Love, Chocolate, and Beer (Cactus Creek) (16 page)

“Xoey calls it my evil grin. Figures it’d make
you
all hot and bothered.” She smothered a cute nose-scrunching smile.

Yet another adorable turn-on for him. Then again, nothing about Dani seemed to turn him
off
. He smoothed a thumb along her knuckles affectionately. “Okay, so if you weren’t flashing that insidious grin to raise my blood pressure, could it simply be that you’ve been thinking about the video you just launched?”

Dani’s face was a mask of restrained curiosity. “Oh, so you’ve seen it?”

“I kind of figured you wanted me to. What with your blatant twitter taunt this afternoon.”

When he provided no further comment, she jabbed him in the ribs. “C’mon! I gave you feedback on your video. Tell me what you thought of ours.”

“Eh.”

Her eyes narrowed to annoyed slits.

God, she was fun to tease. He continued military silence until she unleashed a piqued kitten growl. “Okay, okay.” He kept a straight face and lied outrageously, “It was abysmal.”

In disbelieving amusement, her lips quirked to the side. “That bad huh? And yet our
abysmal
video still managed to acquire nearly as many hits as yours already. Go figure.”

“Ah, but let’s give credit where credit is due. That was mostly Quinn and you know it. When she turned this little wager of ours into the online frenzy linked to our promotional events and videos, she put us on the cyber map. With the amount she’s been tweeting, facebooking, and blogging, the Arizona college population alone is putting in hundreds of views a day.”

“You’re right,” admitted Dani. “I saw all the cyber buzz she’s been getting out there. She’s really firing everyone up for this throwdown.”

“And you’re providing some particularly flammable fuel.” Humor colored his tone. “The shot of the Desert Confections chocolate box just as Evan blew out the candles on their crappy date? Nice touch.”

“Caught that, did you?” An effervescent giggle rippled out of her as she patted her back.

“Yep. And somehow tricking Quinn into practically demanding that you
allow
Rissa and Evan to star in your video? Very impressive. Superhero caliber, even.”

“I remember you said she has a younger sister.” She grinned. “Being one myself, I just dusted off the old techniques I used to annoy my brother with. Quinn never stood a chance.”

He laughed. “So far, you’re proving yourself a worthy adversary, Miss Dobson.”

“Oh, you haven’t seen anything yet.” Her eyes danced.

The woman could even make unrelenting competitiveness look sexy. Bewitched, Luke leaned over, eyes locked on her simpering lips in an I’m-about-to-kiss-you sort of way.

…Only to have her shift away at the last second.

Not without a spark of hunger in her eyes and a soft, frustrated sigh, however.

“I’m sorry,” he apologized immediately, kicking himself for not holding to his own assurances that this wasn’t a date. He wanted her trust. But dammit did he want that kiss, too.

“Don’t be,” she said quickly, quietly. “It’s not that I don’t want to. Believe me. It’s just… Well, besides that first night in the storage closet… Basically, this would be our first
official
...even if it’s not a date…” She trailed off with a frustrated huff—tongue-tied and gaze locked on her shoes.

His eyes widened in understanding.
She’s nervous.
With first kiss jitters. The woman was just so unbelievably cute. Not allowing her another second to retreat back into her head, back over that wall she’d erected after their careers and the throwdown got in the way of what they’d started back in that storage closet, he circled his arm around her waist and drew her body flush against his. He drank in the tail end of her gasp as he bent down to quickly brush his lips over hers, nearly growling when she responded like a lit fuse.

Finally
. He’d waited over a month to feel her in his arms again. And it was every bit worth the wait. Tilting his head, he deepened the kiss, knowing it was already far deeper, hotter, just…more than the ones they’d shared as strangers the night they met.

Christ, it was sweet.

When Luke eventually lifted his lips away—almost needing to see for himself that this wasn’t just one incredible wet dream—an accidental confession slipped out from under her breath. It was quiet, but he heard it:
Best first kiss ever
.

With a groaned sigh born of pure tenderness, he leaned in to collect a second kiss. Then a third. Soon, he lost count. He slid his hands through the silken strands of her hair, reveling in the fantasy of that simple touch as well. It had been torture over the weeks watching those smooth, sleek espresso rich strands barely kiss the tops of her shoulders whenever she moved, remembering the feel of the satin waterfall against his jawline when his teeth had scored over her collarbone.

Jesus.
So much better than his memories. Every apple-scented square inch of her fit in his arms even better than his memories.

Breathing heavily, Luke looked down to see that her eyes were still closed and his imagination swiftly whipped to an image of her looking like that in bed. His bed. “You’re killing me, sweetheart.” Her shivery cat-content smile didn’t help any. “Unless you want me to throw you over my shoulder and head to my place—if we make it that far—you need to open your eyes.”

She did.

And he swallowed another deep groan.

Pure pleasure mingled with unabashed desire in her eyes. He blindfolded her with his hands. “Never mind. Keep ‘em shut. If you keep looking at me like that, I don’t think I’ll be able to stop myself from jumping you.”

This time, when he peeked at her eyes, they were twinkling with amusement.

“You’re forever amused at getting me all hot and bothered,” he mock complained.

“About that,” cut in Dani, hesitantly. “Errr, our hot and bothered tendencies, that is…”

“Yeah?” His voice was tighter now, just this side of gritty.

“I know we’ve established that you’re a recovering serial monogamist and I’m...”

“Not?” he supplied helpfully.

“Yes, thank you. I am enjoying this non-date, however. And I’d really love nothing more than to drop the ‘non’ part from the title…”

A smile stretched across his face. “Yeah?”

