by Dee Carney
It’s been years, and she tells herself she’s over his betrayal, but to her irritation, she finds she still has an appetite for his steel gray eyes, clean-shaven head, and sleeve tattoos.
Darien regrets the single, juvenile act that ended it with Pepper, but he’s never found the courage to apologize. Now that they’re in close quarters, something’s steaming and it’s not just the saucepots. One, toe-curling kiss proves there’s the potential for more than just a guarded friendship, and he sets out to prove he’s grown into an honorable man.
Until he discovers she’s pulled a seasoning switch that could have ruined one of his dishes. Now it’s on. There’s ten thousand dollars on the line, but if they don’t surrender to another chance at love, one—or both—of their wounded hearts could get singed.
Warning: “Scorching hot” doesn’t refer to the food. Contains two chefs who’ll inspire cravings of the very carnal kind. Includes one delicious recipe guaranteed to blow any diet out of the water.
Enjoy the following excerpt for Once Burned:
“You okay?”
Pepper went rigid. Priest’s hushed voice came from only inches behind her. It was still infused with the melting heat from the past half hour.
When she turned to meet his gaze, fortunately—or unfortunately—sincere concern stared back at her. “Pep? You look a little flushed. Are you all right? Do you need a break?”
“W-what?”
“Sweetheart, you’ve been wiping the same spot for the past ten minutes, and you’ve got this dazed look. Not to mention the color in your cheeks.” They’d already turned in their dishes and were now cleaning up their stations and awaiting the judges’ decisions.
She dropped the bleach rag like it had scalded her. “Just thinking,” she said, breathless. Her mind raced to come up with a valid excuse for her spacey behavior. The slider he’d made and her dessert offering had been strokes of genius. Undoubtedly, the judges would think so too. “Wish they’d give us the results of the competition right away, instead of making us wait, you know?”
Priest’s expression blanked as he studied her. “Come with me.”
He held out his hand, and, unthinking, she grasped it, only realizing her mistake the second his fingers curled around hers. “Where are we going?”
Whisking them past contest staff and stragglers who’d watched the show, he peered down a dark hallway. Seemingly satisfied with what he found, he took them in one room and then the next before settling on the third. “Here,” he said, leading her forward, “for privacy.”
Overhead lighting filled the room, and Pep tried not to study her surroundings too hard. “Man, you take me to the best places.”
Boxes surrounded them on both sides, the paper’s overwhelming mustiness closing in on them. A fine layer of dust covered quite a few of the surfaces. She gave him about six minutes before her allergies kicked in, and then there’d be hell to pay. “What’s going on, Priest?”
He took two steps away from her, facing toward the now-closed door. His head dropped, and he spoke so softly, she almost didn’t hear him. “I never should have left things the way they were.”
Her breath caught. It took a reserve of strength to force out her whispered words. “What did you say?”
Priest turned, his gaze never coming up enough to meet hers. “I’ve thought about my behavior back then a million times over. I’ve twisted and turned it. Justified it and made it okay when it wasn’t. I’ve looked back, horrified, and I wish very much I’d done things differently.”
It wasn’t exactly an apology, but she knew his heart. “I’m a black woman living in the South. It’s not like I wasn’t going to encounter something like it at some point.”
“I should have done better by you. I should have—”
Resigned, she said, “I was willing to put up with the stares to be with you, Priest. Whatever ignorant people were going to throw our way, I thought we’d be able to handle together. When you started hanging around me, I figured you felt the same.”
Gray eyes flashed in the dim lighting, his gaze fixed on her. “I did.” He took a step forward. “I do.”
It was a long time ago, and what was done was done. A grown woman now, she no longer needed to rely on his strength to prove to herself she was worthy of love. Since then, she’d realized her self-worth didn’t hinge on one person’s behavior. But he was tainted in her mind. It pained her to think he could still be the same person from back then.
“I want to show you something,” he said. The starched chef’s jacket he’d donned for the competition slipped from his shoulders after he unloosed the long line of buttons at the front. “Have you ever really looked at my tattoos?” he asked as he folded it. His bare hand swiped a box top. The jacket was set there once he seemed to consider the surface clean enough.
She swallowed past a drying throat. Damn, he looked good in the sleeveless tee. Way good. The muscles of his arms flexed beneath the light, corded muscles almost shining in their beauty. The miserable lighting somehow managed to accentuate the sleeves of tats she regarded now. “No. Never had the chance.”
“Every one of these tattoos is here because of its significance in my life. Every one chosen with care. If you’re not really looking, it seems like they’re just a bunch of jumbled images, but those who look closely know better.” Static charged the air. “Come here and let me show you.”
“You don’t have to do this,” she muttered. What was going on with her heart? It beat so fast, as if it would race its way out of her chest at any moment.
“Look at this one.”
A smile curved her mouth. CIA. “We graduated high school together, but you still managed to graduate the Culinary Institute of America two years after me.”
