Goddess of Love (Goddess Summoning #5)(68)

or "great place - the value will definitely go up in this area" but none of them had understood that her gift was in making a "nice house" a home.

And Chloe had hated every last one of them.

"Of course it is important to you." He nodded like he actually did understand. "Your home is your creation, so it should reflect you."

"Then let me show you my favorite room - the kitchen."

She motioned for him to follow her into the kitchen. She went straight to the stove and automatically stirred the sauce. Pea smiled over her shoulder at him. "I hope you like spaghetti."

"I will like anything you prepare."

Her grin widened. "Want to try it to make sure?"

"If you would like me to, I will. Tonight, Pea, your every desire is my command."

Pea felt the thrill of the message behind his words begin to quiver deep within her core. She wanted this tall, powerful man whose limp made him somehow accessible and human. She wanted him and the promise of their future that she read in his eyes. Pea lifted the spoon to him and blew on it gently, as if she were brushing his skin with her breath. "Then taste, but be careful it's hot."

His smile crinkled the corners of his eyes. "I'm very comfortable with hot."

He tasted the sauce and it seemed he was tasting her. Again.

"Delicious," he said.

"Are you hungry?"

"For many things."

Pea loved the rush of heat he caused within her body. Part of her wanted to drop the tasting spoon and have him take her right there on the kitchen table; the other part of her (the more sane part) wanted to prolong this sweet game of foreplay they'd just begun. The sane part of her won, but only just barely.

"Good. Dinner's almost ready." She turned up the water that was waiting for the angel hair pasta.

"Let me show you where we'll be eating."

She took him out the back door to the patio. "Perfect" was all he said, but it was enough. It was exactly what Pea thought of it, too.

"Why don't you pour us some wine, and I'll finish up the pasta." At the door she turned back, about to ask him to feed the chimenea some more wood, but he'd apparently anticipated her request. He'd already gone to the outside fireplace and was stoking it, although with the sudden intensity with which it was burning she wasn't sure the thing needed any more encouragement. Well, she thought as she added the pasta to the boiling water, he's a fireman. He should know what he's doing with fire.

It didn't take long to finish the last touches for dinner, but she was eager to get back to him and glad she'd chosen angel hair pasta, which cooked in a snap. Pea loved the way his eyes lit up when she returned, and then was ridiculously happy at the hearty way he dug into the meal, which complimented her even more than his words of praise.

When she looked back on the meal she was surprised to recall how easily they spoke of nothing - the warm weather, how the lanterns made the deck look fairylike, the recipe for the spaghetti she'd discovered in an old out-of-print Italian cookbook. Normal things. Mundane things. It was almost as if they had always been together.

"I'm glad you chose outside for us to eat," he said, after he'd swallowed his last bite and poured them each another glass of Chianti.

"I was worried about it turning cold, but the night is beautiful and the chimenea helps." She nodded at it, surprised to see it still burning merrily.

Victor smiled. "A good fire always warms things."

"I would think a fireman wouldn't be so fond of fire."

"When you are intimate with fire it's hard not to appreciate it, and learn from it, as well as respect its destructive ability."

"Appreciate and learn from it..." She paused, sipping her wine. "Okay. What has it taught you?"

"Fire teaches about purification and renewal. For instance, a wildfire that rages across a forest is, at first, what appears like a disaster. In truth the forest grows back healthier because it has been cleansed of choking weeds and dead wood."

"That makes sense. What else does it teach you?"

"I see stories in the fire."

"Stories? What do you mean?"

He studied her solemnly before he answered, and Pea got the odd but distinct impression that he was weighing her...considering how much he could or could not say to her.

"Think of fire as you would an oracle. It's ever-changing and it really does have a life of its own. It breathes. It eats. It can die. Yet it's eternally old. So why can't it collect stories?"

Pea thought about it. It made a strange kind of sense. "I suppose it could. I guess it just needs someone who knows how to hear the stories to translate them."

Victor's smile was brilliant. "Exactly."

"Tell me some of them."

Victor considered, glancing up at the sky as it seemed to Pea that he sifted through his thoughts and memories. "Come with me and I will show you." He stood and held out his hand to her. Pea took it without hesitating, and he led her to the far edge of the deck that had been built with a wide, waist-high ledge. During the spring and summer, Pea kept large pots of geraniums on the ledge so that her deck seemed to be in bloom.

Victor dropped her hand, and she had just begun to feel the loss of that physical contact with him when he rested both hands on her waist.