Taste (Cloverleigh Farms, #7)(29)

“So it was always about food, huh?” She ate a few more M&M’s.

“A lot of that is my dad’s influence. He’d try to get me to name the herbs and spices just by smelling them. He’d make it a game.”

“I love your dad,” she said, a little dreamily.

“You do?”

Color stained her cheeks. “I just mean he’s nice. Next.”

“What do you secretly think I’d be amazing at?”

“Is that really a question? Are trying to trick me into saying I think you’d be good in bed?”

“No!” I showed her the screen. “It’s really a question. But do you think that?”

She sighed and swirled her wine in the glass. “Yes. I can’t even believe I’m saying this—I must be drunk. It’s only because of what you said about foreplay. And being patient. And asking what I like. It makes me think that you probably aren’t as self-centered in bed as I imagined you would be.”

I grinned. “So you’ve imagined it?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“But have you?”

She looked me right in the eye. “Have you?”

“Yes.”

Her mouth fell open.

“I’ve imagined sex with pretty much every hot girl I know.”

She rolled her eyes. “God, I walked right into that one. Never mind. Give me the phone.”

I handed it over and took a drink, trying desperately to keep my eyes from straying between her legs. Did she have to sit like that? She had to be buzzed from the wine—otherwise there was no way she’d let me see London and France.

She started to giggle. “Would you trust me to pierce your ear?”

“Fuck no.”

“Why not? I’d let you pierce mine.”

“You would?”

She shrugged. “Sure. I’ve seen the way you handle sharp objects in the kitchen. You’re great with your hands.”

Our eyes met. “That’s true.”

“Moving on,” she said, clearing her throat. “Who’s your secret crush?”

“I don’t have one.”

“Come on,” she scoffed. “Everyone has a secret crush.”

“I don’t. If I like someone, I make it obvious. Why wouldn’t I?”

“Because it’s inappropriate.”

“So who’s your secret crush?”

“Your dad, obviously.”

She tried to play it off like a joke, but there was something about the way she said it that made me pause—and her cheeks were rapidly turning red. I cocked my head. “Do you have a thing for my dad?”

“What?” She looked nervous for a second. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

“You do, don’t you? You have a thing for my dad!” I started to laugh.

“Will you stop it? I do not!” She scrambled off the bed and backed up. “It was a joke!”

“Then why are you blushing?”

“I’m not blushing, I’m just—it’s not a thing, okay?” She began pacing back and forth at the foot of the bed. “Your dad is objectively a very attractive man.”

I grinned at her. “So you’re attracted to him?”

“No! I didn’t say that, I said objectively, he’s attractive,” she said quickly. “Anybody would find him attractive. It’s just biology. I just made a joke. That dream meant nothing.”

“What dream?”

“Shit!” She put her hands in her hair and squeezed her eyes shut. “I didn’t mean to say that!”

“Well, it’s out there now, so you might as well elaborate.” I leaned back against the pine-log headboard. “What happened in the dream?”

“Nothing.”

“Liar.”

Sighing, she faced me and held up her hands. “He kissed me, okay? That’s all. It was one kiss, and then I woke up.”

“Where were you? In the dream.”

Her face turned an even deeper shade of scarlet. “My bed.”

“So you’d let my dad and my brothers in your bed, but not me?”

“That’s not funny. And why is it suddenly so hot in here?” She turned away from me and fanned her face.

“It’s not hot in here. I think you’re just warm thinking about your crush on my dad.”

She spun around, flustered and frantic. “It’s not a crush! He was very nice to me when I was little, okay? I remember once when I was at your house in Detroit, before you moved up north, I fell and got a bloody knee and he came outside and carried me in. It’s a sweet memory.”

“It is a sweet memory. Except that it was me who carried you in the house.”

“What?” She stuck her hands on her hips. “No way, Gianni. We were like five years old.”

“I know. We were at my house, and you were trying to run faster than me down the driveway—which was never going to happen, by the way. You wiped out so hard you bloodied both knees. I felt bad for you and somehow I knew I was gonna get yelled at for it, so I thought I’d try to be nice and help you into the house.”

She was staring at me from across the room with her mouth open. Her eyes narrowed. “You’re lying.”