“Good,” he said with a note of approval. “Everyone sees those letters and thinks clandestine service. I wanted to commemorate the schooling that’s brought me an incredible career and life. And this here? This slice of lemon meringue pie earned me a lot of ribbing over the years, but it’s the first dessert I finally mastered. My grandmother’s recipe.”
Pep smiled. “That’s very sweet.”
Priest lifted his left arm away from his body, turning the inside toward her. “Now look at this one. I had it placed exactly there so it would be pretty close to my heart.”
As she studied the swirling design, realization of what faced her sank in. Pepper’s breath caught, and she looked up at him sharply. “Priest?”
“I’ve never stopped thinking about you, Pepper. What we could have been. What we could be…”
She couldn’t keep her trembling fingers from tracing over the small gray container at the center of the swirl. It had a stylized P centered on its surface, but if that wasn’t enough to make someone recognize a pepper shaker, more had been done to the tattoo. Next to it, a small orange misshapen habanero had a vine interwoven with the stem of something that looked suspiciously like a jalapeno. Three different peppers.
“Give me a chance, sweetheart. I won’t let you down this time. Promise.” She couldn’t stop touching it. Couldn’t stop tracing over the vivid colors. “If it wasn’t for you, I probably wouldn’t be the person I am today. It changed me. You changed me. I never took the time to tell you, but I’m telling you now.”
The spotlight she craves could burn him alive…
Taking Her There
© 2013 Olivia Brynn
When Angeline Rowe emerges from six months in court-ordered detox, she isn’t surprised the paparazzi are waiting for her. But when she ducks into her car, eager to return to the comforts of home, she is surprised to see the familiar face of her driver.
Now that she’s sober, it’s nice to discover that he’s easy to talk to. In fact, he’s quite a flirt.
Starving artist Andre Salidas had to be begged to come back to work for “Hurricane Angeline”. Yet the snobby actress who fired him in a drunken rage is not the same one sitting in his car now. She’s fragile, vulnerable…intriguing.
Once back home, a little push and pull, back and forth pushes their flirtation to the next level. A few orgasms later, Andre has found his muse—until a cold blast from her past threatens to blow out the fire they’ve ignited.
Warning: Contains a mercurial actress and an artist who needs a little heat to get his creative juices flowing. Drop cloths recommended.
Enjoy the following excerpt for Taking Her There:
Angeline stared out the window as Andre took the exit off the interstate and weaved through the streets of her neighborhood. From the time she’d been voted Prom Queen as a sophomore in high school, Angeline had happily taken her place on top of the pedestal society set out for her. She liked it. Being in charge, calling the shots. Who wouldn’t?
Even with her very public downfall, she still had fans all over the world sending cards and letters. That still didn’t make the crowd currently camped out on her corner any more welcome. Several crude words bubbled through her brain, but she uttered only one.
“Fuck.”
“Yeah. Looks like we may have a problem.” Andre’s voice was steady as ever. “What do you think?”
“I think it’s going to be a long weekend.”
“You want to go through them, then?”
“That’s my house. You’re damn right we’re going through.” She’d tried driving away once. It only made the headlines worse.
The car inched through the mob, and reporters pressed so closely up against the car, she hoped the rear tire would catch a few toes. Their questions all jumbled together and were muted through the car windows, so even if she gave a damn, she wouldn’t be able to understand any one of them.
Andre pressed the button to open the huge gate door. “Is someone waiting for you?”
“No. I don’t have anyone.” Her surly words came out almost too morose. She sat up straighter as the gate closed behind them.
“Sure you do. I read about your family in Indiana. And you always have Percy.”
“Psh. I’m sure he’s e-mailing all his colleagues right now, trying to unload me.”
“You have me.”
Angeline let her mouth hang open while he pulled to a stop, then closed it as he got out and walked to the back door to open it for her. This guy was something else.
With the door open, she slid both bare feet out first, then emerged from the backseat as if she were arriving on the red carpet, to get her first clear look at the man she’d been casually chatting with over the past ninety minutes.
Nothing unusual about his black suit pants and jacket, black tie and crisp white shirt. Though she noticed for the first time how well the pants fit his long legs. When she looked into his face, she caught her breath.
She’d been starved of eye candy for way too long, because she didn’t remember him looking this damn good. Of course she’d probably never looked him in the eye until now. Long, angular features put together into a very appealing shape. Full lips that made her lick her own. Brooding eyes shadowed by the brim of his hat. He looked more like a college frat boy than a limo driver. The ponytail at his nape only added to his European appeal.
“Have a great day. Enjoy your new freedom.” He touched the brim of his cap in an old-fashioned gesture.
“You can’t leave.”
“Why not?”
Why not, Angeline? “Well…aren’t you going to carry in my things?”
He glanced into the limo beyond her, then raised one eyebrow. “You want me to carry your purse and shoes?”
