“Yeah, it was. It was salvaged from the original building, they told me. It’s what sold me on this place.” Turning his back to me, he retrieved two old- fashioned glasses from a glass-paned cabinet.
“That’s so cool.” The fixture lent a little touch of glamour to the overall feel of the kitchen, which was luxurious and masculine at the same time. Nick looked perfect in it. “You’ve done really well, Nick. I’m happy for you.”
“Thanks.” He poured a few fingers of scotch into each glass. “You’ve done well, too. I hear Devine Events is very successful and you’re excellent at your job.”
“Oh?” I arched a brow. “And how did you hear that?”
Sliding a glass toward me, he said casually, “Lucas told me.”
“You asked Lucas about me?”
He shrugged, like it was no big deal. “Maybe once or twice.”
“I see.” I made a mental note to ask Lucas exactly how many times Nick had asked about me, what his exact words were, and what exactly had been said to him in return.
Nick picked up his scotch. “Try this.”
I lifted mine and inhaled the aroma. Part sweet, part spice. My mouth watered. I glanced at the bottle to see what it was. “Auchentoshan Virgin Oak?”
“Yeah, I’ve got a thing for virgins.”
“Don’t I know it.” I sipped, closing my eyes and letting the scotch roll seductively over my tongue before swallowing. “Mmmm. Delicious. I love it.”
“I thought you would.” He took another drink before turning away to switch on one of his double ovens.
I put my glass to my nose and breathed in again, half annoyed and half flattered that he’d know my taste in scotch, or even that he thought he would. While I sipped again, Nick pulled out a battered black binder from a drawer, its pages spilling out.
“What’s that?”
“It’s Noni’s old recipe book. It has the cake recipe in it that she used to make for all our birthdays. She gave the book to me a few years ago but she made me promise not to tell my aunts or cousins.” From another cupboard he took out a mixing bowl, measuring cups and spoons, and an old hand mixer, which surprised me.
“Don’t you have one of those fancy KitchenAid things on a stand?”
“Nah. I like this one.” He pulled the beater attachments from a drawer and nudged it closed with his hip. For some reason the movement sent a spike of lust straight through my core. “I need it to do the frosting on the stove anyway.”
“You’re even making the frosting from scratch? I’m impressed.”
He smiled as he attached the beaters to the mixer. “Good.”
Curious, I got off the chair and wandered around to Nick’s side of the island. “Can I look at the book?”
“Sure.” He pushed it toward me and I opened it, careful not to lose any of the scraps of paper and recipe cards stuck in the front. Gingerly I began turning the pages, keenly aware of the fact that Nick had moved behind me in order to look over my shoulder, definitely standing closer than a friend would. I could smell him.
Chewing my bottom lip, I tried hard to focus on the recipes and not on the proximity of my ass to his dick. The other voice in my head, the one that liked to speak up when I was watching QVC or trying to decline the dessert tray at Andiamo, said, If you arched your back just a little, pretended like you were stretching, you could totally “accidentally” rub your butt on his crotch. See if he’s hard.
I willed that voice to shut up and go away, since I didn’t need any additional temptation where Nick was concerned. I turned a few more pages, smiling at the names of Noni’s favorite dishes. “This is amazing. Some of these look really old.” The pages were yellowed and brittle, the recipes painstakingly written out in spidery cursive on notebook paper stained over time by splatters and spills. “Kitty’s Deviled Hamburgers. Bride’s Pie. Papa Joe’s Gravy.”
“Yeah, that one’s old for sure. Papa Joe was my Great-Grandpa Lupo, which would have been Noni’s father-in-law. He was a great cook, ran an Italian restaurant downtown for years.”
I glanced back at him, and my forehead nearly hit his chin, he was so close. “Really? I never knew that. I thought your family was from Bay City.”
“Noni’s family was from up there. But she was a Bosco who married a Lupo. The first Lupos in this country lived in Detroit, near Eastern Market. They ran a restaurant.” Nick took another sip of his scotch before stepping away from me to pull ingredients from the fridge—butter, sour cream, eggs.
“Really? What a coincidence. Or maybe not—guess it’s in your blood, huh?” I sat down again, admiring the smooth, confident way he moved around the kitchen, remembering how he used to cook for me at my apartment in college. The best meals were the eggs and bacon he’d fry up at three AM after several good bouts of hot, sweaty sex. If there was anything better than bacon after sex, I had yet to discover it.
“Actually, the Lupo history is pretty interesting,” Nick went on. “Papa Joe was a bootlegger during Prohibition. Ran whiskey from Canada.”
I gasped. “Stop it. Really? That’s so cool! I can’t believe you never told me about that.”
“I wasn’t really interested in family history back then, but I love it now. My mom found some old photos for me, and I’m having prints made to hang at my restaurant. You know, people even say I look like him. My great-grandfather, I mean.” He opened a high cupboard, taking out flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.