Romancing My Love (Love in Bloom: The Bradens) Contemporary Romance by Melissa Foster Page A

beside the couch staring at her. It was hard not to when she looked hot, sexy, and smart all at once.
    “Actually, I have a file I need to review for an acquisition. I’ll be back in a second.” He went down the hall to his home office and printed the file he needed, and when he returned, Rebecca was sitting across the couch with her knees pulled up and a pencil tucked behind her ear.
    “You look so sexy, Bec. Maybe I should just spend my time studying you.”
    She laughed and slid him a coy look. “Bec? I love that. You’ll get sick of looking at me after a few minutes, so go for it.”
    He sat on the couch by her feet, and she buried her toes under his thigh. Damn, he liked that as much as he liked the way Bec felt coming from his lips. She studied the menu, making notes along the margins, while he tried like hell to concentrate on the file in his lap and not to notice the way her dress had gathered at the base of her ass or how cute she looked when she crinkled her nose and closed her eyes as she studied. She didn’t say a word, but just having her there with him felt good. Every so often, she’d wiggle her toes beneath his thigh, and without any thoughts, he massaged her calf. Working beside Rebecca was nice, and something he’d never done with a woman he was interested in. A comfortable silence settled in around them, and eventually he fell into focusing on his papers.
    “Okay, ready to test me?” She leaned forward and touched his shoulder.
    “Already?” He glanced at the clock and was surprised that more than an hour had passed.
    She handed him the menu and wrapped her arms around her knees. “Go ahead. Ask me anything.”
    “Okay. Let’s see.” He scanned the menu, which wasn’t the menu that was given to customers. It was a menu that included a brief description of major ingredients for each dish, along with information about how they were prepared. There was no way she’d memorized it that quickly. There must have been fifty or more items on the menu.
    “Come on,” she urged. “Just pick one. I don’t think I’ll remember them all, but I’m close.”
    “Okay, the first one. Chicken cordon bleu.”
    “Oh my gosh, that’s so easy.” She rattled off the meal description and preparation perfectly.
    “Nice.”
    She threw her arms up into the air. “Score! Ha-ha! Told you!”
    Her excitement was infectious. “Pasta primavera.”
    She rolled her eyes and once again aced it. She knew every step of every dish he named.
    “Are you a closet cook?” Pierce asked.
    “No. I just organized it in my head. You know, poultry, red meat, fish; then I knock down to spices, sauces, creams. It’s just like organizing a pantry, but it’s in my brain.”
    He slid his finger down the column of her neck and along the ridge of her shoulder, touching the places that begged to be kissed. “I like that beautiful brain of yours.”
    Their eyes caught, and he gently moved her legs across his lap, buried his hand beneath her hair, and brought his lips to hers. He kissed her slowly, deeply, savoring every second, every delicious stroke of her tongue. She touched his cheek, and he swallowed a groan at the simple touch.
    “Wow.” It came out like a breeze. “All I needed was a smart brain and it earned me a kiss like that? You should see what I can do with spreadsheets.”
    “Oh, baby, talk dirty to me.”
     He took her in another kiss, disappearing into the scent of her, her sweet, delicious tenderness. She ran her fingers through his hair, kissing him hard and ravenous, then soft and subtle, notching up the heat stroke by mind-numbing stroke. When she slid onto his lap and wrapped her arms around his neck, all those confusing signals she’d been sending him for the past twenty-four hours became clearer. He let her control the kiss so as not to misconstrue her intentions. She ran her tongue along his lower lip, then lingered on the curve of his upper lip, drawing his eyes open. Her eyes were dark, seductive,