Chocolate Kisses (6 page)

And
with the most mesmerizing eyes and the sexiest smile. And the most arousing
kisses.

“I’ve
really got to go,” she repeated, feeling as if she were pleading for her life.

He
rose, too. His gaze softened, as if he recognized her apprehension and
understood it. Taking her elbow, he ushered her out of the kitchen.

His
mother was descending the stairs. “Was I that long on the phone?” she asked
apologetically.

“Claudia
has to leave,” Ned explained. “She’s got a lot to prepare for the party
tonight. For some reason, she thinks if everything isn’t perfect Melanie will
give her a hard time.”

“Melanie
will
give her a hard time,” Mrs. Wyatt said with a long-suffering smile.
“Giving people a hard time is what Melanie does best. Claudia, dear, I’m so
glad we had this chance to meet. I assume I’ll be seeing you tonight.”

“Yes,”
said Claudia. “So nice meeting you, too.”

“I’ll
be right back,” Ned told his mother before escorting Claudia outside.

She
assured herself he was only showing good manners by walking her to her van. In
a matter of minutes she would be rid of him. He was going to stay and visit
with his mother, and she would be free.

Free
to return to her house alone, to bustle around her kitchen by herself, without
any interference from a man who thought there was nothing unseemly about
glazing his finger with chocolate and stroking it across her tongue.

Merely
thinking about the time she’d spent with Ned in her kitchen sent a ripple of
heat through her. She didn’t want to go home alone. She wanted him to come with
her, to help her make more kisses, to taste and nibble and share the devilishly
complicated flavor of them with her. She wanted to gaze into his eyes and feel
his arms around her and his mouth on hers again. She wanted to believe in love
at first sight.

But
she didn’t. And when Ned drew to a halt beside her van and dipped his head to
hers, she turned her face.

Denied
her lips, he nipped the sensitive edge of her earlobe. Fresh shivers of arousal
filtered through her, gathering in the cradle of her hips. “Your hair is the
prettiest color,” he whispered.

“Only
when the sun hits it,” she mumbled, wishing she had the willpower to pull away.

He
grazed the skin below her ear and she reflexively tilted her head so he could
kiss her throat. “Are you going to be working all afternoon? I could stop by
later.”

To
help her? Or for something else? “I’ll be working,” she said, wondering if he
heard the breathless wavering in her voice. “I mean,
really
working. It
would be better if you didn’t stop by.”

“Better
for whom?” He slid his lips up to her chin, then higher, to her mouth. Her
pulse roared in her ears as he thrust his tongue past her teeth, as he
tightened his arms around her exactly as she’d hoped he would, as he pulled her
to himself and let her feel his response to her. His hips surged, pressed,
rocked against her in a way that left her giddy and gasping, eager for more.

“Don’t,”
she moaned, hiding her face in the hollow of his neck.

Sighing,
he loosened his hold slightly but refused to let go. “I want you.”

She
knew that without his having to say it. “You scare me.”

He
chuckled. “Why? Because I’m John Edward Wyatt IV? Because you think my mother’s
nuts? Because you think I’ll get in the way of your catering the perfect
cotillion?”

“All
of the above,” she admitted with a faint smile.

“Or
maybe you’re scared because you know damned well we make better kisses together
than you can make by yourself.”

“Don’t
talk like that.”

He
traced the edge of her jaw with his fingertips. She imagined his touch
elsewhere, on her arms, her belly, her breasts. She imagined making kisses with
him in every possible way and her pulse grew even louder, faster, sending its
throbbing heat through her body.

“You
want me, too,” he guessed.

Of
course she wanted him, more than she’d ever wanted a man before. And that
scared her most of all.

“Tell
your mother this isn’t love at first sight,” she said, easing out of his
embrace and opening the door of the van. “Desire isn’t the same thing as love.
Anyway, I don’t have time for love. I have to focus all my energies on Fantasy
Feasts right now. I’m barely treading water. If I don’t do a perfect job with
this cotillion, my company might go under. I don’t even have time to stand here
talking to you.”

His
fingers reached her temple and twirled through the hair there. “It’s hard to
believe a woman can’t find a little time for love on Valentine’s Day.”

Ned
was more polite than Jimmy McNeill had been, but the message was the same: if
Claudia put her professional survival ahead of her love life, she had something
wrong with her. When Jimmy had left her she’d been sad but not devastated. If
Ned left her—

Left
her? What was she thinking? They’d known each other less than three hours. For
her to climb into her van and drive home would hardly constitute the end of a
torrid romance.

Yet
as long as he kept weaving his fingers through her hair, as long as he kept
gazing at her with his hypnotic, jewel-like eyes, as long as she remembered the
heat and texture of his mouth on hers, his tongue dueling with hers, his body
pressed to hers…

Torrid
certainly seemed like the right word.

“I’m
going,” she said with as much firmness as she could muster.

Ned
kept his hand on her arm until she was settled behind the wheel. “I’ll be by,”
he promised.

“I’ll
be working.”

“I
don’t doubt it.” He took a step back and started to close the door. “We’ve had
kisses and cookies and we’ve had shrimp—the sweets and the horse d’oeuvres.” A
sly smile curved his mouth. “It won’t be long, Claudia, before you and I have
the main course.”

Chapter Five

1:03
p.m.

NED
BIKED HOME from his mother’s place, enjoying the sunshine and the hint of
spring’s fragrance released into the air by the thawing earth. At his mother’s
insistence, he’d eaten half a sandwich before he’d left. At his insistence, his
mother had refrained from interrogating him about Claudia.

