Kiss The Cook

Chapter 8

By Friday evening, Melanie had everything in perspective. Sort of.

So she had a date. And he was picking her up in five minutes. So what. Big deal. They'd have dinner, share a few laughs, end of story. One date, that was it. Nothing serious. Besides, he'd promised to be ugly. Totally gross were his exact words. Gross was good.

It didn't make any difference that he'd kissed her socks off last night in the Pampered Palate's kitchen. And who cared that he'd then helped her clean the potato mess off the floor and walls? What difference did it make that in spite of the disaster she'd caused, he'd proceeded to finish his repair job and unclog her garbage disposal?

So he was a nice guy. A nice, fun, smart, sexy, gorgeous guy whose kisses could melt brain cells into puddles and who had the patience of a saint. Whoopdee-doo. Lot of guys were just like that. Probably. Just because she didn't know any of them didn't mean they weren't out there. Somewhere.

After dressing in a pair of lightweight turquoise pants and a matching sleeveless cotton blouse, she slipped on her Keds and laughed aloud at herself for making such a big to-do over nothing. She'd just finished spritzing on her favorite cologne when the doorbell rang.

Perfectly calm, she walked down the stairs, giving herself a last-minute pep talk, like a coach encouraging his team before the big game.

"He's just a guy like any other guy. Probably leaves dirty socks, damp towels, and empty pizza boxes on the floor. His kitchen cabinets are no doubt full of sugar-frosted cereals and Spaghetti-O's. Undoubtedly mixes last week's Chinese takeout with scrambled eggs and calls it Egg-Foo Breakfast. So snap out of it, Melanie! This is just a date. He's just a man."

She pulled open the door and froze.

Just a man.

Good grief, and what a man.

She took one look at him and all her resolve trickled away like sand drifting through an hourglass.

He stood on her porch, a tall, dark, lethal hunk of manhood dressed in snug Levis faded in all the right places. A baby blue Polo shirt stretched across his chest, accentuating his shoulders and strong arms and bringing out the color of his eyes. A sprinkling of dark, intriguing chest hair peeped above the top button on his shirt. Wildly windblown ebony hair, a sexy half smile, and the subtle scent of his woodsy cologne completed the picture. The single long-stemmed red rose he held didn't hurt either.

What the heck had happened to ugly and totally gross?

Melanie gulped. She was a goner.

She would have said hello, invited him in, something, but it seemed she had suddenly forgotten how to swallow. And talk. Her hormones, however, were annoyingly vocal. Zippity doo dah, they sang, strutting their little hormone tushies.

He handed her the rose. "Hi."

She brought the bud to her nose and inhaled its sweet, heady fragrance. We love roses, her hormones said.

Okay. She'd say hi as soon as she remembered how to speak English. Resisting an urge to pound her chest with her fists à la Tarzan and shout, "Me woman, you man, let's mate," she managed to say, "Hi."

"You look great, Mel Gibson," he said in a soft, velvety voice that brought to mind long, slow, deep kisses.

She cleared her throat and somehow managed to smile at him. Good. That's good. A smile. Now talk. "Thanks. You look nice, too." Melanie almost groaned at herself. Nice? That was such an understatement, it fell into the realm of a blatant lie. "Thanks for the rose. They're my favorite."

"You're welcome." Reaching out, he tugged gently on one of her curls. "You ready to go?"

"Yup." Thank goodness she remembered how to speak. Now if she kept her eyes closed so she didn't see him, and stopped breathing so she couldn't smell him, she just might survive the evening.

He peeked around her into the foyer. "Where's Nana?"

Melanie smiled. "She and Bernie went to the latest James Bond flick. She said not to wait up and not to call the cops if she wasn't home until morning."

"Sounds like fun. I'm happy for them."

"Me, too." Remembering her manners, Melanie asked, "Do you want to come in? Have a drink before we go?"

He shook his head. "No thanks. We need to leave. It'll be dark soon."

"So?"

"So, I want to get where we're going before there's no light left. Let's go."

Melanie ran inside long enough to put her rose in water, then grabbed her purse and locked the door. She was halfway down the porch when she halted. "Where's your car?"

He grabbed her hand and tugged her along. "Home."

"Home?" Allowing him to lead her, they walked past her Dodge, which sat in the driveway. When she saw what was parked behind the Dodge, she halted.

She peered at the huge black and chrome machine and felt her stomach roll down to her feet. "Wha… what's that?"

"What does it look like?"

She stared, slack-jawed. Uh-oh. This smelled like big trouble. "It looks like a motorcycle."

"Not just a motorcycle," he said with a wide grin. "A Harley Davidson."

"This is yours?"

"Sure is. Had it ever since college." He slapped a shiny black helmet into her hands and swung one leg over the leather seat. "Let's go."

She gaped at him, then at the monstrous gleaming steel machine nestled between his long legs. Sweat popped out on her forehead.

"Go?" she asked in a weak voice.

