even asking you to pluck the feathers off a turkey. Just stir the damn gravy like this.” I stick the spoon in my left hand and start to stir while taking her hand in my right one. She doesn’t resist my touch, so I bring her hand up and wrap it around mine so she’s stirring with me.
When she continues to stir without complaint, I ease myself backward to give her space so she can move closer to the stove. She slides in front of me, causing me to tense up when her ass glides against the front of my jeans. Clearly, I miscalculated the space between where she would stand and the stove.
She doesn’t seem to notice, so I pull away slightly to give my entirely too eager cock some distance. It’s been months since I last felt the depths of a woman in that way. Surely the mere presence of a woman is making him react, not the fact that the woman is Maggie.
I look down to find the sauce already thickening nicely. “That’s it,” I say to her. “Slow and steady wins the race.”
I’m still trying to forget about my unintentional dry spell when Maggie turns to look at me over her shoulder then bats her lashes down and back up like she’s checking me out. Or maybe that’s just my imagination because when the slits of her lids lock on mine, her eyes are screaming murder.
“Think you can give me some space there, Chef? It’s getting a little hard to stir my gravy, if you know what I mean.” She winks, and I feel my face catch fire with her words.
Shit. Now I know what she was looking for with her quick glance down. She saw it. The strain against my jeans was clearly all for her.
“Can I trust you to keep it at that pace?”
She nods without turning around again. “Of course, boss. I won’t stop until you say the word.”
I smirk, unable to help the flirtation that wants to combat her every breath. “I prefer it when you call me Chef.”
With a pop of her hip she nudges me away. I chuckle and turn around to see Faye’s gaze locked on us both. Then she catches my stare and raises her brows in some secret question I wish I could ignore. Something is on her mind, and I’m sure I’ll be hearing about it later. Why do I feel like that something has to do with my hot new assistant?
I just shake my head to tell Faye that whatever she’s thinking is wrong, but when Faye looks back at Maggie with a deep look of concentration on her face, I start to worry. Maggie clearly lacks professionalism, which doesn’t bode well for landing a huge opportunity like the one Faye wants to pitch to her producers. Maybe Faye is turned off by the fact that I could hire someone so desperately challenged in the kitchen. Feelings of fear, anger, and doubt swirl through me. I swear, if Maggie messes this opportunity up for me…
Pushing away the internal battle in my head, I make my rounds to chat with the students before coming back to check on Maggie at the main stove. She hasn’t altered her movements a bit, which earns a sigh of relief. I turn the heat down and point at the stove.
“Have you ever basted a turkey?”
She shakes her head and folds her arms across her chest. “No, and I have no desire to learn how.”
“That’s too bad because I’m going to teach you.”
“What? No. I don’t know what you’re about to ask me to do, but that sounds like it’s crossing the line.”
I slip on an oven mitt, open the door, slide out the rack a couple inches. Then I pull out the turkey and set it on the island. After shutting the door, I turn to her with a serious face. I’ve gone easy on her today, but I don’t want her to lose sight of why she’s here. “There’s no line. The only arrangement we made was that you would get a break on rent in exchange for taking Gretta’s place as my assistant. Gretta never argued with anything I asked her to do.”
Maggie laughs. “Really? So then where is she now?”
I glare. “Are we going to have this argument every time I ask you to help me? I don’t want to bicker with you in the middle of class.”
“Fine,” she groans. “Just tell me what to do.”
If only