Flirting with Temptation - By Kelley St. John Page 0,93
got to turn that out.”
He made some very male grunting sound as he rolled over, leaned up on one arm and squinted at her. “Turn what out?”
“The bread dough. Don’t you smell it?”
He inhaled, and apparently noticed that the entire apartment was filled with the sweet tang of yeast. “I do now.” Then he laughed. “You’re making your own bread now too?”
“Don’t sound so shocked. I’m learning something new every day with my cooking lessons. So far, I can make four meals and two breakfasts.”
She entered the kitchen and turned the bread dough onto the cookie sheet she’d already sprinkled with flour. Then she saw him sleepily crossing the living room wearing nothing but a pair of boxers. She laughed. “It’s midnight. I can remember a time when your nights were just getting started at midnight.”
“And then I grew up.”
She laughed again, clapped her hands and then waved them over the big cream-colored blob. “Look at it! It looks just like when Hannah did it.”
“You have a bread machine?”
“It was in the condo when I got here. And this is sweet dough, perfect for making cinnamon rolls. I used Hannah’s secret recipe, and according to her, it’s foolproof.”
“Cinnamon rolls.”
“The best cinnamon rolls, according to everyone at Sunny Beaches.”
“Planning on eating them all by yourself?” he asked casually, and she looked up into those perfect eyes and saw that there was the slightest hint of curiosity to his look.
“I’d planned on taking whatever I didn’t eat over to Sunny Beaches, but—”
“But?”
“If you’d like to stay and have some with me in the morning, I’d like that too. I mean, tonight, us. Was that just one time, or did you—would you want more?” She’d kind of assumed they’d be together again, then she realized that she may have made a hasty assumption. Just because the thought of not having him inside her again made her miserable didn’t mean he felt the same way.
“I want more.”
There you go. Now, naturally, her mind was asking, “More what?” More sex, and only sex? Or more . . . everything. And did he realize that she was ready to commit now? Or had she blown the whole I-can-commit-to-something when she slept with the guy that she was supposed to be fixing up with someone else? And shouldn’t the fact that she was in love with him, so he was different from any other Love Doctor assignment, enter into the equation?
“I suppose we’re going to do something else to this before we move on to more, right?” he asked, indicating the bread dough, all fat with plump yeast bubbles popping out of the sides.
“You’re going to help?”
“Why not? I like cinnamon rolls too. Maybe I’ll learn to make them for myself. I actually think my condo has one of these machines, but I’ve never taken the initiative to learn to use it.”
While she and Jeff had done lots of things together throughout their unusual relationship, cooking wasn’t on the list, and the fact that he was interested in doing something so domestic with her pleased her more than she could imagine. She smiled. “It’s really easy to use. You take the ingredients on the recipe, put them in the machine and select the dough setting. When it’s risen long enough, the machine beeps. Then you turn out the dough on the floured cookie sheet.” She shrugged. “You’re supposed to use a cutting board, but I couldn’t find one in here, and the cookie sheet worked okay last time, when Rose and Hannah taught me. Actually, I could’ve probably left it in the machine until the next step, but this is the way Rose and Hannah did it.”
“I’d follow what they did.”
“Yeah, that’s what I figured too.”
“So now what do we do?” He moved closer, and the warmth of him nearly made her decide to forgo the cinnamon rolls, take him on to the bedroom for the “more” he’d mentioned and then head out for doughnuts in the morning. But he really did look excited, or interested, about working with the dough, and admittedly, cooking in the kitchen with Jeff excited her too.
“We follow the recipe,” she said, pointing to the open book on the counter. “What does it say?”
He ran his finger down the page, got to the portion after the primary recipe for the dough and read, “Pour five tablespoons melted butter in the bottom of pan, then sprinkle with a half cup of brown sugar.” He looked up. “Have you got melted butter?”