Chapter 16: The Third Sunday: Kitchen Heat
The rain lasted three days. Leonid went through the motions. Practice. Classes. Shifting kegs at the bar. He laughed at Dimitri’s jokes, harder than necessary. He flirted with a cheerleader after a game, buying her a drink he couldn’t afford, letting her trace the veins on his forearm. It was hollow noise. A failed exorcism.
All he could think about was silence. And the press of a hand.
When Sunday came, he didn’t watch the clock. He just left his dorm and walked. His body felt like a tuned instrument, every nerve aware of the approaching frequency.
He let himself into her apartment with the key she’d given him that first week. The scent hit him immediately—not cherry blossom, but something savory and deep. Garlic, rosemary, searing meat. The amber lights were on over the kitchen island, painting the marble in warm pools.
He rounded the corner and stopped.
She was at the stove, back to him. She wore a black lace bra and matching panties, nothing else. The lines of her spine were stark, a delicate ladder between her shoulder blades descending to the slight swell of her hips. The lace cut into the pale skin of her lower back. Her hair was piled messily, exposing the nape of her neck.
She turned, holding a wooden spoon. A slow smile touched her lips, seeing him frozen in the doorway. “You’re late. By four minutes.” She gestured to the array of ingredients on the island: shallots, mushrooms, fresh pasta, a bottle of red wine. “I thought we could cook. Something real. Not just… presentation.”
He finally found his voice, leaning against the doorframe, a facade of cool. “A little underdressed for the Food Network, Kim.”
“It’s hot by the stove.” She said it flatly, a fact. Her eyes raked over him. “You can take your shirt off if you want. Equality.”
He didn’t. He walked to the island, his eyes on the food, not her. “What are we making?”
“Beef bourguignon. Simplified.” She returned to the pan, stirring. “You can start chopping the shallots. Knife’s there. Try to keep them even. It matters for the caramelization.”
He picked up the chef’s knife. It had a good weight. He focused on the shallots, the methodical work of his hands. The sizzle from the pan filled the silence. Her bare skin was a constant peripheral distraction—the shift of muscle in her shoulder, the lace strap slipping down an inch.
They worked in a strange, parallel rhythm. She moved around him to grab wine, her hip brushing his. He reached for the thyme, his arm crossing the space her body had just occupied. The air was thick with heat and herb and her.
“I heard a rumor,” she said casually, deglazing the pan with a violent hiss of red wine.
“Yeah?” He kept chopping.
“About you and that cheerleader. Sarah.” Jennie didn’t look at him. “They say you took her home. They say she couldn’t walk straight the next day.”
His knuckles tightened on the knife handle. So that was here, in this room, with the scent of her skin mixing with the rosemary. “People talk.”
“They do.” She brought the wine bottle over, refilling the measuring cup he hadn’t realized was empty. She stood close, her arm against his. He could see the delicate lace covering the small curve of her breast, the shadow of her nipple beneath the weave. “Is that why you’re here? To prove a point? That you can have anyone, even the ones you pretend to hate?”
He set the knife down with a sharp clack on the marble. He turned to face her. Her eyes were dark, unblinking, waiting for the lie.
“I’m here because I want to be, Kim.” The words came out low, stripped bare. “Not because of a rumor. Not because of the debt. You know that. You’ve always known that.”
She studied him, her head tilted. The predator assessing, not the prey. Then she stepped into him. The lace of her panties brushed against the fly of his jeans. Her hand came up, palm flat and warm against his chest, over his heart, just like in the gym. A brand he was starting to crave.
“Then show me,” she breathed. The words were a challenge, a permission, a threat.
He didn’t hesitate.
His hand fisted in the lace at her waist, yanking her against him. The other tangled in the hair at the nape of her neck, not gently. He bent his head and kissed her.
It wasn’t sweet. It was salt and heat and the tang of red wine from the spoon she’d tasted. It was a collision. She opened for him immediately, a soft, surrendering sound in her throat that made his gut clench. Her hands came up to grip his shoulders, her nails biting through the cotton of his shirt.
He walked her back until her spine met the cool edge of the marble island. He leaned into her, his body caging hers, the hard line of his erection pressed against the softness of her stomach. She arched into it, a desperate little grind that shattered his control.
He broke the kiss, breathing ragged, forehead against hers. Her lips were swollen, her eyes glazed. She looked utterly feral, utterly his.
“Leonid,” she whispered, a raw sound he’d never heard before.
The sound of his name, like that, broke something loose. He kissed her again, deeper, his tongue claiming her mouth. His hand left her hair, skated down her side, over the lace, and slipped beneath the band of her panties. He cupped the full, warm curve of her ass, skin impossibly soft, and pulled her tighter against him.