"Yeah. Go. You know, the open road, the wind in your hair, the asphalt beneath your feet."

Melanie puckered her lips. It really irked her when someone tossed her own words back at her. And verbatim, no less. What did he have, a photographic memory?

She plastered a false smile on her face. "As appealing as that sounds, I, ah, I'm afraid I can't. Maybe some other time. Why don't we take the Dodge?" She handed him back the helmet. He leaned over and plopped it on her head.

"Better buckle that up." He chucked her under the chin and grinned. "It's the law."

Melanie stood rooted to the spot and watched with mounting trepidation as he released the kickstand and backed the motorcycle down to the street. He strapped on his helmet, then turned to where she still stood on the driveway.

"Hey, you're lookin' kinda green, Mel Gibson. What's up?"

With as much dignity as she could muster, Melanie walked over to him. So she'd lied. So what. Lying wasn't a crime. She stood next to the motorcycle. Holy smokes. He looked totally sexy sitting astride all that steel and chrome. She almost swallowed her tongue.

"I'm not green," she reported in her haughtiest, queen of England demeanor. "I simply don't want to ride on that… thing."

He raised his brows. "Why not?"

"I'll, uh, get helmet hair. Bugs in my teeth. A sore butt. Besides, I try to avoid things with a negative fun/risk ratio. You know, three minutes on a motorcycle, eight months in the hospital."

His smile grew broader. "Chicken."

Melanie drew herself up. "I am not chicken."

He leaned forward until they were nose-to-nose. "Then prove it, Miss I-don't-want-a-boring-accountant-I-want-a-motorcycle-kind-of-guy. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe your exact words were 'My motto is-it's either motorcycle guys or no guys.'"

She shot him a dirty look. "Hasn't anybody ever told you it's impolite to throw people's words back at them? You might piss someone off."

"Hasn't anybody ever told you to be careful what you wish for? You might just get it."

Yeah, she'd heard it. Blah, blah, blah. She'd always hoped it would apply to winning the lottery. She made one last desperate attempt to save herself. "Nana would be worried sick if she knew I was on that… thing."

"Ha. Ten bucks says Nana would love to go for ride on this 'thing.'"

Darn it, he was right. A lump of real fear lodged in Melanie's throat. She'd never even been close to a motorcycle before. No doors, no seat belts, no nothin'. It gave her the willies.

"Look," she said, giving up all pretense at bravery, "I lied. I don't want a motorcycle guy. Wind in my hair gives me split ends and I'm allergic to asphalt." She swallowed the rest of her pride. "I just can't get on that thing. I'm not ready to die. There are too many things I still want to do."

He leaned his forearms on the handlebars and regarded her with interest. "Such as?"

"Such as… go canoeing. Play in a tennis tournament. Teach a cooking class. Try a martini. Bake the chocolate cake I found the recipe for in yesterday's newspaper. Skinny-dip. Lots of stuff."

"Great. I'll help you with five out of six. Let's go."

"Five out of six?"

"I'll take you canoeing, be your partner in a tennis match, and you can teach me how to cook something. I make a great martini and"-his grin turned wolfish-"I'll arrange for the skinny-dipping any time you say. You're on your own with the cake."

Melanie couldn't smother the laugh that escaped her. She shook her finger at him. "If Nana knew how you were talking to me, she'd take a rolling pin to you."

"Good. We'll use it to make your cake. Now I'm six for six." He held out his hand. "C'mon, Melanie. Climb on. Take a chance. Do something wild."

"Hey, I do plenty of wild things. Lots of 'em. Wild is my middle name."

He crossed his arms over his chest and regarded her with amusement. "Oh, really? What's the last wild thing you did?"

She shuffled her feet. "Uh, well, yesterday I hand-washed a rayon shirt that said dry clean only."

He hooted out a laugh. "You're a regular Evel Knevel."

"Ha, ha, ha. I once put bubble bath in the Jacuzzi-"

"Now that's more like it."

She sent him a withering look. "I was twelve."

He made a tsking sound and shook his head. "That's pathetic. Absolutely pitiful. Boy, are you lucky I came along to save your sorry butt."

"It's my sorry butt I'm attempting to save by not getting on that thing."

A warm, teasing, utterly sexy expression entered his eyes. Melanie felt the pull of that look and groaned. "Don't look at me like that," she protested, knowing she was going down for the third time with no lifeboat in sight. "Time out. No fair."

"C'mon, Mel. Ride with me." He leaned forward and brushed his mouth over hers. Their helmets bumped. "I promise you'll like it."

Riding on a Harley with the sexiest guy east of the Rockies, arms wrapped around him, pressed into his body. Oh, yeah. She'd probably like it no end.

That was exactly what she was afraid of. And if the motorcycle didn't kill her, the overdose of potent male sexuality no doubt would.

She took a deep breath.

Oh, well. What the heck.

Everybody's gotta go sometime.