Free The Chocolate Heart by Laura Florand Page A

have to keep control.
    She relaxed visibly at his quiet tone. Had she been hearing stories about temperamental chefs and imagined him throwing pans at her head? If she thought he was capable of losing control so easily, he had only himself to blame.
    â€œI just—you weren’t looking at me,” she said and bit her lip too late to catch the words back.
    No, you weren’t looking at me. “I’m looking at you now.”
    She flushed. His fingertips caressed the marble counter in hunger for the heat of her skin. They stood completely still as chefs and assistants brushed by everywhere. “Is there something I can help you with, Mademoiselle Corey? Did you want to see how we work, perhaps?”
    Oh, yes, his whole body shouted fiercely, watch me. Grow all absorbed in me. Unable to look away.
    Her eyes flickered to his with a flash of pure hunger.
    Yes! Triumph licked him, thorough hot licks of her mouth on his skin. Oh, yes, I can make you hunger for me.
    And then her smile turned her whole beautiful, luminous, delicate face into something so impossibly wonderful that his hands— his hands—almost shook with the need to grab it to him, to crush it to him, and never let it get away. His hands. Shaking. Crushing.
    â€œOh, no, I wouldn’t want to disturb you.” She sent a rueful glance at the utter mess she had made of his— her heart. “They always did say I shattered their concentration.”
    The “they” she used, in French, was masculine, ils. Jealousy burned across his palms, pushing their urge to crush her to him. “Who?”
    â€œOh”—she waved a dismissive, amused hand—“my father. Boyfriends.”
    He had been controlling insanely temperamental people—including himself—in kitchens for all his adult life. And he had never realized he had a jaw muscle that could tighten quite that way. “I’m not your father. And I’m most certainly not one of your boyfriends.”
    Again that little shimmer in her smile, as if it had slid and settled back into place. Did she do it on purpose, the way she made that silk dress shiver over her body, until a man wanted to lock her in some dark closet with him and spend the night just running his hands over and over that silk against her skin? Fighting himself for control, to make her his and his and his again without cracking?
    â€œOh, dear, of course not,” she said lightly and reached up to touch his jaw in caressing condescension, right there in front of his whole team. The touch hissed through him. “I forgot we were still working out the details on that. It’s such a quandary, about that yacht.” She tapped her lower lip with the finger of one hand while the other stroked down from his jaw to smooth the shoulder of his chef ’s jacket, driving him completely insane with the need to strip it off, to feel that stroke against his bare skin. “I can’t think what else to . . .” Her eyes lit. “I know. What about a penthouse apartment?”
    Their eyes locked. Rage roared up in him like a furnace, and he clamped. Locked it down. “I don’t think so,” he said very precisely. His whole team had just heard her offer him a fucking penthouse apartment as if she was upping her bid on a whore.
    â€œOh, dear.” She looked anxious. “You are hard to buy presents for. Well.” Her hand patted his jaw again, and he hated himself for the arousal that shot through his body. “I’ll keep thinking.”
    And then she turned and was gone, that blond head glimmering like some beautiful deity flitting back to heaven. Luc’s jaw was set so hard he thought he might break the bone. He had no other choice. It was either that or lose control. He pivoted. Multiple people gazing at him with shocked, rounded mouths suddenly ducked back to work in all directions.
    Except for Patrick, who leaned over and inspected the oozing ruins of the