She gasped into his mouth. Her own hands were frantic, pulling at his shirt, dragging it up until he broke away long enough to yank it over his head and toss it aside. Her gaze devoured him—the pale skin, the defined muscles, the dark trail of hair leading down. She traced a vein on his chest with a trembling finger.
Then her hands went to his belt.
The metallic clink of the buckle was obscenely loud. He let her work it, watching her face, the concentration there, the dark fan of her lashes against her cheeks. She got the belt open, the button of his jeans, the zipper. She pushed them down over his hips just enough.
He was fully hard, straining against his boxers. Her small hand wrapped around him through the fabric, a firm, knowing squeeze that made his vision blur. He groaned, hips jerking forward.
“Jennie,” he warned, voice shattered.
She looked up at him through her lashes, that slow, predatory smile returning. “You showed me,” she said. Then she sank to her knees on the kitchen floor.
He swayed, bracing one hand on the marble behind her. Her hands pushed his jeans and boxers down further. She didn’t stare, didn’t hesitate. She leaned forward, her breath hot against him, and pressed her open mouth to the skin of his inner thigh.
He jerked. Her tongue traced a path upward. Then she took him into her mouth, all at once, deep.
His head fell back. A choked curse ripped from his throat. Her mouth was hot, wet, perfect. She moved with a rhythm that was both innocent and profoundly skilled, one hand wrapping around the base of him, the other digging into his hip for balance. He looked down, the sight nearly undoing him: her flawless face, obscured by her hair, her body almost naked and kneeling between his legs in her pristine, shadowy kitchen.
He fought for control, his fingers tangling in her hair. He didn’t guide, just held on. The sensations built, a coil tightening low in his stomach. The smells of cooking meat and herbs and her perfume wrapped around them, a grotesque, perfect tapestry.
“Stop,” he gritted out, tugging her hair.
She released him with a soft, wet sound, looking up, her lips slick and bruised.
“Not like this,” he breathed. He pulled her up, his hands rough on her skin. He turned her around, bending her over the cold marble island. Her lace-clad back was a pale arc. He shoved the panties aside, his fingers finding her wet, hot, exactly as he’d dreamed. She was soaked. She cried out, a sharp, broken sound, as he pushed two fingers inside her.
He leaned over her, his mouth at her ear. “This what you wanted? All those Sundays? This lesson?”
“Yes,” she sobbed, pushing back against his hand. “Always.”
He withdrew his fingers, lined himself up, and drove into her in one brutal, seamless stroke.
She screamed. It was a raw, unfiltered sound of pleasure-pain. Her body clenched around him, impossibly tight, hot. He stilled, buried to the hilt, shuddering with the effort of not coming right then. Her cheek was pressed against the cold marble, her eyes squeezed shut.
He began to move. It wasn’t gentle. It was claiming, punishing, answering. Each thrust rocked her body against the hard edge of the counter. Her sounds were muffled, desperate. One of her hands scrambled, knocking a shallot to the floor. It rolled away, forgotten.
He fucked her like he was trying to erase the memory of every other touch, every other moment of stillness. He gripped her lace-clad hip, the fabric tearing a little under his fingers. His other hand fisted in her hair, pulling her head back to expose the long line of her throat. He bit the juncture of her neck and shoulder, not hard enough to break skin, but to mark.
She was chanting his name, a ragged, worshipping prayer. “Leonid, Leonid, Leonid.”
Her body started to convulse around him, a fierce, tightening rhythm. Her cry was guttural, animal. The feeling tore his own climax from him, a wave of blinding white that crashed through his veins. He held himself deep, spilling into her, his own shout lost against the skin of her shoulder.
For a long moment, the only sounds were their ragged breaths and the ominous plink of fat dripping from the forgotten, now-burning beef in the pan.
Slowly, he softened, slipped out of her. He straightened, his body buzzing, reality seeping back in. The kitchen was a disaster. She didn’t move, still bent over the island, her back rising and falling rapidly.
He looked at her, at the red mark on her shoulder, at the torn lace, at the utterly vulnerable curve of her spine. A cold knot of something like shame tightened in his gut, sharp and familiar.
He’d given her exactly what she wanted. And in doing so, he’d lost every last inch of the high ground.
He pulled his jeans up, fastened them. He didn’t know what to say. “Your food’s burning,” was what came out, his voice hoarse.
Jennie pushed herself up, turning slowly. Her face was flushed, her eyes black and bottomless. She looked wrecked. Perfect. She reached out and turned off the burner, not glancing at the charred pan.
“I know,” she said quietly. She didn’t try to cover herself. She just stood there in her torn lace, smelling of sex and smoke, looking at him as if she’d won something monumental.
And he knew, with a sinking certainty, that she had.