“
But
,” she interrupted quickly. “I think you and I look at dating far differently. So, I’ve been thinking about some sort of casual, preliminary trial runs first. I mean we work next door to each other, so if things go sour, life would start sucking pretty quickly around here.”

He frowned. “So…you’re suggesting ‘pre-dating’ dates?”

Blushing scarlet, she shrugged and looked at the ground. “I guess so.”

Cautious woman. He tilted her face back up so she could see his eyes when he answered her truthfully. As long as he got to be with her, he didn’t care how they labeled their time together. “I don’t need a trial run to know I want to be with you. But if you need us to go out on some friendly pre-dates to test the waters, I’m on board. Whatever you need.”

Holding her hand up, she clarified, “Friendly, meaning no sex.” She paused, avoiding his eyes for a second. “Just because I’m not into serious relationships doesn’t mean I’m easy.”

He jerked back, startled. “Dani, I never once thought that.”

She turned away. “Considering the way we met, I wouldn’t blame you if you did.”

He cupped a hand against her warm cheek. “I don’t.”

“Then you wouldn’t mind being totally chaste for a few friendly pre-dates?”

“Few, meaning two?” he teased with a fair measure of hopeful seriousness.

Her shy laughter effectively shot that suggestion down. “I was thinking more like ten.”

Ten?!
He blinked at her as if she’d gone insane. It wasn’t about not wanting to wait, but rather, not being
able
to. After a beat, he sighed and kissed her lightly on the lips. Chastely. “However many you want to have is fine with me, sweetheart.”

When he promptly stepped back to keep things from getting too friendly, he saw her frown. Her eyes were locked on his lips as she waffled, “Of course, I’m willing to negotiate…”

“Really?” A smile played at the corners of his lips as he pulled her in for another kiss. This one long and deep. His version of negotiating.

“Seven?” she amended breathlessly after that rather excellent rebuttal point.

Luke looked at her for a moment before stepping back again, this time to lift his hand palm up to show her the almost invisible tremor plaguing him. “See this? It’s been happening more frequently lately. I’ll be minding my own business, working on my chocolates, and find my mind wandering over to thoughts of you. Then
boom
, I get the shakes,” he revealed quietly. “It’s crazy. My hands didn’t shake even when I first began chocolatiering.” Seeing her concern, he let his voice warm affectionately. “Now don’t go thinking this is the chocolatier’s version of the blue balls defense because it’s not—I don’t have the shakes from lack of getting some. I get them because it’s you.” He cupped her cheek lightly. “Seven dates, ten—hell we can wait thirty. However long you need, Dani. I’m happy just being with you.”

“Five dates it is then,” she conceded with a wobbly smile, leaning against his chest and burrowing her face at the groove of his neck, as if she were made to fit exactly there.

His arms locked around her. “Looks like I’m going to have to make a new line of jagged chocolates until then,” he muttered before sealing their deal with a kiss.

* * * * *

GENTLY, DANI ROLLED
a small lump of chocolate ganache into a ball, highly skeptical that the brown Play-Doh-looking sphere was going to turn out anything remotely similar to the beautiful truffles on display in the front of Luke’s chocolatiering class.

Since her Thursday night had freed up at the last minute, Luke had suggested she crash his class. At least she let him think it was all his idea. Her hints had been pretty subtle. And of course she’d accepted his invite to cross into enemy territory; it would’ve been rude to decline.

She couldn’t believe how much she’d learned already. Luke really was a gifted teacher. He’d taken them from tempering chocolate to making ganache almost effortlessly. She hadn’t even known what ganache was at the start of class but in a short half hour, she was emulsifying finely chopped
couverture
chocolate like a pro, gradually adding hot heavy cream and mixing it slowly and constantly until it was smooth enough to fold in softened butter. The science of it all was particularly fascinating.

Left to her own devices, Dani would’ve just emulsified the chocolate by throwing fully melted butter in with the liquid and whipping it all up in her blender like she did her pesto mayonnaise—a terrible mistake, as Luke showed them, which would cause the ganache to break, and look more like something a diarrheic canine left behind. Nothing at all like the gloriously shiny, emulsified chocolate that good, creamy ganache should look like.

Look at her, talking like an expert.

While the ganache they’d just learned to make was for them to take home since it still needed to cool and dry overnight, Luke had premade a batch for them to practice making truffles with next. When he’d first told the thirty women who’d signed up for the class that they’d be making truffles tonight, everyone seemed leery that it was too lofty a goal. Dani included. But evidently, truffles were actually one of the easiest chocolate confections to make, the base being a modified ganache adjusted to a thicker density with flavors infused into the mix at differing stages. The one Luke had them work with had boysenberry cream and hazelnut oil emulsified into the ganache during mixing. Yu-um! Dani kept ‘accidentally’ smudging some on her knuckles and nails, which, of course, required her to promptly lick it off.

Surveying the sticky ‘truffle’ ball she’d been rolling for a while now, she was starting to think she’d done something wrong. It did
not
look good. Dani glanced around and saw the other students frowning at their own lumpy balls with the same disappointment. That’s when Luke put them out of their misery and revealed the trick to achieving the silky smooth, perfectly rounded truffle shape—he used a fork to dip the balls into another bowl of hot ganache to make a smooth outer layer
before
he dusted it with the powdered cocoa coating. Sneaky.

Tickled, Dani followed suit with her own ganache ball, choosing the alternative he’d suggested of a decorative drizzle-coated finish topped with powdered sugar for a different look. Luke was great about explaining where and how they could adjust recipes for their own tastes and design aesthetics. Not surprisingly, the time flew by as they did increasingly cooler things, including using sheets with striking art patterns on them to transfer designs onto the chocolates.

Two hours later, Dani proudly finished the final design on her fourth chocolate creation. She sat down to admire her work. It had come out beautifully.