I looked down at the dog standing perfectly next to his side, in a heeling position my dog would never get in a million years.
“Hey, Ella!” I said, crouching to pet her. She didn’t move.
“Go ahead,” he said, and she came to me.
I glanced up as I sank my fingers in her silky coat. “Wow. Good manners.”
“She’s amazing,” he said. “Come on in the kitchen.”
I raised an eyebrow and followed him. And tried not to look blown away.
Duncan’s house was amazing. He donned what appeared to be a black leather apron, picked up a knife, and started dicing something in a kitchen the size of my living room, kitchen, and utility room put together. Warm, creamy granite adorned the countertops and backsplashes and was inlaid into the tile floor. Who the hell was this guy? Even Ella appeared to realize how nice her home was, walking very carefully around her bowls of food and water so as not to spill any on the tile.
Gracie would have attacked hers with all the grace of a Tasmanian devil. My place wouldn’t stay this clean if I had paid professionals around the clock. Granted, it would probably only take them a half hour to hit my whole house.
The most beautiful fruit I’d ever seen sat shiny in a large wooden bowl. Glass bottles of all different shapes and sizes lined the backsplash area, holding all those colored pastas and olives and what I could only assume were pickled something-or-others. I wouldn’t know. My specialty was cheeseburger lasagna. I could put any kind of meat on a pit. And I could whip up a killer spinach dip.
“Wow, this is—wow,” I said, taking in everything and failing in my attempt to be cool about it. “What a beautiful home.”
Duncan looked up and smiled, something very genuine in his eyes. “Thank you,” he said. “I do try to make it a home, not just some bachelor pad.”
“Oh, this—is no bachelor pad,” I said on a quiet chuckle. I looked around at the dark woodwork, the stone inlaid into the walls, the custom built-in shelving that lined the wall of his living room, all visible from the very open plan of the kitchen. It was an entertaining kind of house, but warm and inviting at the same time.
And the security was very subtle and clever. Motion detectors were built into the ceiling beams, nearly undetectable. Tiny cameras peeked from discreet nooks and crannies you’d never see. Unless you were me.
Even more intriguing was that he knew how to live there. Over there cooking like a chef on a TV show, all cozy in his own skin, with possibly the sexiest apron I’d ever seen on a man. They needed to mass produce those things. They needed those at the butcher shop instead of those crappy white ones, although I guess they were more practical for everyday abuse—and shit, I was picturing Ian in one.
“So, how long have you lived here?” I asked, forcing my brain to move on. I sat on a bar stool across from him as he worked, chopping something red into tiny pieces. I knew the answer of course. I’d seen him his first day on the job, five months ago.
“Almost a year,” he said, however, surprising me. “I worked in Katyville for a while,” he added, as if sensing my next question.
“Oh, okay.”
“My brother and I came into some inheritance after our dad passed away,” he said, scooping up the red things and tossing them into a pot. “And this house just called to me.”
“I’m sorry about your dad,” I said.
Duncan shook his head. “No need to be. He was a—” He stopped short and glanced up, an apologetic grin on his face. “He wasn’t a great guy.”
I smiled and raised an eyebrow. “He sure made certain you were taken care of.”
Duncan focused back on stirring whatever was in the pot, and I had the feeling that topic was over. So the perfect man had a crack in the veneer after all.
“Can I help you with anything?” I asked, really hoping he’d say no but feeling silly just sitting there like a customer in a private restaurant. “Boil water? Stir something?”
He grinned. “Sure, come here.”
Oh, crap. I stepped around where Ella was sitting like the Queen of Sheba and joined him, totally rewarded with the aroma of subtle aftershave and the faint scent of leather. And probably the food, too, but in that second those blue eyes locked down on me and I remembered why I always forgot my own name around him.
“Stir this sauce for me,” he said, his hand on my shoulder. “Just keep it from sticking is all.”
“Oh, the pressure,” I said, joking, although not really. If he knew just how untalented I was at such things, he would never trust me with it. “Smells amazing, though.”
“It’s for the roasted potatoes,” he said. “They’re in the oven, there’s a chilled zucchini salad in the fridge, and the meat is marinating to do last. I’ll sear them and put them in when I pull the potatoes out.”
I glanced sideways at him. “Did you go to chef school as well as vet school?”
He laughed. “I took some night classes a few years ago. I’ve always loved to cook. It calms me. It has an order, you know? Like an art form just waiting for the different flavors to play off each other.” He gave me a look. “I don’t get to do it for other people much, though. This is nice.”
I felt the old wigglies inside that I always got with him. The ones that always made me feel all girly and stupid and wonder if that’s what other women were talking about. Ian was the only guy who’d ever made me feel things, but that was more primal. With Duncan, it was like stepping into the wrong movie theater, where you think it’s going to be the badass adventure movie but it’s the romantic comedy. And you stay and end up warm and confused and liking it.
“See, no asparagus,” he whispered against my ear.
And holy shit-fuck, that changed up the movie on a dime. My blood took off like it was ignited with jet fuel. I was so proud of myself for not dropping the spoon, not to mention continuing to stir without missing a turn.
“Ha ha,” I said weakly as he moved past me, trailing a hand on my back as he did.
The hand on my back.
The backs of my eyes burned a little and I blinked rapidly to turn that crap back around and get the hell away. No, no, no.
“I’m pretty sure you wouldn’t have any trouble finding people to cook for,” I said. “If you asked, I’d bet you would have quite the line down your driveway.”
Duncan chuckled as he pulled the pan of potatoes from the oven and covered them with foil. “Well, I guess I’m choosy,” he said, turning those eyes of his my way. “Took me forever just to ask you.”
I stopped stirring and tilted my head at him. “You only asked me because I flubbed up this morning—after asking
you.”