She cocked her head. “I told you I don’t have any other staff. And you told me yourself I’m paying you extremely well. I think it’s the least you can do.”
With her chin high, she brushed past him and walked toward her house, ignoring the fact that her bare feet sounded anything but proud, and her house keys were inside the purse good old Andre would be carrying. To maintain control, she crossed her arms and waited on the veranda.
Turning to watch his progress, she got a great view of his backside as he bent over to lean into the car. Percy, I owe you big. Angeline bit her lower lip and groaned quietly, her hands itching to run through that long, black hair.
Mr. Tall, Dark and Handsome looked a bit ridiculous with her glittery handbag in one hand and her strappy heels dangling from the other. Though it did add a little bit of attractiveness when his purely masculine swagger sent them swinging. As he neared, she stuck out one hand, and he passed her the purse.
She reached into the pocket, which was pitifully empty besides her now-expired driver’s license and a six-month-old pack of gum, and pulled out her keys.
Andre said nothing as she opened the door and stormed through. Percy must have hired someone else to air out her house, because it didn’t have the stale scent of abandonment. Home at last.
She dropped her purse onto a table, then turned again to face him. “Well?”
He held out her shoes but didn’t cross the threshold.
“Just set them anywhere. Then you may return to your other duties.”
His eyes narrowed. A sultry look if ever there was one. He took three slow steps into the room, his focus on her the entire way. Even when he let her shoes drop to the floor, he didn’t look away. Or even blink.
Angeline’s heart thumped, and just as her vision seemed to blur, Andre Salidas showed up in hyper clarity. One more step and he was in her personal space. The twenty-four-inch radius that she rarely allowed anyone into. Alarms didn’t sound, and her ass-kicking instincts lay dormant.
“Do you know what I think?” His voice. God, his voice. Low and rumbly, it washed over her skin to tease each nerve ending with a gentle lick.
She swallowed. “What?”
“I think you do a lot of hiding behind that dominatrix façade you’ve built.” His coffee-tinged breath was warm on her cheek. “I think that’s probably how you get through your time isolated in your glass palace. Probably how you get through your day-to-day life being ordered around by directors and agents and”—he dropped his focus to her mouth when she licked her lips—“boyfriends.”
“You don’t know a damn thing about—”
“I know everything there is to know about you. Your whole life is an open book. You never used that mute button in all the time I’ve been driving you around. If I were anyone else, I’d blush.”
She took a step back “Then you know I don’t—I never hide.”
He took a step toward her, one side of his mouth curled in a knowing grin. “Sure you do. You hide behind your superstar status. Every time you stick your nose in the air, you’re trying to take attention off the lonely woman you really are. You showed the slightest hint of vulnerability in the car when Percy told you he trusted you. Even through that tinted glass, I saw the hardness in your face and body just melt away. It revealed the real you. Human. Feminine. That’s what you hide.”
Before she knew it, her back hit the wall. Andre hadn’t touched her, but rode her chest with barely three inches between them, and she had to curl her fingers into fists to refrain from reaching out to that heat.
“You get home, and that’s when you build your guard back up. You put on your ridiculous mask and put yourself back in charge. I can’t believe you ordered me to carry your fuck-me heels.”
She spared one glance at her shoes, then snapped her attention back on the man she had to crane her neck to see. “You…work for me.”
God, her voice sounded so damn weak. She stuck her chin out but refused to repeat herself.
“I’m your driver. When I’m behind that wheel, and when you’re in the backseat, you can send me in whatever direction you want, and I’ll take you there. But if you think about it…” He reached up to remove his cap, revealing a headful of shiny black hair, a halo of blue enticing her again to release the band at his nape and let the silky-looking strands flow free. “That still puts me in charge.”
A shiver tickled her spine. “What do you want?”
His mouth moved closer to her ear, and she let her eyes sli
de closed. “I want what you want. I want you to relax. Let me take over.”
Cravings
Dee Carney
The best chef wins…but their hearts could lose the prize.
Close to the Heat, Book 2
Chef Lee Solomon is so going down.
How dare he call a tow truck on Chef Ginger Danielle’s customers just because they might have been parked in front of his restaurant while dining at hers? So what if he’s gorgeous, successful, and a master of gourmet cuisine, it doesn’t mean he can do as he pleases.
When he suggests they settle their differences with an underground cooking competition, Ginger is all in. Her feel-good comfort food against his fancy fare? Game on!
Lee has tried to ignore how badly he wants to see Ginger in his bed, but he’s finished fighting it. Their antagonism—and their mutual lust—is at an all-time high; when it comes to this particular battle, he has no intention of losing. He’s set on seducing the petite chef, no matter what the cost to his profession.
But when it comes right down to it, his pride whispers that there can only be one winner. Does he give up the competition… or give up the girl?
Warning: Features a dirty talking chef, thousand-calorie recipes, and a very private menu of delicious seductions.
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