Gripping the counter behind her, she said, “I didn’t mean to pry.”
He looked up from taking the groceries out of the bag and the intricate ink on his left arm caught her eye. “Charlotte, knock yourself out. I have no idea what’s in half the cupboards.” She made a scandalized noise that had him laughing. “Yeah, it makes Ísa—my sister-in-law—crazy too. She, my mom, and Jake bought all the kitchen stuff after taking my credit card. I think they were hoping to shame me into cooking more.”
“Really,” Charlotte said, itching to explore. “I can look?”
Gabriel waved a hand. “Tell me if you find the bottle opener. I don’t know where they hid it.”
WATCHING CHARLOTTE MOVE AROUND in his kitchen, her face glowing and her body bubbling with excitement, Gabriel silently thanked the cooks in the family. Especially when Charlotte bent over to check out the lower cupboards and the denim of her jeans stretched over the sweet curves of her ass.
He wanted to groan.
The months of abstinence were starting to show.
Hell, who was he kidding? Charlotte Baird had done this to him since the first day she’d stopped quivering in terror and started glaring at him when he pushed too hard. He was just feeling a little extra Neanderthal today because she was finally in his space—that he’d booby-trapped for her.
His kitchen had been bare as of a month ago. His mom, Ísa, and Jake had had a field day when he told them to go wild. Of course, they’d been curious as hell about his sudden desire for supplies, but he’d managed to satisfy them with a little creative misdirection. At least for now. They’d no doubt get suspicious when his new “hobby” failed to eventuate in any actual food. Then again, maybe not.
After all, he did now have an instructor. “Did my family do a good job?”
Face glowing, Charlotte turned to him. “I could go crazy in this kitchen.”
Booby trap successfully sprung.
16
IN THE LAIR OF THE T-REX
SATISFACTION UNCURLING IN HIS gut, Gabriel said, “I’ll give you the door code. Feel free to break in and leave me delicious meals to eat.” Having placed all the things they’d bought today within easy reach, he leaned on the central counter and watched her check out the cooktop and oven. The back of her neck caught his eye, made him want to nuzzle a kiss to the delicate skin there, draw her scent into his lungs.
Yes, he was well and truly hooked on Charlotte Baird.
“Didn’t your mom teach you how to cook?” she asked absently, opening the oven to look inside.
Distracted by his fantasies of crowding her against the counter, his chest to her back as he cupped her breasts, it took him a few seconds to put his brain in gear. Thankfully, she was too in lust with his appliances to notice.
“Oh, Mom tried,” he said, thinking only of the good memories and not the dark; he’d had more than enough of the latter today. “She used to say no boy of hers was going to leave home without knowing how to feed himself.” Food was important to his mother, something she never took for granted. Gabriel had long ago guessed that after Brian abandoned them, she’d often gone hungry so he and Sailor could eat.
Willfully slamming the door on those memories, he thought of the years after she met Joseph, had Jake, then Danny. It made him grin. “At one point, she was riding herd on two ravenous teenagers, a ten-year-old, and an eight-year-old, as she tried to drum cooking skills into our heads instead of just eating skills.” It had stuck only with Jake.
Charlotte turned with a smile. “You love your mom.”
“Yep.” As Charlotte came closer, he barely restrained himself from jumping over the counter to devour her. His Ms. Baird had no idea just how sweetly succulent he found her or she’d never have entered his lair. “What about you?”
It was as if someone had switched off the light inside her. “My dad was the cook in the family.”
He caught the past tense. “He’s gone?”
“They both are,” she said quietly.
Gabriel didn’t even think about it. Going around the counter, he tugged her into a loose embrace—making sure to move slowly enough so as not to startle her. That she came instead of going stiff soothed the primal craving in his soul, the one that shoved at him to protect her, take care of her, give her what she needed. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay,” she said, staying against him. “My mom was sick for a long time.”
He stroked his hand down her back, the delicate lines of her body holding a strength he’d always sensed but wasn’t sure she consciously understood. “Cancer?” he asked, his conversation with his mother fresh on his mind.
Charlotte nodded. “I was twelve when she was first diagnosed.” It hurt even now, but the pain was an old one, no longer jagged and stabbing. “She beat it at first, but it came back.” Like a monster stealthily invading their lives. “I’d just turned eighteen when I kissed her good night one evening and she said ‘sleep tight, baby’ for the last time.” Charlotte and her father had brought Pippa Baird home so she could spend her last days surrounded by the people she loved and the people who loved her.
She’d died in her own bed, held in her husband’s arms.
“She wasn’t in pain at the end,” Charlotte said, her throat thick. That was important to her, that her sweet, strong, loving mother had left the world in peace, free of the debilitating pain that had all but crippled her. “It was as if her body knew it was leaving this earth, so it rallied itself to give her one final week where she felt like herself again.”