by Nikki Steele
I had to chuckle. “He lost a bet.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Are you sure you didn’t?”
“What do you mean?”
“Honey, I’ve been working for Mr Petersen for close to seven years now. I haven’t once seen that man cook a meal.” She shook her head. “Mmm-hmm. I’m just glad I’ve got the rest of the night off.”
I was about to ask her what she meant when we reached the kitchen. I gasped aloud, taking in my surrounds. This was a place in which I could make magic happen.
The maid slipped quietly away, and I was left alone to explore. I ran my hands over the professional stove with its multiple burners, then peeked inside a wood-burning hearth which practically screamed at me to bake bread. There were three ovens mounted along one wall—one of them was humming away quietly—and what looked like an entire walk-in refrigerator beyond an insulated door beside the pantry. I opened the door and peeked inside. I was right. Shelves of every food imaginable were stocked in neat rows within a chiller the size of my entire kitchen. I could entertain dozens of guests if I had a setup like this!
There was a large island in the center of the room with its own sink, over which hung a rack full of shiny copper pots and pans. I touched them, gently, wondering what I couldn’t do if I had tools like this in my arsenal.
“Nice, isn’t it?” I heard. I spun around, feeling foolish. I wondered how long he’d been watching me.
“Beautiful,” I said, unsure if I was referring to the kitchen or the man standing before me. As always, he was a vision of perfection. He was dressed more formally than I’d seen him previously, in a pair of dark dress pants and a tailored white shirt. The top two buttons were undone, with sleeves rolled up. His hair was mussed as though he’d been running his hands through it.
He leaned casually in the doorway, his arms crossed, a lopsided smile on his face. He was the sexiest thing I’d seen in forever. “I’m glad you came,” he said softly. He crossed the room to where I stood and took my hands in his; the same thrill as always sparked in my chest the instant we touched. He planted a light kiss on my upturned mouth, and sent another thrill down my spine.
“How could I stay away?” I asked, breathlessly, when we parted.
He winked. “You’re just saying that because I’m cooking you dinner.”
I smiled, leaning back against the center island. “It is a nice change.” Then I made a face. “Though I will say I wanted to poke out Kati’s eyes today.” I clasped my hands before my heart and pretended to swoon. “Oh Stephen, could you come and rub my leg for me?” I said in my best bitchy voice. I fluttered my eyelashes. “I’d be ever so grateful.”
He laughed, stepping close. “Sounds like someone is jealous.”
His comment made me frown. “I came to dinner because… because I do like you,” I said, deciding to be brave. “But with you a judge… you understand, right?”
He hesitated, but then pulled a bottle I hadn’t noticed from the bench behind me and flashed a smile. “I think we need wine.”
I nodded, the tension broken. “So what are we having for dinner, anyway? Your maid said something about you not often cooking?”
He laughed, inserting a corkscrew into the top of the wine bottle. “To tell you the truth, I have a cook who usually does this stuff for me.” His biceps flexed as he pulled the cork from the bottle. “But, I did say that I’d cook you dinner, so that’s what I’m going to do.” He winked at me. “She wrote me out step by step instructions for roast lamb before she left. She said even I couldn’t screw that up.”
“Sounds delicious. What are you dressing it with?”
“Here,” he said, handing me a neatly written sheet. It was so cute, he was actually following instructions. “See for yourself.”
I browsed the recipe. It looked delicious. “Cut inch long slits on top of lamb,” I read. “Halve garlic, then press one piece into each slit.”
“Done,” Jax said proudly.
I continued reading. “Place the lamb in a large roasting pan. Sprinkle evenly with rosemary, salt and pepper.”
“Done,” he said again.
“Roast in a medium oven.”
“I wasn’t sure how long it had to cook for, so I turned the oven up a bit to make sure it didn’t come out raw for you.”
I looked at the oven. It was set to the highest temperature. “And just how long has it been on for?” I asked suspiciously.
He shrugged. “Three hours. Do you think that will be enough?
“Stephen!” I cried, running to the oven. Black smoke bellowed out when I pulled it open.
He rushed to the extractor as I took a tea towel and removed the tray. “Do you think it will be okay?” he asked.
I tapped the top of the lamb. It clinked.
His face fell. “Guess we’re eating takeout,” he muttered ruefully.
“Nonsense,” I said kindly. The poor man looked so disheartened—he must have really been trying hard to make a home cooked meal for me. “It just means we’re not eating lamb. You’ve got more produce in that fridge of yours than a grocery store. I’m sure we’ll find something.”
“I’m not sure I know how to make anything else.”
“Well it’s lucky for you, you’re not cooking,” I said, grabbing an apron. “Now let’s see what we have to work with.”
* * *
Five minutes and a glass of wine later, I had all of the ingredients laid out before me for a feast. My brain was in overdrive with recipes and ideas—browsing through that fridge had been almost overwhelming.
This was what I loved doing—creating food from scratch. Pitting myself against raw ingredients, fashioning culinary delights like a painter created a masterpiece. Jax had stared in awed fascination as I’d pulled item after item from the fridge and pantry.
“You really are good at this, aren’t you?” he said in admiration.