He smiled to himself and walked closer, turning me gently back to the stovetop and taking both the spoon and my hand and resuming the motion.
“Keep stirring,” he said softly, sending goose bumps over my entire body.
Oh, dear lord, he smelled good, and with his hand over mine like that, I was barely even remembering that other person.
“And for the record,” he said, still holding the spoon with me, stirring in slow, methodical, maddening figure eights, “I’ve wanted to ask you out for a while. You just got there first.”
I looked up and over my shoulder at him, smiling softly, attempting something like demure. Something completely out of my range. “Is that right?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Damn, he was sexy, and all my little nerve endings knew it. I had to look back down at the pot before I did something reckless like lick him. Still, there was that annoying little bug in my ear, buzzing around, needing to be swatted. Duncan needed to swat it. He needed to up it from sexy to steamy, so I could be totally on my game. A week ago, I would have already been a melted puddle in his kitchen.
Then again, maybe this was better. I wasn’t hyperventilating or sweating through my ugly underwear. Yet.
• • •
Dinner was orgasmic.
The steak was perfect, every bite nearly dissolving into flavor upon contact with my tongue. The potatoes were salty and sweet at the same time and whatever the hell I’d had to keep stirring was to die for. I was really grateful for the granola bars earlier, because as it was I was nearly slurping off the plate.
“Mmm,” I moaned for probably the fifteenth time, as I mixed a bite of meat and sauce. When I opened my eyes that I’d closed in the throes of ecstasy, Duncan was watching.
I felt the color flood my neck up to my scalp.
“Yes?” I said, swallowing quickly.
He smiled and gave a slow shake of his head, studying me reverently.
“I love watching you eat,” he said.
Oh, God. My jaw dropped, the pink of my neck and face felt like it went neon with mortification, and he laughed as he set down his fork.
“No, I mean, I’ve never seen a woman have such a visceral reaction to taste,” he said.
I grabbed the water glass I’d opted for instead of wine, although I was beginning to rethink that decision if he was going to throw around words like
visceral.
“I do love good food,” I said, trying to shrug off the glowing heat. “I don’t know how to make any of it, but I do know how to appreciate it.”
Duncan chuckled again over his wineglass. “Well, I’ll have to see what I can do about that.”
That sounded suspiciously like second date code and sent my stomach into the shimmies, especially the way his eyes settled on me, all solid and unblinking. Like we’d been together for a month instead of one coffee date. I could get used to being looked at like that.
“I’m glad I didn’t blow it too badly this morning,” I managed to say as my heartbeat sped up. “I might have missed all this.”
He shook his head slowly, not breaking eye contact. “Honestly, you could have probably thrown your second cup of coffee on me, too, and I would have still asked you over.”
“Really?”
His eyes narrowed playfully. “Is that admitting too much?”
“Maybe that you like—”
Pain? Don’t go there.
“—a challenge?”
Amusement tugged at his lips. “Maybe. Or it could just be you. Are you a challenge?”
“Completely,” I said, bringing a deep laugh from him. I took the last bite of potatoes and worked really hard not to make a sound. “Seriously, you could be a chef, Duncan,” I said. “Did you ever think about that?”
He shrugged and speared a potato. “For a little while I kind of played with the idea. Took those classes I mentioned and fantasized about the white jacket.”
A chuckle bubbled up. “You would totally rock the jacket.”
The sexy grin that played on his face just about rocked
me
. “Well, that’s good to know,” he said. “Maybe one day I’ll retire from scrubs and trade up.”
“So you didn’t always want to be a vet?” I asked.
“Nope, I wanted to be a pilot,” he said. “Or a cowboy.”
“Well!” I said, laughing. “Lofty goals.”
His gaze turned down in a mock show of despair. “Turns out I wasn’t really cut out to be a cowboy,” he said.
“Damn, the luck.”
“I know,” he said. “It really broke my spirit. I was all about the horses.”
I grinned. “And the pilot idea?”
His playfulness waned for a microsecond. “My brother, Cole, ended up going that route and it kind of stole my thunder a little.”
“He’s a pilot?”
Duncan nodded. “In the air force.” His mouth curved on one side as he moved his food around his plate. “Honestly, by the time I got to that point, I was sick of hearing about it. I went another way.”
“So, where is your brother now?”
“In Germany, I think,” he said.
I let the pause ride. “You think?”
He glanced up from his plate, giving me an amused look. “Do you need a reference?”
I let a laugh warm the chill and took that note as well. “I just know my sister wouldn’t go a week without talking to me in some way is all,” I said. “I could probably go two.” I winked at him. “Tops.”
He smiled at me as if I were just the most entertaining thing he’d ever seen. I didn’t know whether to be flattered or insulted by that.
“We aren’t that close,” he said. “He got divorced last year, she left, he went back on duty, and—” Duncan gestured behind him to where Ella lay gracefully on her pillow. “I got the dog.”
“That was your brother’s dog?”
“Carrie’s actually. His ex-wife,” he said, shaking his head. “Cole and I may not always see eye to eye on things, but she was a piece of work.”
“And just left you her dog?” I realized I was obsessing, and probably not over the right things, but I couldn’t imagine just leaving your dog behind forever.
“She left Ella with Cole. He left her with me.” Duncan shrugged. “What was I gonna do, leave her with the garbage man? No. She’s a sweetheart.”
The good guy. Damn, this was the good guy. The one I never managed to find. Rescues dogs from broken homes.
Feel that heart flutter, Savi? That’s the real deal.
“So,” I said. “You cook like a chef, have a perfect home, a perfect dog. Please tell me you have a flaw.” Duncan started laughing and I continued. “Dirty shoes under the bed or something? Some kind of guilty pleasure?”