Love, Chocolate, and Beer (Cactus Creek #1)(36)

“About that,” cut in Dani, hesitantly. “Errr, our hot and bothered tendencies, that is…”

“Yeah?” His voice was tighter now, just this side of gritty.

“I know we’ve established that you’re a recovering serial monogamist and I’m...”

“Not?” he supplied helpfully.

“Yes, thank you. I am enjoying this non-date, however. And I’d really love nothing more than to drop the ‘non’ part from the title…”

A smile stretched across his face. “Yeah?”

“But,” she interrupted quickly. “I think you and I look at dating far differently. So, I’ve been thinking about some sort of casual, preliminary trial runs first. I mean we work next door to each other, so if things go sour, life would start sucking pretty quickly around here.”

He frowned. “So…you’re suggesting ‘pre-dating’ dates?”

Blushing scarlet, she shrugged and looked at the ground. “I guess so.”

Cautious woman. He tilted her face back up so she could see his eyes when he answered her truthfully. As long as he got to be with her, he didn’t care how they labeled their time together. “I don’t need a trial run to know I want to be with you. But if you need us to go out on some friendly pre-dates to test the waters, I’m on board. Whatever you need.”

Holding her hand up, she clarified, “Friendly, meaning no sex.” She paused, avoiding his eyes for a second. “Just because I’m not into serious relationships doesn’t mean I’m easy.”

He jerked back, startled. “Dani, I never once thought that.”

She turned away. “Considering the way we met, I wouldn’t blame you if you did.”

He cupped a hand against her warm cheek. “I don’t.”

“Then you wouldn’t mind being totally chaste for a few friendly pre-dates?”

“Few, meaning two?” he teased with a fair measure of hopeful seriousness.

Her shy laughter effectively shot that suggestion down. “I was thinking more like ten.”

Ten?! He blinked at her as if she’d gone insane. It wasn’t about not wanting to wait, but rather, not being able to. After a beat, he sighed and kissed her lightly on the lips. Chastely. “However many you want to have is fine with me, sweetheart.”

When he promptly stepped back to keep things from getting too friendly, he saw her frown. Her eyes were locked on his lips as she waffled, “Of course, I’m willing to negotiate…”

“Really?” A smile played at the corners of his lips as he pulled her in for another kiss. This one long and deep. His version of negotiating.

“Seven?” she amended breathlessly after that rather excellent rebuttal point.

Luke looked at her for a moment before stepping back again, this time to lift his hand palm up to show her the almost invisible tremor plaguing him. “See this? It’s been happening more frequently lately. I’ll be minding my own business, working on my chocolates, and find my mind wandering over to thoughts of you. Then boom, I get the shakes,” he revealed quietly. “It’s crazy. My hands didn’t shake even when I first began chocolatiering.” Seeing her concern, he let his voice warm affectionately. “Now don’t go thinking this is the chocolatier’s version of the blue balls defense because it’s not—I don’t have the shakes from lack of getting some. I get them because it’s you.” He cupped her cheek lightly. “Seven dates, ten—hell we can wait thirty. However long you need, Dani. I’m happy just being with you.”

“Five dates it is then,” she conceded with a wobbly smile, leaning against his chest and burrowing her face at the groove of his neck, as if she were made to fit exactly there.

His arms locked around her. “Looks like I’m going to have to make a new line of jagged chocolates until then,” he muttered before sealing their deal with a kiss.



*



GENTLY, DANI ROLLED a small lump of chocolate ganache into a ball, highly skeptical that the brown Play-Doh-looking sphere was going to turn out anything remotely similar to the beautiful truffles on display in the front of Luke’s chocolatiering class.

Since her Thursday night had freed up at the last minute, Luke had suggested she crash his class. At least she let him think it was all his idea. Her hints had been pretty subtle. And of course she’d accepted his invite to cross into enemy territory; it would’ve been rude to decline.

She couldn’t believe how much she’d learned already. Luke really was a gifted teacher. He’d taken them from tempering chocolate to making ganache almost effortlessly. She hadn’t even known what ganache was at the start of class but in a short half hour, she was emulsifying finely chopped couverture chocolate like a pro, gradually adding hot heavy cream and mixing it slowly and constantly until it was smooth enough to fold in softened butter. The science of it all was particularly fascinating.

Left to her own devices, Dani would’ve just emulsified the chocolate by throwing fully melted butter in with the liquid and whipping it all up in her blender like she did her pesto mayonnaise—a terrible mistake, as Luke showed them, which would cause the ganache to break, and look more like something a diarrheic canine left behind. Nothing at all like the gloriously shiny, emulsified chocolate that good, creamy ganache should look like.