I shrugged, modest. “I enjoy it.”
“I’d say again that we could get take out, but I’ve got to be honest, I’m kind of enjoying watching you work.”
I smiled at the compliment. “Like I said, I enjoy it. There’s something really satisfying about being able to cook for someone.” I looked around the huge kitchen. “The only problem you’re going to have is kicking me out at the end of the night!”
He smiled back. “Why would I do anything as stupid as that?”
I surveyed what I had before me “I hope you like tuna—I did find it vacuum sealed in your fridge, but it pays to check.”
“I like just about everything. Tuna’s included in that,” he said. “What are you making?”
“Tuna puttanesca, pasta, salad. Pretty standard stuff; I don’t have enough time to make anything super fancy,” I explained. “I didn’t think you’d want to wait four hours for dinner to be finished.”
He shrugged. “If the company’s right, I’ll wait as long as it takes.”
“Maybe next time, when I’ve had all morning to cook,” I said with a wink.
“Can I help?”
I eyed him suspiciously. “How about you look after the wine?”
His smile lit up the room as he poured us two more glasses. We were drinking a 2006 Saint Milion Grand Cru, he explained, from the Chateau Pavie Decesse vineyard in France. He may have lacked a fine touch at cooking, but he more than made up for it with his knowledge of wines.
I’d always preferred spirits, but just as the bourbon he’d bought me at the bar had been unlike anything I’d had before, so this wine was as revelatory an experience. I took another sip as I got to work—I was beginning to understand the fuss people made about this stuff.
I started by halving grape tomatoes, then set them aside and turned my attention to crushing and pitting green and black olives that I’d pulled from the cooler. Jax helped me find a grill pan, and then I filled a pot with water and added plenty of salt before turning on the heat underneath it.
While I waited for the water to boil, I composed our salad. First I rubbe
d a halved garlic clove along the inside of a wooden bowl. “This adds a little flavor to the salad,” I explained when he asked why I was doing it. I washed and patted dry a bunch of arugula, then whisked together olive oil, fresh lemon juice, salt and pepper and set that aside.
“Where did you learn to cook?” he asked me, sitting on a stool at the island and sipping his wine. I didn’t even have to think about it before I answered.
“My grandmother,” I said with a smile. “She was the best cook in the world, hands down. We always did the traditional family dinner on Sundays—you know, the whole rigmarole. I would watch her like a hawk until I was old enough to help. She taught me everything.”
“It sounds like you two were close,” he observed softly.
I nodded, swallowing a lump in my throat. “I remember her when I use her recipes.”
“Is this one of hers?”
I laughed. “Not exactly. She made tuna puttanesca on Christmas Eve as part of our dinner; this is my slightly more upscale version. We weren’t exactly grilling tuna steaks for everybody in the house.”
I heated the grill pan and cut off thick slices of fresh bread from a loaf I’d found in a bread bin, then put them on the pan to char up. They were ready in just a minute, and I rubbed them with a little garlic and brushed olive oil on top. When I pulled out a tin of anchovies, and I saw Jax grimace. “Believe me – you’d never know they were there by the time I’m done!” I crossed my heart, and though he looked skeptical he shrugged and sat back to watch.
I dissolved the anchovies in a hot pan with olive oil and a little garlic. When they were heating up I dropped pasta in the boiling water, then added the tomatoes I had chopped earlier to the pan with some capers and a pinch of red pepper flakes.
“This is just fascinating to me,” Jax admitted.
My laughter echoed off the white tiles.
“I mean it; rarely have I watched a meal come together like this.”
“You’re probably too busy making deals,” I said with a shrug. He hadn’t ever told me what he did.
“Deals, sure,” I heard him say. “That’s a good way to describe it.”
“What do you do?” I asked curiously. “Besides own whole mountains and the resorts upon them, that is.”
He laughed. “Another good way to describe what I do, funnily enough. My father was a Real Estate agent. He was a smart man, and when he passed away, he left me a portfolio of several small properties. I sold the investments and used the money to buy a small set of condos. Then I flipped them and used the money to buy a larger set. Within a year I owned my first ski resort, and it went on from there.”
“It must be a bit more complicated than that,” I said as I removed the tuna steaks from their vacuum packs, and quickly drizzled them with olive oil. I turned to the salad bowl on the island and tossed the arugula with the dressing I’d made.
He shrugged modestly. “I had some breaks, and I had some good deals. It’s all about reading people, at the end of the day.”
The pasta was just shy of being ready, so I tossed the olives in the pan with the cooked-down tomatoes and put the tuna on the grill. “Can you get some plates?” I asked.
I heard him rummaging around in cabinets as I pulled the colander insert out of the pot and poured the rigatoni in with the sauce. I flipped the tuna steaks and let the pasta finish cooking in the sauce while I plated our salad and grilled bread.
I finished by shaving parmesan on top of the salad. Jax gave a round of applause.
Finally we sat down together and toasted with our wine glasses. I waited with baited breath as he tasted everything for the first time.
He closed his eyes and his face took on that look that every cook waits for—the look that told me he was in heaven. “Beyond delicious,” he mumbled over a mouth full of tuna and sauce. I clapped a little and joined him. He was right; this was one of my better efforts.
