Dream Lake (Friday Harbor #3)(31)

Zoë blinked. “I’m not sure what you mean,” she managed to say.

“I mean rock-your-world sex with someone you don’t give a damn about. Raw, hard-core, wrong on every level. But you don’t care, because it feels too good to stop. You do anything you want because you don’t have to talk about it afterward. No rules, no regrets. Just two people in the dark, roughing each other up in all the right ways.”

For a split second, Zoë’s unruly imagination seized on the idea, and a jolt of heat went to the pit of her stomach. She could feel her pulse beating at the front of her throat. Alex’s gaze tracked the visible throb before returning to her dilated eyes. In an abrupt motion, he pushed away from her. “You should try it sometime,” he advised coolly. “Looks like your ex is available.”

Zoë tucked her hair behind her ears and made a show of retying her apron. “Chris didn’t visit me for that,” she eventually said. “He just broke up with his partner. He needed to talk it over with someone.”

“With you.” Alex gave her a sardonic glance.

“Yes,” she said warily, sensing the approach of an insult. “Why not with me?”

“A woman who looks like you? If your ex shows up to talk over his problems, cupcake, it’s not for your keen psychological insight. It’s a booty call.”

Before she could reply, the oven timer went off.

Stung, Zoë was tempted to order him out of her kitchen. She picked up a couple of potholders and went to the oven. As soon as she opened the door, the heady fragrance of hot cake poured out in a perfumed steam of apricot and vanilla and heady spices. Taking deep breaths of the opulent sweetness, Zoë reflected that Alex was the most cynical man she’d ever met. How terrible it would be to view the world the way he did.

If he weren’t such an arrogant bully, she might have felt sorry for him.

Reaching into the oven with a potholder in each hand, Zoë grasped the heavy-gauge steel pan. As she pulled it out, the burning edge of the pan touched the inside of her arm, and she inhaled sharply. She was so accustomed to minor kitchen mishaps that she didn’t say a word, only set the pan calmly on the counter.

Alex was at her side in an instant. “What happened?”

“Nothing.”

His gaze shot to the angry red splotch on her arm. Scowling, he pulled her to the kitchen sink and started cold water running from the faucet. “Hold it under there. Do you have a first-aid kit?”

“Yes, but I don’t need it.”

“Where is it?”

“In the cabinet under the sink.” Zoë moved a few inches to the side, so he could open the door and extract the white plastic box. “It’s just a little burn,” she said, pulling her arm out of the water to look at it. “Not even enough to blister.”

Alex took her wrist to reposition her arm under the water. “Keep it there.”

“You’re overreacting,” she told him. “Do you see the marks on my hands and arms? All cooks have scars. This spot on my elbow”—she showed him her free arm—“that was when I tried to rest my arm on the counter after forgetting that I’d just set a hot pan there.” She pointed to places on her left hand. “And these marks are from knives … this was from trying to pit an avocado that wasn’t ripe enough, and this was from deboning fish. Once I stabbed right through my palm while shucking oysters—”

“Why aren’t you wearing protective gear?” he demanded.

“I suppose I could wear a chef’s jacket,” Zoë said, “but on hot days like this, it wouldn’t be very comfortable.”

“You need Kevlar welding sleeves. I can get you some.”

Darting a bemused glance at Alex, Zoë realized he wasn’t joking. Some of her irritation faded. “I can’t wear welding sleeves in the kitchen,” she said.

“You need some kind of protection.” Alex took her free hand and examined it with a lingering frown, his fingertips moving from one small white scar to another. “I never thought about cooking being dangerous,” he said. “Unless one of my brothers or I were trying to eat something we’d made.”

The brush of his fingers caused a ripple of sensation to run up her arm. “None of you can cook?” she asked.

“Sam’s not too bad. Our oldest brother, Mark, is limited to making coffee. But it’s good coffee.”

“And you?”

“I can build a great kitchen. I just can’t make anything edible in it.”

Zoë made no protest as he adjusted her arm under the water again. He cradled her hand as if it were an injured bird.

“You have scars, too.” Zoë dared to put her fingertip against a thin line on the side of his forefinger. “What’s that from?”

“Box cutter.”

She moved to another healed-over mark, a deep gouge on the pad of his thumb. “And this?”

“Table saw.”

Zoë winced.

“Most carpentry accidents come from trying to save time,” Alex said. “Like when you need to construct a jig to hold something in place while you’re running a router. But instead you wing it, and then you pay for it.” He released her hand and opened the first-aid kit, rummaging until he found a small bottle of acetaminophen. “Where do you keep the glasses?”