their relationship.
His gaze slid to her lips, and lingered there as if he were surveying them, contemplating the texture and sweetness of them, and then just as she started to feel prickly all over, he dropped his hand. “You think you’ll be okay alone for a bit? I have to make one last call for the day.”
“Yeah—I’ll—I’ll be fine.” Tashi licked her lips.
“Just remember the instructions I gave you.”
With her mind in utter turmoil, Tashi blinked in confusion.
“About the polenta.”
“Oh yes, yes, the polenta,” she responded in an unsteady voice. “When thick enough so it doesn’t stick to the pot, cover, cook on low for fifteen minutes.”
“Perfetto.”
As Tashi watched Adam stroll away, she took some deep breaths to steady her pulse and heart rate that had accelerated during those tense moments. Cooking with Adam was dangerously sensuous. She’d been surprised when he’d asked her to help him prepare dinner. She’d been reluctant at first since she was vastly lacking in culinary skills. Adam had assured her that she would do great, and had teasingly added that since they were to be married tomorrow, she should learn to appease all her husband’s passions, including the one he had for food.
Left alone to her own thoughts, Tashi wondered if Adam invited any of his former lovers into his kitchen and played games of seduction as he taught them how to cook his favorite meals. Had he referred to their private parts as precious pearls and hidden palaces?
To Tashi’s surprise, she felt something she’d never felt before. Jealousy. A thick stream of green gooey envy made its way slowly through her veins. It was more painful because she knew that her marriage to Adam had an end, and that when that end came, she would have to step aside and watch him fall in love with, and marry another woman.
From the way he’d been treating her, catering to all her needs, exhibiting extreme patience and understanding, Tashi knew that he would make the quintessential husband one day. Even his parents seemed to be on a perpetual honeymoon. During the few minutes of satellite exchange with them, she’d sensed the love between them as they sat arm in arm—the love Adam told her had begun the moment they’d met. No wonder Adam was such a warm, loving human being. He’d come from love, had grown up in it, had lived it all his life.
‘Children became what they lived’ was a profound axiom. Adam was love and patience. She was isolation and paranoia. Her uncle had kept her in isolation because he’d been paranoid of something terrible happening to her.
The show of concern from Adam’s parents—especially his mother’s sympathy—had broken through the wall of silence and solitude Tashi had been living behind for most of her life. The horror, the pain, and the guilt that had been simmering inside her for fifteen months had reached the boiling point. She’d felt that she’d detonate from the inside out if she didn’t tell somebody. She was so grateful that Adam was her somebody.
“I think it might be thick enough.”
Tashi jumped at the sound of Adam’s voice. She glanced up to find him standing at the archway leading into the kitchen, and like ice cream melting on a hot summer’s sidewalk, all her cares seemed to melt away. His presence calmed her fears and filled her with peace.
How long had he been standing there watching her? And exactly what had been on his mind as he observed her? Was he having doubts, regrets, or second thoughts about agreeing to marry her? Or had his honor and duty to his friend replaced the desire and affection he’d had for her? Is that why he ran out of the kitchen a few moments ago when she’d brought up hidden palaces and jade stalks?
Stop it! Stop the paranoia and feelings of insecurity, she told herself. You’ve moved beyond that. They’re just thoughts, not reality, anymore. You’re safe with Adam.
“Tashi, you can stop whisking.”
Tashi took a deep breath of composure as Adam walked back into the kitchen. Remembering the instructions he’d given her, she placed the whisk on a cast iron holder between the burners, turned the flame to low, covered the pot, and set the timer to fifteen minutes.
“Perfetto,” he said, turning on the burner under the saucepan he’d placed on the stove before he left to make his call.
He’d been leaving her alone in the kitchen an awful lot, Tashi thought, as she stepped to the side, away from him. Maybe he was just trying to get her accustomed to taking command of cooking meals. “Would you like me to do anything else?” she asked, glancing at the ingredients she’d measured out. They hadn’t even been mixed together, yet it smelled delicious in the kitchen already.
“No. I think we’re set. I just have to make the milk sauce to add to the polenta once it’s cooked.” He picked up a wooden spoon from the countertop.
From beneath her lashes, Tashi peeked at Adam’s long fingers curled around the spoon as he stirred the milk sauce. She felt herself growing warm as she watched the muscles in his arm flex, and imagined the coating of hair brushing against her skin as he caressed her. She didn’t even know that merely watching a man’s hands and fingers at work could stir desire in her, make her think about things she shouldn’t be thinking about—like making love and making babies.
Babies? Tashi had never thought of herself as a mother, especially since she never had one to learn from. She hadn’t even thought of herself as a woman, much less a desirable one in over a year. It seemed as if exposing the darkest secrets of her heart had freed up space for other dreams to materialize. And since Adam was the man she’d confided in and the man she was to marry, even though temporarily, she supposed it was only natural that her new dreams would involve him—dreams she knew would never come true with him.
Her lips and brows puckered. “How come some lucky woman hasn’t snatched you up yet?’ she asked. “You said your father thought you were ready for marriage at twenty-one. Are the women in Granite Falls and the rest of the world s
imply blind and stupid?”
He turned his head and glanced at her, a flash of some indescribable emotion in his eyes.
Had she said the wrong thing? Tashi wondered, as he pressed his lips together and his jaws flexed visibly. The air around them immediately became charged with something Tashi couldn’t quite fathom. Why would such a simple question bring on such tension? She felt as if she were standing smack in the middle of a magnetic field. Her mind told her to put physical distance between them, but her legs had morphed into rubber.
“Well, it’s not for lack of trying,” he said, finally. “I’ve had two serious relationships. I was even engaged once. Several years ago.”
So that was his ‘especially after’. “What happened?”
“She left me standing at the altar.”
I’m sorry came to her mind, but Tashi wasn’t sorry. She was glad that woman, for whatever reason, had left him, because if she hadn’t, the past nineteen days of her life would never have happened, and she would not be marrying him tomorrow. Tashi was grateful for the time she’d already spent with Adam and looked forward to more before the inevitable end of their relationship. He’d taught her so much. He’d taught her how to trust and love. And for that she appreciated him, adored him. Loved him.
Tashi pressed a hand to her chest as the knowledge spread, like warm honey flowing slowly through a tiny spout, into every cell of her being. It settled in her erratically beating heart. She loved Adam. Her heart leaped with excitement as she accepted and embraced the breathtaking knowledge.
What was there about this man not to love? Nothing. Apart from duty—in her case—he didn’t strike her as the kind of man who would ask a woman to marry him unless he meant it, so he must have loved this woman deeply. Perhaps that was his flaw. He’d made a mistake with one or both of his previous serious relationships. He’d been rejected and humiliated, and was now damaged, perhaps incapable of commitment.