"You can only imagine how thrilled my parents were when I decided to chuck in my climb up the corporate ladder for truffles. Evidently they didn’t send me to an expensive college to make candy for a living," she said with a laugh before leaning forward as if she had a secret to share. "They don’t even like chocolate. Can you believe it?"
All he had to do was lean in a couple of inches, and he could have kissed her. Just pressed his lips to hers to see if she tasted as good as she looked.
"That’s crazy," he said, but he wasn’t talking about her parents not eating carbs. No, he was reminding himself that kissing the incredibly sweet girl next door was nuts.
"You like it, don’t you?" Her voice now held a husky tone that reverberated right to his groin.
Idiot that he was, he couldn’t make himself look away from her big green eyes. "Like what?"
As her full lips parted again, he nearly lost hold of his control when she said, "Chocolate."
Knowing he’d give away his lust if he spoke again, he nodded instead.
Unfortunately, when she smiled at him, it did just what the huskiness in her voice had. "Good. Then maybe you can be my taste tester this summer for the new recipes I’m working on."
Rafe could easily picture Brooke holding out a chocolate-covered fingertip for him to taste. Of course, in his vision she also happened to be completely naked. His mouth watered, his groin hardened further, and he had to pick up his beer and down it in one long gulp before he could answer her.
"I don’t know anything about chocolate."
"Actually, it’s better if you don’t. There’s nothing worse than an overeducated palate trying to dissect everything. I don’t care about prestige or awards. All I care about is bringing people pleasure."
Just the word pleasure from her gorgeous mouth had him as turned on as he could ever remember being. Again it struck him that any other woman would have been doing this to arouse him on purpose. But Brooke was simply beginning to roll her pasta dough through the pasta machine, looking bright and pretty in her grandparents’ kitchen.
What the hell was wrong with him, thinking there had been anything she’d said or done so far tonight that was meant to turn him on? All this time he’d thought he was better than those rich ass**les he investigated who thought with their dicks and screwed anything they could get their hands on. But he couldn’t even be friends with a pretty girl without mentally stripping her naked.
"In fact," she said, "the best way to do a taste test is blindfolded." Giving him a playful glance, she reached into a kitchen drawer and held up a clean kitchen towel. "This would probably work if you’re game to try a few of my new chocolate recipes later tonight."
Rafe immediately shook his head. "I’m happy to try out your new recipes, but I won’t wear a blindfold."
"Oh," she said as she carefully put the towel back into the drawer. "Okay."
How could he explain to her that he didn’t trust anyone enough anymore to willingly let them take away one of his senses? Figuring it was best to change the subject at this point, he said, "Last I knew, you were an eight-year-old who swam like a fish." Somehow he needed to remember to look at her as that little girl, rather than the gorgeous woman she’d become.
"And you were a fourteen-year-old boy who got into more trouble than anyone else." He was glad to see her smile come back so quickly. "I’ll bet you still do."
Her question should have been light, but the idea of getting into trouble with her had his body heating back up in all the places he’d been trying to force to cool down.
Focus. That’s what being this close to Brooke was going to be about. Holding focus on anything except how pretty she was, how soft her skin looked, how sweet her mouth would taste, how surprisingly sensual it was watching her manipulate the pasta with her bare hands...
What the hell had they been talking about? Oh yeah, what they’d been up to during the past eighteen years. Rather than answering her question about trouble, while ignoring the slight burn from the scar across his ribs that proved he hadn’t yet learned how to walk away from it, he asked, "Where do you sell your chocolates? Do you have a store in town?"
She shook her head. "I supply boxes to local grocery and gift stores. But," she added with a smile that held obvious pride and excitement, "I just took on a new partner who will be opening a retail store in Seattle."
Rafe knew better than to stick his nose into someone else’s personal life or business affairs unless they’d hired him to do just that—no one wanted advice they hadn’t asked for—but Brooke was a friend. And he couldn’t stand the thought of her being taken advantage of.
"Congratulations. What kind of things is your partner taking care of?"
"All the financial stuff," she said, as if it were no big deal that she’d turned her money over to someone else’s care. "Distribution channels. Packaging. Running the retail store."
"You trust her that much?"
"Him," she clarified, before adding, "And yes, he was a colleague of my father’s at Harvard, and has a great reputation in the food retail world. Why wouldn’t I trust him?"
Rafe could think of a hundred possible reasons, but before he could start laying them out one by one, she began to slide the spaghetti strands into a pot of water she’d put on to boil and asked, "Now that you’ve heard my long and winding story, tell me all about yours."
"I run a private investigation agency."
"I should have guessed that," she said with a wide smile. "Talk about the perfect job for you."
"What makes you think it’s perfect for me?"
She gave him a strange look, as though she couldn’t believe he was asking her that. "Whenever we played hide-and-seek, you always won, because you were able to put together clues no one else could."
"That’s just a kids game, Brooke. And you were always giggling and giving yourself away."
Her laughter—all grown up now and layered with sensuality he couldn’t manage to miss—washed over him. "You haven’t forgotten your nickname, have you?"
"No, but I was hoping you had."
"Not a chance, Tracker."
He groaned. "Remind me to strangle Mia the next time I see her for ever coming up with that."
"I’m sure no one outside of your family and mine knew it," she assured him, "although no one has ever forgotten the way you found that scared little boy in the mountains."