They stopped within view of the taillights and spread out the tablecloth. Andy opened the bottle with an air of efficiency and one-handed both glasses as he tipped wine into each.
“You’ve done that once or twice,” she remarked.
“Italian. Restaurants. Plus you always have to have wine around,” he said, turning the bottle to show it to her. “Five bucks. Real classy.”
She chuckled. “My favorite.”
He lifted his glass in a silent toast. Tessa tried to imagine what it would have been had he spoken out loud. To new beginnings? To chance encounters? She couldn’t figure it out so she took a sip. The alcohol seemed to sink immediately into her bloodstream, making her feel tingly and warm all at once. That told her it was a good idea to get something into her stomach. The food was no longer hot, but Tessa hardly cared because it was absolutely delicious.
“What is in this sauce?”
“Family secret. I could tell you, but then I’d have to kill you . . .”
“Come on.”
“Nothing earth-shattering,” he relented. “Just the usual good stuff. Chicken stock, salt, pepper, lots of butter, lots of booze, and time.”
“Thyme?”
“Time,” he corrected. The words sounded the same, but somehow it made sense in the moment.
“The best food is just a matter of timing,” Andy continued. “Being patient enough to give the flavors the time they need to really combine together. Paying enough attention not to forget and let the peak moment go by. Why are you making that face?”
She supposed she was kind of scrunching her nose at him. “I’m trying to figure out whether you’re spouting a metaphor there about relationships and whether you mean it to be some kind of sage advice.”
He laughed. “No, Teach. I failed freshman English, remember?”
His advice to her had been simply to get mad. To not fool herself into thinking that everything bounced off of her. And he’d been right.
Shamelessly, Tessa ran her finger along the edge of the plate to grab the last of the sauce. “With food like this, your catering business must be really successful.”
“Actually, this was my first job. The wine was supposed to be for celebration.”
“Really?”
“I needed to do something where I wasn’t under my family’s thumb. Julie came up with this and so I arranged to borrow the van and struck out on my own.”
“Crap.”
“Don’t worry about it. At least I had a chance to seduce you with my cooking.” He waggled his eyebrows at her nefariously.
This was okay, Tessa reminded herself. It was just flirting and she had to stop thinking of herself as the future missus anything.
“Well-played,” she conceded. “I’m about to lick this plate.”
“I have another idea for something you can lick—”
“Sleazeball.”
“Proud of it.”
She felt a balloon of warmth growing in her chest. Had it ever been this easy with Graham or had she always been too guarded? Then again, if Graham ever joked about being a sleazeball, it was probably true.
Andy refilled her glass for the second time, or maybe it was the third. All she knew about the wine was that it was red and it was doing wonderful things for her nerves. Tessa stretched out her legs, feeling her whole body unwind and relax. Her toe just missed grazing Andy’s calf and she left it there as a tease.
“Let’s just stay here, Andy. Set up camp, plant a flag. We have enough food to last for at least a week.”
“All right, I have nowhere better to be. Until Thursday at least.”
“What’s on Thursday?”
“Meat raffle.”
She almost spit out her wine. “Seriously?”
He leaned back on his elbows and regarded her with a cross between a “No, I’m not screwing with you” and a “I don’t get why this is funny” look.
“What exactly is a meat raffle?”
He shrugged. “Exactly like it sounds. You buy tickets. If your number gets called out, you win.”
“Meat?”
“Meat.”
Tessa was pretty sure she had never guffawed in her life, but she did it now. “And this is fun?”
“Yeah, sure.” He looked offended. “My old man is into it. It’s a prize that you know you’re going to use. Not like a sweater someone knitted for some church function.”
“Meat?”
He gave her the stink eye. “You already asked that.”
“Like steaks and roasts and stuff?”
“Strip steak, porterhouses, sausages. Whole racks of ribs.” Andy was apparently much more knowledgeable about cuts of meat. And also much more enthusiastic.
She bit down hard to keep from laughing, which made her chuckle come out as a snort.
“All right, enough, you.” He nudged her foot as a reprimand and she was tempted to curl her ankle around his. Footsies. Possibly the silliest thought she could have had right then.
“So you don’t date teachers,” Andy prompted, as if reading her thoughts.
“No. Nor administrators, for that matter.”
“Huh, how depressing. The dating scene is one of the perks of working in the restaurant business. That and the alcohol consumption, which is probably why everyone ends up dating, come to think of it.”
A proverbial dark cloud gathered over Tessa’s head. “Well, it can’t be all orgies and bacchanalia in the teaching profession. We have to be up early in the morning.”
“Bacchanalia.” He whistled, impressed. “Good word.”
Hmm . . . she liked guys who were turned on by big words. What she didn’t like was the thought of waitresses in slinky little black dresses hanging on Andy’s arm. Cute and available waitresses who didn’t have to grade papers four nights a week.
“A ‘no dating teachers’ policy pretty much becomes a no dating policy,” she went on. “Between getting to campus at seven a.m., staying late to plan, staff meetings, parent meetings—you pretty much don’t see anyone but other teachers.”
“So how did you meet what’s-his-face?”
“Oh, him.” Graham had already been relegated to a him. “I actually met him on the Internet.”
Andy snorted and she scowled at him. “Hey, I didn’t judge you and your meat raffle.”
“Actually, you kind of did.”
“You know, a lot of people find their partners online these days. At least that’s what they say on the commercials.”
She paused and they met each other eye-to-eye, straight-faced, with the light from the van casting long and somber shadows. Then they broke into grins at the same time.
“Hindsight,” she said, shaking her head.
“Seems like it’s harder and harder to get to know someone nowadays,” he conceded.
