Total pages in book: 81
Estimated words: 76846 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 384(@200wpm)___ 307(@250wpm)___ 256(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 76846 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 384(@200wpm)___ 307(@250wpm)___ 256(@300wpm)
I don’t ever remember being so consumed with the idea of a man before. Maybe because the focus in the past had been almost exclusively on my schooling and career.
Now that said career was kind of crumbling, I guess I had more mental space for thoughts of Elian to slip in.
I was actually kind of disappointed when I went into the condo to find him fully clothed.
“Bad day?” he asked when I let out a deep sigh as I kicked out of my shoes, then walked barefoot over to where Kevin was hanging out on his tree stand, lazily patting at the swinging yarn ball that hung from it.
“He didn’t even come in today,” I told Elian. “Hey, bud. Did you have a fun day in a new place?” I asked, getting a little purr out of him in response.
“I’m sorry. I know you really wanted to be done with this,” he said as I made my way back to the kitchen, where he was standing in a plain black tee and slacks. “Are you interested in wine?” he asked, waving toward a bottle of red he had breathing on the island.
“Only if you won’t judge me for putting ice cubes in it,” I said.
I knew alcohol could be a migraine trigger, but I could really use something to release some of the tension that had crept into my neck and shoulders. And, well, other places as well.
Elian grabbed a wineglass, slipped a few ice cubes into it, then poured me a glass. While my horny self watched the way his forearm muscles moved with each motion, thinking of other things that might make those muscles twitch and tense in similar ways.
“You alright?” Elian asked, picking up on something strange in my face, leaving me praying that he wasn’t great at reading desire.
“Yeah,” I agreed, giving him a small smile as I reached for my glass. “Thank—“ I started to say before our fingers brushed on the glass, and I swear a spark sizzled up my arm. “Thanks,” I said, ignoring the slight husky sound to my voice. “So, what are you cooking?” I asked.
The tomato scent was much stronger now. But this close, I could make out hints of other scents. Garlic, oil, basil, and oregano.
“Cheese ravioli,” he said, going over to the counter to grab a large metal bowl, bringing it back to the island, sprinkling some flour on the surface, and then dropping a ball of dough onto the concrete countertop.
“From scratch?” I asked, mouth falling open.
To that, Elian’s brows scrunched. “How else is there to make it?” he asked.
“Well, from the freezer,” I admitted, suddenly feeling a little stupid because, obviously, someone had to roll the dough and fill the ravioli before freezing it.
“You haven’t lived until you’ve had it fresh,” he assured me, producing some weird, wavy metal utensil that he used to slice the dough ball in half, putting some of it back into the bowl, then reaching for a piece of wood.
“What is that?”
“A rolling pin,” he said, looking even more confused.
“Don’t rolling pins have handles?” I asked, looking at the thing that tapered to each end, but didn’t have actual handles.
“This is a French rolling pin,” he told me. “They’re easier to use, I feel,” he said, sprinkling flour on it and the dough, then rolling it out, and giving me another forearm show to gawk at.
“You are clocked in,” Elian said a while later as I watched him drop little blobs of cheese in rows along the dough, then place the other flattened bit of dough over top of them.
“This is practically meditative,” I told him, even if calm was the last thing my body and mind felt right then.
“Come here,” he said, and I was off the stool before I could even think better of it.
Elian wiped off his hands, then dug in a drawer until he produced a little tool that had a spiky circle at the end.
“That looks like a boot spur,” I declared as he reached for me, moving me between him and the island, the whole of his front against my back.
I actually felt the chuckle vibrate from him and into me. Which wasn’t helping the chaos moving through my body.
“This is a pastry wheel,” Elian said as he reached around me to run it down a row of the cheese blobs, cutting the dough. “You try,” he said, pressing the wheel into my hand, but not moving away, just standing there right behind me, smelling like heaven and feeling even better as he watched over my shoulder.
I set to work, cutting vertical lines between the blobs of cheese, then doing horizontal ones as well.
“That’s it?” I asked, excited at having helped, even if it was in the simplest way possible.
“Nope. Now we need this super specialized piece of equipment,” he said, opening a drawer… and producing a fork.