He
wasn’t sure he subscribed to her faith in love at first sight. However, he
couldn’t deny that throughout his twelve lively years of postgraduate
bachelorhood, he had never felt anything like the imperative craving he
experienced every time he thought of Claudia Mulcahey

There
was something tough and determined about her, something strong and self-aware
and extremely appealing to a strong, self-aware man like Ned. Claudia knew what
she wanted and she went after it, and she wasn’t looking for anyone to make
things easy for her.

He
could make things easier. Along with the sensual pleasure of their final kiss,
he was haunted by her words, her concern that if the Valentine’s Day cotillion
was a flop Fantasy Feasts might go out of business.

He
didn’t want her business to fail. He couldn’t bear the notion that Claudia
would have to fold up her tent and go back to working in a diner—not when she
had so much talent. He’d tasted her chocolate kisses. He knew what a culinary
genius she was.

And
to think the fate of her business rested in the hands of his bitchy older
sister…

Ned
prayed that the cotillion would be a success and that Melanie would sing the
praises of Claudia’s catering to all her snooty, snobby friends, and that
Claudia would find herself besieged with contracts for her services. But even a
success tonight wouldn’t be enough.

She
needed a larger work space, assistants, storage facilities…. She needed the
proper capital. Ned could put together a suitable package of financing for her
if she let him.

He
headed down the stairs to the den. His condo was in a complex across town from
his mother’s. It was a nice enough place, and his one-year lease included an
option to buy. It would be a bit small for two people, though.

“Cripes,”
he said aloud, then laughed. He wasn’t about to invite Claudia to move in with
him, was he?

The
light on his answering machine was flashing. He punched the button and
listened.

“Neddy?”
Melanie’s voice roared out of the speaker. “I was just wondering if you could
do me a great big favor and bring Ramona Warner to the cotillion with you
tonight. Since she isn’t related to any of the debutantes, she can attend only
as someone’s guest. Could you please bring her as your guest? It would be so
much fun for both of you. I know it’s last-minutes, but she really would love
to come and she’s very fond of you.”

Melanie
did matchmaking the way she did everything else—without subtlety. Her attempt
to hook Ned up with Ramona Warner was last-minute because she’d only just seen
him with Claudia that morning. Evidently Melanie was prepared to do whatever
was necessary to keep him from fraternizing with the help.

Shaking
his head, he pulled out the telephone directory and looked up Fantasy Feasts.
The phone rang four times and then Claudia’s machine clicked on:
Hi, you’ve
reached Fantasy Feasts. Please leave your name and number and let us cater to
you.

“Claudia?”
he shouted over the tape. “It’s Ned. If you’re there, pick up!”
Cater to me!
he almost demanded, but he figured that might frighten her.

A
few long seconds passed and then, to his delight, he heard Claudia say, “Hello,
Ned.”

He
wanted to discuss ways of raising capital for her company. He wanted to tell
her that he missed her, that kissing her outside his mother’s home had been a
prelude, not a finale, and that she had nothing to be afraid of. He wanted to
describe his own fantasy feast, starting with her lips and working his way down
to her adorable buns.

“How
are your hearts?” he asked.

“My
hearts? The cake layers, you mean?”

“Yes.”

“They
came out well. I was just about to start making the frosting.”

Frosting.
He’d already painted her lips with molten chocolate. Now he was assailed by
visions of her with cold, sugary white stuff on her lips.

“I’ll
be right over,” he said.

“Ned—”

“What
I was thinking,” he hastened to explain, “is that if I drive over we can use your
van and my car to transport the food. It would cut down on the number of trips
you have to make.”

She
didn’t speak for a minute. Evidently she was assessing his offer, weighing the
possible hazards in accepting his assistance. “All right,” she finally said. He
wondered whether that meant she was no longer afraid of him or she missed him
as much as he missed her—or quite simply that she didn’t want to have to make
more than one trip to Wyatt Hall.

What
it meant to him, he acknowledged after saying goodbye, was that they would be
traveling to Wyatt Hall in separate vehicles. He wouldn’t be able to glance to
his side and see her clean, sharp profile. He wouldn’t be able to lean across
the console and steal a kiss the instant she turned off the engine.

But
before they left for Wyatt Hall they would be at her house, in her kitchen,
surrounded by hearts and frosting.

The
possibilities made him smile.

***

OVER
THE WHIR of her mixer, she almost didn’t hear the tapping on the door
connecting the kitchen to the garage. She turned off the appliance and opened
the door.

She
had known it would be Ned, yet seeing him, having him so close, feeling his
presence fill her kitchen… Well, there was no adequate way Claudia could have
prepared herself.

“I
do have a front door,” she pointed out. “You don’t have to come in through the
garage.”

He
grinned. “I cane to help out, not to act like a guest.” He shrugged out of his
jacket and gazed around the kitchen. Spotting the bowl of fluffy pink frosting,
he headed directly to the work island, finger poised for dipping.

“Behave
yourself,” she scolded, shoving him away before he could poke his finger into
the bowl.

“Oh,
come on. Just a teeny, tiny little taste?”

He
looked so imploring, so irresistibly boyish, she relented with a sigh. He
dabbed his finger into the soft pink confection, licked it off and started with
surprise. “It’s peppermint.”

“What
did you expect?”

“Strawberry,
I guess. It’s pink.”

“Of
course it’s pink. Today’s Valentine’s Day,” she reminded him.

His
smile grew deeper. “You’re catching on,” he murmured in a disturbingly husky
voice.

Aware
of how close he was to kissing her—and how much she wanted another of his
kisses—she quickly turned away, grabbing the mixer and turning it on, clinging
to the handle as if it were a weapon. “If you came here to flirt with me,” she
shouted over the drone of the motor, “you can leave.”