Free Seduced by Chaos by Stephanie Julian Page A

and she couldn’t believe she felt sexual desire sparking in her gut again. When he’d left for an hour this afternoon to go back to his apartment to change, she’d fought a rising panic that he wouldn’t return.
    Now Teo’s expression as he stalked to the bar made her pussy clench and moisten.
    How did he do that? How did he—
    Reaching across the bar, he put one hand behind her head and brought her forward, laying his lips on hers and kissing her until she softened. When he drew back, she couldn’t help her smile as he went back to taking down the chairs from the tables.
    “Of course I want you to meet them. But all together, they can be a real pain in the ass. Rio’s a brat, but Cam and Nino together are lethal to my sanity.”
    “How so?”
    Finished with the chairs, he walked back to the bar and leaned on it, tight black t-shirt stretching across broad shoulders. Some expression crossed his face and his mouth opened as if he were going to say something. Then he shook his head.
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    “They’re like old mother hens,” he said. “Overprotective. Worried about things they can’t change.”
    “Like what?”
    He didn’t answer, his mouth tightening.
    “Teo?”
    His lips parted—and the door to the kitchen opened.
    “ Bella mia , we’re gonna need to do something about that oven. It’s still not heating to the correct…temperature.”
    Frederico Salano, Lacey’s cook, strode into the bar from the kitchen, hands waving, Italian accent thick as his marinara sauce. He stopped dead in his tracks when he saw Teo.
    The round little man, who stood barely five feet tall and should own his own four-star restaurant instead of working in her little bar, had a fierce temper, a quick laugh and a loyal streak a mile wide.
    When she’d placed an ad for a cook on the bulletin board in Uni’s Temple behind Marelli’s Trattorria, she’d never expected a monaciello chef from the famed Etruscan banquet hall, The Cellar, to apply for the job. She’d hired him immediately and given him carte blanche on the menu.
    A branch of Etruscan Fata , monaciello were wizards with food, infusing dishes with flavor that was only partly magical.
    Fred’s defection from The Cellar had created such a stir among the Etruscan community that her business probably fared better than it should have as a new establishment. But in the two centuries since the Etruscans had settled in Reading, monacielli had only worked in The Cellar. That he’d come to work for her was a major coup on her part. But it had made others look at her more closely for a while. It had made her that much more careful about passing herself off as a half-human linchetta. So far, no one suspected otherwise. Not even Fred.
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    Like her regulars Mike and Joe, Fred tended to be overprotective of her. And even though he stood less than five feet tall and looked like a miniature version of a certain male Food Network chef with his dark curly, receding hair and round body, the man could handle a knife with deadly skill.
    Right now, he was staring at Teo like he was a dead fish on his cutting board.
    She could practically smell the testosterone filling the air.
    Stepping slightly in front of Teo, she said, “I’m sorry, Fred, why don’t we call the dealer now to have him take a look at the stove.” Then she turned to Teo, who wore a bland expression on his face. “Teodoro de Feo, Frederico Salano. Fred runs the kitchen.
    He’s the best chef in the city.”
    Fred slanted a quick smile her way before leveling his hard gaze back on Teo. He took Teo’s hand when he stuck it out but held onto it when Teo would have pulled away. “You’re one of Luc de Feo’s sons, yes? Not a very social creature, are you? Hadn’t seen you at The Cellar since you were a boy.”
    Teo nodded. “My job requires long hours and a lot of travel.”
    “And what is it you do, Teodoro?”
    She turned back to Teo, wondering how he’d answer that one.
    “I