Free The Chocolate Touch by Laura Florand Page A

slowly.
    “It will be a pleasure,” he said firmly.
    Again her gaze flicked to the brunette and back to him, incredulous. “You don’t even know my name. Do you?” she asked warily.
    “No.” He raised his eyebrows expectantly.
    Once again, she didn’t respond with the correct politeness and tell him.
    Really. And here he was trying so hard to prove to her his manners. “I’ve told you mine,” he prompted encouragingly. “Dominique.”
    But that, unexpectedly, made her laugh. “Everybody in Paris knows your name, Dominique Richard,” she told him with . . . with what he could only describe as affectionate humor. As if she was going to ruffle his hair indulgently next.
    Hmm. He was not her little boy. And yet, the idea of her hand in his hair, even patting it like a little boy’s, made his whole body curl with longing.
    “Come upstairs,” he coaxed. It must, indeed, have been irresistible bait, because she moved with him to the bottom of the stairs. “You’ll love this.”
    “Ciao, Dominique,” the brunette said silkily as she took her sack of chocolates and made a little gesture to her ear, I’ll call you later.
    La salope, Dom thought with respect. That was probably why he had been attracted to her in the first place. He liked a woman who fought back and fought dirty.
    He looked down at his inconnue, her eyes once again cool, distant, incredulous. Well, it wouldn’t be the first time he had to surmount an impossible handicap from his past. He smiled down at her. “Come up.” Come see me at my best.
    He just barely remembered, last minute, to fall into step behind her rather than lead the way. Someone, some exasperated girl when he was a teenager, had complained about his lack of gallantry, and that had been one of the things she had pointed out—that he was supposed to follow behind the woman up the stairs. He had refused to care. The very last thing he was able to do back then was put himself in a position that suggested he was anyone’s servant, man or woman.
    But as he followed behind her up his stairs, he thought it wasn’t so bad. He didn’t feel like her servant, he felt like a Peeping Tom. He could see her butt as she climbed and planned to put some more meat on it by stuffing her with delicacies while she was upstairs. And if she slipped on those narrow spirals, he could catch her.
    A light came on in his brain. Maybe that was the reason he was supposed to follow a woman up the stairs. Did that mean he was supposed to go before her on the descent, too?
    That wouldn’t be nearly as much fun, because he wouldn’t be able to see her butt, but he kind of liked the idea that if she tripped, she would ram straight into his broad shoulders and cling to them. And he wouldn’t let her fall.
    He grinned a little. Maybe if he was lucky, she would trip because she was so busy watching his butt. He’d been told he had a good one, although the context felt uncomfortably sordid and dirty as he followed Mademoiselle Nameless up the stairs.
    “She’s not going to call me later,” he mentioned into her ear, brought to the level of his mouth by the two steps between them. “She doesn’t even have my number.”
    Her step faltered and he actually got to reach out a hand and put that gentlemanliness into practice, catching her . . . maybe just a little lower on her back than was quite well-mannered, maybe just a little too much of her butt, but he didn’t want her to fall.
    She tripped again at the touch, but she didn’t knock his hand away. This is it, Dom. Either she’s desperately afraid of heights, or she might be ready for you to ask her out. She might not disappear if you do.
    He ducked around as soon as they reached the top of the stairs, to see her expression when they first came into his laboratoire.
    When her face lit up like a sunrise, he wanted to kiss her right then.
    Damn, this whole going slow stuff was hard.
     
    Jaime had never seen anything like Dominique Richard’s kitchens. While