“No, Chef.”
“Careful, or I’ll make you eat the crumbs.”
“I’m happy to lick the pots.” I realize that after our truce I should stay away from double meanings, but the look I give her at the wordlickescapes my control.
She responds to my provocation by dipping her finger into the bowl of cherry tomatoes with burrata and sucking off the juice. “Then I won’t leave any of these for you, either.” It’s getting bad.
The dress she’s wearing, though it’s floor-length, is so revealing, with thin straps and semi-sheer linen through which I can just glimpsethe pattern on her panties. But she’s not wearing a bra because, well, she just isn’t.
I was very convinced about what I said to her before—key word beingwas. Now I don’t know.
“Nooo!” she exclaims. “This traitorous cherry tomato just stained my dress. My hands are dirty—can you do me a favor, Michael? Can you get my mother’s apron over there on the door and help me put it on?”
I carry out the harmless order without batting an eye until I’m behind her tying the apron at her waist, and I realize there’s nothing innocent about it at all.
How do I put this on her without touching her? I’m not Houdini! Among other things, in this position and from my height, I have the best possible view of her breasts ... Michael, concentrate!
I complete the mission with my eyes half closed and using only the tips of my fingers, which tremble as if I were defusing a bomb. “Done,” I announce with a parched mouth and Olympic gold–worthy pride.
“Thanks. Let’s season the bruschetta and set them aside since we’ll bake them last. Now for the pici—I’ll need your hands here.”
No, Elisa; you can’t say these things. I can’t take it. “Okay.”
She pours some flour into a bowl. “Now, so we don’t make too much of a mess, you slowly pour in the warm water while I stir.”
We get to work, and in a short time a nice white, soft dough thickens in the bowl which she then greases and wraps in plastic. “While this goes in the fridge, we repeat the process two more times.”
I’m about to tell her we can do this as many times as she wants, but I hold back. The problem is that when I offered to help her—and it was a sincere and disinterested proposal; I’m not the type of man who thinks that a woman’s place is in the kitchen—I underestimated the seductive power of cooking together.
The way she moves her hands, the way she smells the ingredients, the way she tastes them, the closeness of her ... it’s the stuff of fantasies.
Once the dough is finished, we take the first bowl from the fridge.
“Now comes the best part,” she announces. “Making the pici.” She divides the ball in two with a knife and passes half to me on the large floured cutting board. “Watch how I do it.”
It’s easier said than done for someone who always just orders off the menu, and she certainly doesn’t make it look easy. Roll out the dough with a rolling pin? Who uses a rolling pin in the twenty-first century? Then, with impressive knife skills, she cuts a series of strips and rolls them on the cutting board, transforming them into something like spaghetti, all with the same length and diameter.
I give it a try, but my hand-eye coordination, which is infallible on the squash courts, abandons me here. “I give up,” I say, raising my hands in front of my first bunch of pici, which look more like worms that have been crushed by a truck.
“Come behind me,” she says, positioning herself in front of me. “And don’t snort in annoyance.”
I’m not annoyed—far from it! But is she really so naive to think that after yesterday there can be an entirely innocent connotation to the phrase “come behind me”?
“Place your hands on either end of the rolling pin, next to mine,” she says. “And roll out the dough like this: forward, backward, forward, backward.”
All fine, except that her body—specifically, her lower half—is rocking back and forth, rhythmically touching my pelvis.
I’m dangerously approaching the limit to my best intentions. And that’s my best—not my worst ...
“Now let’s cut the strips and roll them up, like this.” As she stretches out the innocent pici, our hands touch.
It’s dangerous skin-to-skin contact, with her bare neck caressed by a few wavy strands falling from her bun and the sweet scent of her rose water perfume teasing my senses. I just want to bite her ...
I could . . .
I know there’s a huge chance she’ll give me an epic slap but ... who cares. I’ll take the risk!
30
