Page 162 of Sweet Ruin

I lean against the range and watch.

Her palms flatten it. Her fingers gather the edges and fold them in, over, under, quick and certain. There’s flour on her forearms and a smear of it high on her hip where she’s braced herself against the counter.

Her hips shift as she works. Left, right. Weight into the counter and back.

I could stand here until morning.

She looks up and catches me. “Are you going to contribute, or are you just supervising?”

“You’re folding it wrong.”

Her hands stop. “Are you aware that I literally do this for a living?”

“Mm,” I agree, “but you don’t have that Russian blood in you to guide your hands properly. Let me show you how it’s done.”

“By all means, Chef Makov,” she says sarcastically.

She starts to back away, but I push off the range and come around behind her before she can escape. I box her in, my chest against her back, pressed together.

I slide my hands over hers. Her fingers are dusted white and cool from the dough. I fold them down and take her through the same motion she was doing thirty seconds ago — gather, fold, press, turn.

“This,” she mumbles, “is exactly what I was doing.”

I put my mouth close to her ear.

“Then you should find it very easy to follow along.”

She knows this is bullshit.

So do I.

But then she does something I don’t expect, something that makes my whole body pull tight:

She leans back into me.

Her hips press into mine, her ass full and perfect. She tips her head back just enough that her hair brushes my throat.

I have been shot at. I’ve had a knife go into my side in a parking garage in Bensonhurst. Nothing has ever tested me the way this woman is testing me in a kitchen while forty of my people laugh in the next room.

“Was that one better?” she asks in a husky murmur.

“Marginally.”

“Oh, how I live for your approval.”

She cuts the dough. Rolls the pieces. Fills them and crimps them shut with a twist at the end. The longer we stay flush from head to toe, the more she starts to grind against me, just the tiniest little bit.

“Careful,” I warn. “Disobedience is not a good trait in a student.”

“Maybe the teacher is distracting me.”

Then the filling slips and smears across the pad of her index finger. “How’s this for a distraction?” I ask.

I catch her wrist. She turns toward me and watches as my mouth closes around her finger. Salt touches my tongue first. Then cheese. Then her skin.

Our eyes are locked on each other. Nothing else exists but her, filtered through every one of my senses.

The taste of her skin on my tongue.