A Taste of Ice by Hanna Martine Page B

said.
    She couldn’t possibly, but he nodded anyway. The gentleness in her voice made him ache. It made him want to collapse to his knees before her.
    “Do you really want me to be here?”
    She was giving him an exit, and man, it would have been really easy to have taken it. But he was tired of easy. It just left him jogging in place.
    “Yes. Stay. Please. I just can’t…” His eyes dropped to her lips, and he forced himself to ignore the way his mouth watered.
    She smiled. No pity, no frustration. Just Cat. “Terms accepted.”
    And like that, with kissing and sex taken out of the equation, the Burned Man, who’d been growling in Xavier’s ear, fell silent.
    She crossed the line where the living room carpet gave way to the foot-worn brown linoleum of the kitchen. Onto sacred ground.
    “Are you going to show me how a pro works?”
    He went to the stove, turned on the burner beneath the pan, set the small plastic grocery bag on the counter and took out the rosemary. With a clamp of his fingers around the stem and a quick sweep downward, he removed the leaves. Swiping his favorite chef’s knife from the butcher block, he took a deep breath and exhaled. Then he let his mind go and his hands flew through the tough, waxy leaves. The familiar
tap tap tap
of the knife on the cutting board instantly relaxed him. Even with Cat standing a few feet to his right, arms crossed, hip leaning against the counter.
    “I suppose you’re used to people watching you,” she said. He nodded. “I don’t know if I could paint with an audience.”
    He shrugged. “Different processes.”
    He had to stretch in front of her for the white onion and yellow pepper. Within her proximity, he could swear the hair on his arm stood on end. Magnetic, this woman.
    He passed a damp rag over the cutting board, loving the sight of the clean streaks over the wood, and started on the onion. Some of the dice wasn’t exactly a quarter inch, which made him twitch, but he’d do better next time. The yellow pepper followed.
    “Wow,” she murmured. “Very methodical.”
    “You have to be.” He walked around her to get to the eggs in the refrigerator.
    “I never would’ve thought to put rosemary in eggs. Velveeta maybe, but not rosemary.”
    He threw her a wry look over his shoulder. “Please tell me you didn’t say Velveeta.”
    “Oooo, did I disgust you? How about…Lean Cuisine? Tombstone? Hamburger Helper?”
    Holy shit, there it was again. The tightness in his cheeks. The euphoria slipping through his bloodstream. Like desire, only innocent. When he caught his reflection in the microwave window, he didn’t recognize himself.
    “I’ve eaten my share of Tombstones.” He bent over a glass bowl, cracking eggs. “Not bad for a hangover.”
    She laughed quietly, nodding.
    “Where’d you go to school?”
    He whisked the eggs with a flourish. This was what he’d signed up for: conversation. Which meant he’d be asked questions about himself. He could answer; he’d just have to be careful about it. “Um, San Francisco?”
    “Did you always want to cook?”
    “No.”
    He dumped the beaten eggs into the hot pan, rolled the pan around to get a nice thin layer on the bottom. “I was sort of…wandering around in life and I took a job as a dishwasher in one of those brunch cafes. Was totally green, just needed the paycheck.” Not really, but he needed a story more. He’d had money, lots of it; he’d just needed to do something other thantroll for women to feed his Plant-made addiction. By that time he’d recognized what he’d been bred to need, and he hated it. He and the Burned Man’s ghost had gotten real close.
    “At first the atmosphere in the kitchen scared me. Non-stop, small space, people always moving and always right where you needed to be. I wasn’t used to that at all. But then, on my first day off, I realized I missed it.” The eggs bubbled and he pulled back the edges to prepare to fold them over. “Couldn’t wait to