Free Sugar Rush by Elaine Overton Page B

filled with work, and she spent her nights in an exhausted sleep as a result.
    But last night, as she lay staring at the ceiling, El’s image had passed before her eyes many times. There was so much about him that she didn’t know, and every minute revealed things that didn’t fit. For instance, there was no way she could see this man working in the kitchen of the exclusive and very posh Catalan’s. Yet he seemed surprisingly at home in her kitchen. And it wasn’t that he lacked sophistication. It’s just that his polish seemed more along the lines of someone who’d worked his way up from modest beginning to a cultured lifestyle, not someone who served those who did. Sophie had learned a lot about both types of people when she left the small town of Selmer to go to Duke.
    On the large campus, she’d met every type of personality imaginable, and in her opinion El fit too well in her world to have come from anywhere else. She wondered about his background, the man he was before culinary school.
    “So?”
    Sophie was startled out of her reverie as she realized he’d crossed in front of her and was currently speaking to her. “So?”
    He pulled back and gave her a curious look. “Where were you?”
    She smiled. “Sorry, my mind’s running at a million miles an hour. What did you say?”
    “I said—” he leaned forward, bracing his hands on the arms of her wheelchair “—there is one way to settle the matter of who kissed who.”
    She felt her heart rate begin to speed up as she anticipated the kiss to come. “Oh?” She licked her dry lips, and he shook his head once before swooping down on her mouth.
    Sophie eagerly welcomed him, wrapping her arms around his neck. She gasped against his open mouth as he lifted her up out of the chair. He cradled her in his arms as his mouth devoured hers.
    His taste was sweet and minty, his full lips delectable. So much so, she couldn’t resist gently clamping her teeth down on his bottom lip.
    His head came up, and his eyes twinkled with mischief. “Hmm, didn’t peg you as a biter.”
    She tightened her arms around his neck, bringing his lips back down to hers. She didn’t want to talk or flirt; she wanted his mouth against hers. His hands on her body, his body over hers. Her whole being tingled with the images conjured by her mind. The feeling of his warm copper flesh against hers. Suddenly there were too many clothes between them, as his soft lips traced the veins of her neck, up behind her ear and sent a shiver through her.
    “I want you,” she whispered against his chest, running her tongue over his salty shoulder, feeling the muscles just beneath the skin.
    “That’s all I needed to hear.” Using his foot, El pushed the chair back out of the doorway as he stepped up into the kitchen, still holding her cradled in his arms.
    He turned toward her back bedroom, then froze as they both heard the chime on the front door ring. Lonnie’s noisy chatter drifted into the kitchen, followed by Dante’s quiet response.
    Sophie looked at the man holding her tightly against his chest and saw her disappointment reflected in his brown eyes. She smiled. “I should’ve locked the front door.”
    He smiled back. “It wouldn’t have made a difference.”
    She sighed in frustration. “You’re right. Wayne has a key.”
    El bent his head and kissed her lips once more, a soft touch, and a promise. Then gently sat her back down in her chair, and whispered in her ear, “We’ll get our chance to be together, just not tonight.”
    She looked up at him, unable to hide her desire. “You promise?”
    He nodded with pure determination. “Absolutely.”
     
    “Well?”
    “Well, what?” Eliot turned from the open door of his condo as Carl entered.
    “How is it going? Find out anything interesting? Who do they plan to bid on next? What shape are their finances in? I wish I were a little younger and less known, I’d do this myself. I know how to get the information we