Free The Sweetest Thing by Jill Shalvis

agenda. Forcing herself to
     tear her eyes off him, she took in the kitchen,and how it felt to use it for the first time. It felt good, she realized. Really good. And there was something else. With
     Ford in it, the room seemed cozy, intimate.
    And damn if he wasn’t taking up too much of it.
    The air had begun to smell like heaven, and Tara could hear the sizzle and pop of the oil. Her mouth watered. “So about this
     surprising me thing.”
    “Hush,” he said, and before she could hurt him for that, he nudged her wine glass to her lips. “Just stand there and give
     your brain a couple of minutes off. Five minutes, Tara. Better yet, sit.” He gently pushed her onto a barstool. “Take a deep
     breath.” He waited until she did. “Good,” he said. “Now let it out, slowly. Repeat a few times.”
    She glared at him, but continued to breathe. Slow. In and out. She drank. Breathed some more. And damn if after five minutes
     she didn’t feel a whole hell of a lot better about the evening. “It’s the wine,” she said.
    He refilled her glass and handed her a plate loaded with fried chicken. “It’s also the company.”
    Tara laughed at his cockiness and took a bite of his chicken. And then moaned. “Lord almighty.”
    He smiled. “Yeah?”
    “Oh yeah. This is amazing.” She pointed at him. “Which you already know and which doesn’t get you off the hook. Okay, so one
     more time, slowly and precisely—why were
you
putting my spices away?”
    “Because your sisters asked me to. They asked because you’re a control freak who’ll bitch the air blue if they get left on
     the counter.”
    “I am not a—” She broke off and drew in a deep,relaxing breath. She was. She really was a complete and utter control freak. Another deep breath. Another sip of wine.
    His eyes were laughing at her, which she ignored because he was back to unloading her spices. “You can’t put the basil and
     cumin so close to the stove,” she said. “They’ll go bad.”
    “They need to be in easy reach, and if this place sees anything close to the kind of business I think it will, the spices
     won’t last long enough to go bad.”
    She stood up and moved close to reach out and stop him, accidentally brushing against his big body. That was so supremely
     annoying—seriously, could he be any sexier?—that she forgot to apologize. In fact, she might have given him a little tiny
     shove to get out of her way.
    He held his ground, refusing to budge.
    “
Everything
goes bad,” she murmured, trying to reach the basil. She couldn’t have it next to the cumin—yuck.
    “Not everything,” he said, and shifted to come up right behind her, crowding her.
    Of their own accord, her eyes drifted closed and her body quivered. Because no matter how much time had passed, every part
     of her remembered every part of him. Gripping the countertop in front of her, she bowed her head and choked out his name as
     his long arms came around her.
    But instead of touching her, he grabbed the basil for her without even stretching, the tall, gorgeous bastard, and set it
     down in front of her.
    “The poppy seeds will start to smell disgusting if they’re not in the fridge,” she said.
    Lowering his head, he sniffed at her neck.
    “Not me,” she said with a low, helpless laugh. “The poppy seeds.”
    “You’re right. Because you smell amazing. You always did.”
    Oh, God. Her knees actually wobbled at that. “I smell like fried chicken.”
    “Mh-mmm. Finger lickin’ good.”
    Her fingers turned white on the counter. “Why did my sisters pick you to do this?”
    “Because I offered to. Jax offered, too, but he’s kitchen-challenged, so they wouldn’t let him.”
    “I didn’t ask for help.”
    “No kidding.” He turned Tara to face him, his expression amused. “You’d choke on your own tongue before you asked for help.
     This was to be a surprise for you, Tara. A fully stocked kitchen, ready to go.”
    That Maddie and Chloe had even