Tessa couldn’t blame the Internet, it was just how things had worked out. She thought of all the e-mails she and Graham had sent back and forth with canned responses and questions as they tried to get to know each other. Courtship in the digital age.
Maybe she had been so relieved to finally see a real person that she had been lured into believing this was what relationships had become. What she had with Graham was all she could hope to have.
There had been those special floaty moments at first with Graham, but most of the time she had been happy enough with him. Always that qualifier: Enough. Never just happy. Their relationship had seemed good on paper: Graham was charming, he had a good job, they got along okay.
It wasn’t until she actually found a zing with Andy that she knew the difference was night and day. She didn’t know what this was or if anything would come of this, but at least she knew intimacy could happen in an instant; that feeling of connectedness, awareness, and electricity could be hers. This wasn’t love at first sight or even lust. I
t was better.
“More wine?” He leaned toward her to pour which brought him close, so close she could almost taste him.
Her throat went dry. “I better not.”
“Probably a smart decision.”
His voice had deepened somehow and his eyes were fixed onto her. Even if nothing came of this and all she had were these few stolen hours and one kiss, she had no regrets.
“I don’t need wine to do this,” she said with a boldness she didn’t know she had.
This time Tessa was the one who moved in first, but Andy was waiting for her. His arms circled around her as soon as their lips met and she melted against him with a sigh.
For a long time, there was nothing but the kiss. His mouth on hers, the strength of his arms holding on to her. His tongue found hers and her toes curled at the silky, sinful feel of him inside her. When she finally broke away, her heart was beating out of her chest.
“I don’t think we should sleep together.” It all came out in one, shaky breath. “I mean, that’s crazy right?”
Andy’s chest heaved and his eyes grew wide. “You mean there was a possibility?”
Tessa laughed. This should have been the worst day of her life. She should be curled up in a corner somewhere finishing a pint of Rocky Road ice cream, but she was here under the stars. Laughing.
Then she became serious. “What kind of woman hooks up with someone she just met immediately after breaking up with her fiancé?”
“Hey, don’t start the blame game again.” He shoved the plates and glasses aside and curled the edge of the tablecloth over them to form a cocoon. “Let’s get back to the first part of this conversation. So you were actually thinking of sleeping with me?”
“Well, no. I was saying we shouldn’t.”
“But you considered it.” He sounded pleased. “Even if only for a second.”
“It was more than just a second,” she admitted. “But it couldn’t be anything more than rebound sex. That’s not fair to anyone.”
“See, women talk about rebound sex and make-up sex and wild monkey sex, but all guys hear is just ‘sex.’”
“Wild monkey sex?” she snorted.
Catching her mid-laugh, he kissed her again, playful but undeniably hungry. His mouth was rougher now, more insistent, and it did things to her insides, making her melt and swoon. His hands curved around her hips, fitting her against the cradle of his thighs like a long-lost puzzle piece.
“Damn,” he muttered as one hand strayed lower, slipping just beneath the hem of the chef’s jacket she’d commandeered. She was considering never giving it back. “You don’t know what these do to a guy.”
Andy ran his thumb back and forth over the lace edge of her stockings. A sensual caress between fine mesh and skin.
“Of course I do,” she said, squirming wickedly against him. He groaned, rock hard as he strained against her through layers of clothing. She couldn’t resist nipping at his throat and he groaned even louder.
“But seriously.” He returned his hands to her waist. A shuddering sigh rippled through him as he composed himself and he lifted his head to watch her face. “Sexy lingerie and wild monkeys aside, it doesn’t have to happen all here tonight. I meant what I said earlier, Tessa. I don’t know if it’s going to take a week or a month or even longer, but I want there to be more between us. I don’t want it to end here.”
Above him, she could see the stars coming out to fill the sky and the moment clicked into place as if it were meant to be. As if it were perfect, just as it was. No amount of planning could create a moment like that, regardless of flower arrangements and guests lists and algorithms that were supposed to match on ten points of compatibility.
She drew Andy down to her for another kiss, a much softer one. He was good at those, too. They were both good at this together. And that was just the kissing part.
“I’m glad everything happened like it did, even if this is as far as it goes,” she said.
“Me, too.” A look flickered across his face, too fast to catch. She thought it might have been disappointment. “We can stop now if that’s what you want.”
Tension gathered in his shoulders as he waited for her answer, even as he tried so hard to play it cool. She rolled over so that Andy was on his back while she settled over him like a benevolent lioness. He looked so tempting right now, her errant rescuer, hair ruffled with the two of them hopelessly entangled in the tablecloth. He reached up to tuck a stray lock of hair back behind her ear, all the while watching her expectantly.
He was right. It couldn’t happen all tonight and she didn’t want it to. They would have a chance to see where this went and, this time, she wouldn’t be so afraid of her own feelings.
“Let’s take things slow,” she decided.
“Okay.” Andy fell back onto the grass and stared up at the sky wistfully. “Okay.”
“But,” she added with a coy smile. “Slow is still forward, right?”
He chuckled at that and she sank down beside him, also laughing. Tessa looked up at the stars and, more importantly, looked forward to the future.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Amanda Berry is an author for Harlequin Special Edition books. Leaving behind a career as a public accountant, she followed her heart and began to write romantic fiction.
Stephanie Draven is a national bestselling, award-winning, two-time RITA-nominated author of historical, paranormal, and contemporary romance whose mission is to write very smart books for very bad girls.
Jeannie Lin is a USA Today bestselling and award-winning author best known for bringing Tang Dynasty China to historical romance. She also writes Opium War steampunk.
Shawntelle Madison is a New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of speculative fiction and contemporary romance. She is a web developer who loves to weave words as well as code.
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