Nuts (Hudson Valley, #1)(48)

“You really want to talk about bees right now?” I replied, forcing myself to relax.

“Nope.” He rolled me over once more and slid down my body. “But I’ll take some of that honey.”

“Honey? Oh—”

I gave myself over to the feel of his lips trailing down my tummy, pausing to lick lightly just below my belly button. His mouth, planting little kisses from one hip across to the other, his hands sliding up, cupping my breasts, teasing the peaks. I gasped, my back arching again under his touch. He moved farther south, nuzzling at the very top of my thigh. I had been fantasizing for weeks what that beard might feel like between my legs.

He rested his chin about three inches above where I was dying for him to go. I bumped my hips. He pressed a kiss about two inches above where I was dying for him to go. I moaned, closing my eyes, ready to burst out of my skin at the slightest touch. I was buzzing, crackles of tension beginning to run wild across my body. And yet . . .

“Do you remember that night in your kitchen?” he asked, and my eyes flew open. Raising up on my elbows, I peered down at him. He once again rested his chin on me, looking perfectly natural and not at all concerned to find himself at the juncture of Please Oh Please and For the Love of God.

“Kitchen?” I said, trying to keep from squeaking again. I was becoming addicted to his touch, and right now, being so very close to it and being denied? It was maddening.

It was incredible.

But mostly, it was maddening.

“The night you made me dinner, and you sat on my lap and turned the same color as the beets I brought you? Something about liking my beard?” He dipped his chin, running the length of it up and down my yesrightexactlythere. “Something about wanting to try something, I think. Before I shaved it off?”

“Really? Hmm, I don’t remember.” I nonchalantly slid my ankles down a little farther, bending my knees slightly, and oops. I bumped him with my yesrightexactlytheredammit. “Oops.”

His grin widened at my oops. My knees widened at his grin. There really was only one way this was going to end.

“See now, I’m amazed you can’t remember. Whatever made you blush that night, you sure seemed to be thinking about something fairly specific.” He dipped down, running the tip of his nose across my skin, over a valley and a couple of dells. The farmer was very much in the dell. I was panting. I very deliberately slipped my heels across his shoulders, maintaining an air not so much of nonchalance but of . . . whatever was the opposite of nonchalance. My heels and I were the epitome of chalance. “Sure, you can’t remember,” he breathed, his lips mere centimeters from the center of the entire world.

“I might . . . remember . . . something . . .” I said, feeling a rush of heat spreading through me. The only part of him touching me was his breath, and I was feeling more and more sure I could get off on air alone, providing it was Air Leo.

“You say it,” he offered, brushing his lips across mine. “And I’ll do it.”

I was past playing games. As he slid his eager hands along the underside of my thighs, pushing my legs higher over his shoulders and anchoring my hips with his palms, I squeaked. “Please, your mouth. I need your mouth!” I cried. And he complied.

At the first stroke of his tongue, I fell back against the pillows. At the first nibble of his teeth, I threw the pillow from the bed. At the first moan from his lips, deep into the center of that world, I bowed so hard off the bed I pulled the fitted sheet free. And when he sucked me into his mouth, burying his face and licking furiously, I could feel that beard tickling the very softest part of my thighs. And it was so. Very. Good.

Worth every squeak.



“So who are the two old guys?”

“Old guys?” I asked, not sure where this was going.

“Over the desk,” he said, referencing the bulletin board. “One of them looks familiar, actually.”

“They’re Ripert and Bourdain. Celebrity chefs.”

“Sounds like a French cop show.”

I laughed. “Anthony Bourdain was a chef in Manhattan for many years; now he’s got a couple of shows on traveling, eating, et cetera. Eric Ripert runs Le Bernardin, also in—”

“Aha! That’s why he looks familiar.”

“Makes sense; he’s been on TV forever.”

He shook his head. “No no, the other guy. Le Bernardin is my father’s favorite restaurant. My parents have a standing reservation; they’re there at least twice a month.”

Somewhere in the world, tiny chef heads exploded. The idea that there could be a life where you could regularly go to Le Bernardin even once a month—but twice? At least? That was the most decadent morsel of that entire sentence.

I stifled my own envious head explosion and took the time to admire his posterior from where I was curled up in a comfy ball. Leo had about the cutest butt I’d ever seen. Round and firm, like two scoops of sexy. It walked, er, he walked, over toward the front window and looked out. “The wind finally picked up again.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Our clothes are all over the backyard.”

I chuckled, and started to get up.

“No no, you relax. I’ll go get the clothes.”

“And I’ll let you get my clothes,” I said, heading over to join him. “I’m going to make us something to eat.” I added a slap to his sexy scoops and headed downstairs.