Did he show you some weaknesses tonight?” Vivian asked.
No, she thought. She’d shown herself some weaknesses and she knew that she had to figure out how to turn that into a strength. She could do it. She just had to remember … what? She had no idea how to handle Remy and she knew it.
She’d known it from the moment she’d crashed into his arms in the elevator. He rattled her and she’d thought that by being her usual bold self she could gain the upper hand, but he’d turned that against her. How had he known that would work? But she thought maybe he hadn’t known for sure and had only chanced upon … wait, a second, she thought. He didn’t realize he’d thrown her. He’d been too engrossed in what had been going on with himself.
She had to remember how her grandmother had admonished her many times when she’d been growing up. Not everything was about her.
“So?”
“Sorry, Viv. He’s a great chef and it’s going to take a lot of skill to beat him,” she said. “He took the chef’s dish and made it taste even better. You know that’s saying a lot.”
“Dang. Well, I will tell you that Dan doesn’t have any butchering skills. He made a mess of the fish tonight. He couldn’t get a steak out of a salmon. I mean that’s first year skills, right?” Vivian asked.
“Yes, it is. But he did make that rub that Lorenz liked. We might have to watch out for his flavors.”
“True. I’m ready for the individual challenges but the team ones worry me,” she admitted.
“Me, too,” Staci said. “I hate having to depend on anyone other than myself.”
They chatted a while longer about the competition until slowly everyone got ready for bed. Vivian put in her iPod headphones and switched off her light. She drifted off to sleep a little after midnight, but Staci was still wide awake.
Questions ran through her head and images of the dishes she’d eaten that night flashed through her mind. She took her journal and got out of bed. Pulling on a sweatshirt, she then walked through the quiet house to the deck that overlooked the ocean. The moon was full, lending some light to the evening and she sat down on one of the padded deck chairs, letting the soothing sound of the ocean ease her confusion.
She opened her notebook and started writing about what she’d eaten and cooked that night. She wasn’t too surprised to see that Remy featured in her notes. She focused on him, finding the part that made sense and the many things that didn’t. Her sauce had been her downfall. Kissing him … no, that had been the thing that had knocked her off her game. Until that moment she’d been fine.
She’d teased him and it had backfired. But only because she hadn’t been prepared for him to be as bold as she had been. And that had been a mistake she wouldn’t make again.
“Can I join you?”
She glanced around to see Remy standing in the doorway. He wore a pair of faded jeans and a long sleeved black t-shirt that molded his upper body. He held a mug in his hand and had bare feet.
She nodded and gestured toward the chair next to her.
He sat down, leaning against the back of the lounge chair and saying nothing for a long minute or two. He sipped his hot drink and she felt that he was toying with her, but when she looked over at him she saw he wasn’t.
Not everything is about you, she reminded herself again.
“Why can’t you sleep?” she asked.
“Quinn snores,” he said. “But I’m too restless from cooking tonight. If I was home I’d be in the kitchen trying all the different dishes that are in my head.”
“Same here. It was inspiring to see what Chef Ramone had done. I mean he started from really humble roots.”
“Yes, he did. My grandfather says all good cooking comes from the heart,” Remy said.
“Was that what inspired you tonight? I’ve never tasted that combination of spices before.”
He shrugged and took another sip from his mug. “I think I was inspired by something a little lower than my heart.”
That startled her and she stared across the space between them trying to ascertain if he was telling the truth or not. And she saw in his eyes that he was. He wanted her.
She put down her notebook, stood up and moved over to sit facing him.
“Are you trying to say that your groin inspired the dish?” she asked, putting her hands against the back of the chair on either side of his face.
“Yes, I am. There was something fiery in that kiss I stole from you,” he said. “My dish was a pale imitation of it.” He leaned up, tunneling his fingers through her hair and drawing her head down to his and this time when their lips met, she opened her mouth over his, running her tongue along the seam of his lips before thrusting it teasingly into his mouth.
He moaned, angling his head to the right to deepen their kiss. His hands slid down her shoulders to her waist and he drew her closer to him. She straddled his lap, tried to taste more of him. God, he was addicting.
And addictions seldom were a good thing, she tried to remind herself but for the moment, logic wasn’t in control and she wanted more of the passion Remy inspired.
4
A HOT WOMAN IN HIS LAP wasn’t what he’d anticipated tonight but to be honest there was nothing he wanted more. He was high on the exhilaration of the dish he’d created. He felt as if everything inside of him had been pushing toward this interlude. He didn’t have all the answers he’d been seeking but thanks in part to Staci he’d found a few of them.
Sliding his arms up and down her back, she shifted to accommodate him, her hands still framing his face. Her fingers were delicate and cool against his beard-stubbled chin; he rubbed his face against her hands breaking the contact with her mouth.
She exhaled a long drawn out sigh as she shifted her weight to settle back on her ankles.
“What am I going to do with you?” she asked.
But he could tell she wasn’t really expecting an answer from him. It was more of a question that he’d bet she wasn’t even aware she’d muttered out loud. He smoothed his hands over her back, she felt so ethereal in his arms. Like the fairies his little sister collected when they’d been children. Staci didn’t belong in this world, yet there was something very real about her.
He felt like the wrong move would send her skittering back into the house and into a permanent retreat.
He wasn’t much for being tentative. It went against his hot-blooded Cajun nature. But he was willing to do what was necessary to keep Staci here tonight. He needed her. He wasn’t sure how or why but he knew that she’d inspired him tonight and he wanted to keep that energy going.
“Kiss me again,” he said as the breeze off the Pacific stirred around them.
She tipped her head to the side. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”
“Hell, yes, I’m a guy after all.”
She smiled at him but the expression didn’t reach her eyes and he sensed there was a feeling of sadness in her. He remembered the boy she’d mentioned who’d believed he’d been in love with her.
Remy wanted to know more about Staci. He needed to, yet at the same time he recognized that if he was going to win, and prove to himself what needed proving, he couldn’t let her be the first one to make him back down from a challenge.
Yet that very action was impossible. There had been other women in his life but none of them had ever inspired him to cook the way he had tonight. There was no denying it. He could only hope that he’d be able to control his need for Staci. He knew that men who played with fire did get burned.
“But