“About the coulis,” London supplied. “It’s really great.”
Dahlia swallowed. “Right. Thanks.”
“Could I perhaps have a taste, too, Ms. Woodson?”
Dahlia almost stumbled backward at Tanner Tavish’s booming voice, right beside her. When she looked over, she noticed the two cameras behind Tavish’s shoulder, pointed straight at her.
“Of course.” Dahlia twirled around and stepped back to her side of the station, cheeks flaming.
The cameras had probably filmed the whole interaction. They were standing so close to each other. Barbara’s voice echoed in Dahlia’s ear:Ask anyone in this competition, and they’ll tell you London wants to be more than Instagram friends with you. When episodes start airing, I bet folks at home will be able to see it, too.
Dahlia wondered, briefly, if Janet had seen her nasty business hair this morning and hustled over to the rest of the production team to say, “You know what we should do? Move Parker up next to Woodson. Keep a close eye on those two, okay? The audience is going to eat that shit up.”
Dahlia didn’t want to believe Janet would do this.
But TV was a business, after all.
A wave of nausea rolled through her stomach.
Trying to ignore it, she returned to her coulis, back to the comfort of food and her own mind.
Her mind, which had just done a funny thing.
There were many nonsensical facets of the fantasy Dahlia had just had, before the cameras had ruined it. There was the fact that she and London were both currently living in a hotel, clearly lacking in cozy, steamy kitchens. And that when they did return to their respective kitchens, away fromChef’s Special, one was very much in Nashville, while the other remained in Maryland. As they had established. As had been established, since the beginning.
And anyway, Dahlia had already proved she was spectacularly bad at domestic bliss. Had she learned nothing? The idea of letting down London like she had let down David—if London wanted domestic bliss, too—made her stomach sink into her toes like a stone.
Plus, they had slept togetheronce. Her brain really must have been addled. She thought this morning she had just been overwhelmed by how good the sex was, but now here she was, mentally decorating their imaginary kitchen. She needed to calm the fuck down.
Except London, apparently, wasn’t very calm either.
As soon as the crew called them off on a break after the cooking portion of the Ingredient Innovation was done, London waited until all the other contestants had walked off stage, toward craft services or the bathrooms, before grabbing Dahlia’s hand and yanking her away into an alcove behind the solo interview set.
They pushed her against a wall, their hands running down her sides, forehead pressing into hers, and it was all very fast and surprising and awesome. No more covert pinky squeezes, then. Dahlia tried to hold in her quivery sigh at the sudden sensation of all of London pressed against all of her again.
“Tell me what you were thinking about earlier,” London said, lips inches away from hers. “When you had me taste your coulis and your eyes went all glassy.”
“I don’t want to.” Dahlia cringed at how childish this sounded.
London dipped their head to the side to suck on Dahlia’s ear, while rolling their hips ever so slightly forward.Fucking A, London.
“Tell me.” Their breath tickled her cheek.
Blood thundered in Dahlia’s ears. She swallowed.
“You’re very authoritative and sexy right now, you know that? Seriously, impressive stuff. A-plus work.”
“Dahlia.”
She tried to whisk the cooking-with-London-in-our-cozy-home daydream out of her mind, but honestly, London’s whole deal right now was only enhancing it. The things they could do to her against that imaginary kitchen island . . .
“I was thinking about what we could do,” Dahlia said after a moment, mind racing, “with food.”
This was not technically a lie.
Even if the implication in her voice wasn’t what had been in Dahlia’s head at all.
But she was totally down with the implication that had just fallen out of her mouth, too, so, whatever. Nice save, brain.