Over dinner we talked about all sorts of things. He told me that he had one brother, that his mother had passed away when he was 10 and that both boys had been raised primarily by nannies since then. “Dad cared, but he was always too busy to spend the time. I think he needed some way to keep himself occupied, instead of thinking about Mom. He died five years ago.”
“Did you grow up here?” I asked, meaning the mountain on which we sat.
He nodded. “We lived in the village. I knew I wanted to come back here when I’d made it. I love the mountains, and the outdoors.”
“How many rooms does this place have?” I asked curiously.
He chuckled. “I’m about to sound like one of those total pompous rich guys, I know: there are nine bedrooms, seven bathrooms, two offices, a library, a home theatre that seats twenty and a wine cellar that holds a thousand bottles.” He held up his hands. “But I swear I didn’t buy the place because of any of that!”
“Oh really?” I said with a smile. “And just why did you buy the place then?”
He looked at me, then bit his lip. “It has a bowling alley.”
I struggled not to spit my food across the table. “A bowling alley? In the house?”
He nodded. “Don’t tell me you wouldn’t have done the same, if you’d had the chance.”
I laughed. “Bowling’s the only semi-athletic thing I’ve ever done in my life,” I admitted. “So you might just be right!”
Suddenly I frowned. Here we were, sitting and talking and eating just like two normal people—but the truth of the matter was that he was anything but. My idea of a fun Saturday night in high school had been bowling with friends, but Jax had his own bowling alley in his house.
“What is it?” he asked. “Did I say something wrong?”
I sighed. “Anything but! No, no. It’s me. I feel sort of… I don’t know, unremarkable. Especially with all this around me,” I added, waving my hands about.
He grabbed one of those hands and kissed it. “You’re the least unremarkable person I know. And I know lots of people.”
“Right,” I said with a wink, “all those women you pick up in grocery stores. I forgot about them.” My hand felt warm and tingly where he’d kissed it. He placed it back on the surface of the island and trailed his fingers softly over the back—I tried to focus on our conversation rather than the sharp little flares of fire sparking across my skin at his touch.
His fingers moved idly. I could tell he was thinking. “Penny for your thoughts,” I managed to whisper before sensation removed all conscious thought.
That sexy, lopsided smile played over the corners of his mouth. “I was just thinking…”
I bit my own lip, wondering where this could go.
He glanced up at me. “Well, the bet we made today turned out so well—for me, anyway,” he said. “I was wondering if you’d be interested in making another bet.”
The tiny hairs on the back of my neck began to rise; crackling with electricity that now filled the cavernous kitchen. I cleared my throat. “What did you have in mind, exactly?”
He laughed at my sudden nerves. “Nothing horrifying. I was thinking that maybe we could have a friendly game of bowling. Burn off some of this pasta.”
I played it cool, pretending to think it over. “And the stakes?”
He turned my hand palm-up, stroking the inside of my wrist. “How about, the loser does whatever the winner asks?” He looked up at me from beneath his brows, his finger still stroking me softly. “What do you say?”
What did I say? I had a feeling I was about to go bowling.
Chapter 5
The bowling alley was a decadent two lane affair, with maple and pine flooring, a huge television above pins at one end, and comfy leather couches and a ‘pour your own’ bar at the other. Jax put an image of a roaring fire on the huge screen, set rock music to blast through the sound system, poured us both very good bourbons and then away we went.
On the first frame I got a seven and he got a strike—he used a heavier ball than I did, and had a much more aggressive style. On the secon
d frame he got a five and I got a spare, and from then on we were quite evenly matched—Jax obviously played occasionally, and after a few practice bowls, my bowling arm was back.
By the ninth frame of our game, we were neck and neck. I had a score of 110, and Jax was right behind. Anyone could win with the next three balls.
The loser does whatever the winner asks. I’d been having so much fun laughing and bowling that I’d forgotten we were playing for stakes. It all came tumbling back though, as Jax gave me a wink and prepared for his final bowl. Mmm he had a nice ass.
What would he make me do? I knew it would be something sexual, if he won. There was too strong a connection for it not to be. He knew it too. I could see it in his eyes—in the way he bowled to win.
He finished with 118, then moved toward me. “I hope you like losing.” A finger trailed down my collarbone. “Because I guarantee it will never be so much fun.”
I shivered at his touch. No. Stay strong! We couldn’t be together.
With an effort I brought my concentration back to the alley, knocking down seven pins on my first throw. I smirked at him, then positioned myself for the second run. I only needed a two to win the game. Then I could set the rules, and keep them chaste.
But it was so much more fun when he made the rules. I imagined him taking me again in the hot tub—telling me what to do, teaching me his lessons. My mouth parted to silently mimic the cry I’d made when he’d pressed that snow against my hard nipples. I shook my head. No. I had to be strong. He was a judge, and I was the sister of an Olympic contender.
I lined up the ball. I swung. And then, at the last moment, my fingers moved of their own accord, twisting my aim to the right. The ball curved and then bounced in a gutter, clattering to the end without dropping another pin.