He washed up, then surveyed the kitchen the way he surveyed job sites. Sofia had three pots going at once, and another sat next to the sink, a large copper monster full of soapy water, close enough to the edge of the counter to make me nervous every time either of us passed.
Daemon must have shared my concern, because he reached past me to shift it back. He misjudged the weight, the handle slipped, and the pot lurched sideways, sending a wave of sauce-laden water over the front of his t-shirt.
He sucked in a breath. "Hot."
Sofia still hadn't turned around. "That's why we don't grab things we haven't been asked to grab." Then she spun around and made for the pantry at the back of the utility room, telling me to mind the sauce.
Faced with Daemon's t-shirt plastered to his chest, I wasn't capable of minding anything except his finely tuned six-pack. The construction work had clearly paid off, and the wet cotton left nothing to the imagination.
I was supposed to be minding the sauce. I was not minding the sauce.
He looked down at himself, then up at me.
I looked away quickly before I did something stupid, like removing his shirt under the pretense of putting it in to soak.
"Nadia." His voice had dropped a register.
"The sauce needs stirring."
"I'm aware." He fell silent, although not for long. "Are you going to look at me again, or are you planning to stir that for the rest of the evening?"
I stirred. The sauce moved in slow, glossy circles.
Sofia cleared her throat from the doorway. "There's a spare dish towel in the second drawer. You can't stand there dripping on my floor."
He found the towel and blotted his shirt, which helped almost nothing. It was still white, still wet, and he was still watching me like he knew exactly what I was thinking.
"Smells incredible," he said, coming to stand beside me at the stove. The kitchen was small enough that there was no avoiding it, his shoulder almost touching mine, both of us looking at the pot.
"It tastes better," said Sofia, and I could only agree wholeheartedly, although I was no longer talking about the sauce.
I dipped the spoon and held it out to him without thinking, a habit from years of feeding people, testing and adjusting, making sure things were right before they went out.
He closed his hand around my wrist to steady it and leaned in.
I forgot what I was doing.
His eyes came up to mine, and whatever he saw there made him pause. His hand was still around my wrist. The sauce was cooling on the spoon between us.
"Well?" Sofia asked.
"Perfect," he said. Not looking away from me.
Sofia made a satisfied sound. "Of course it is. Nadia, more pepper."
I turned back to the pot, my wrist still burning where his hand had been. The t-shirt was still wet. I was trying very hard not to know that.
"You're still dripping, Bambino," said Sofia, steering Daemon toward the kitchen door. "Go home, change. Come back when you're done."
He went eventually, leaving me with an ache only he could salve. Still, if he'd stayed, I'd have been in danger of burning the sauce, and I knew Sofia would give me grief over that.
So I stirred. The sauce was a deep, unhurried red, the kind that took time and couldn't be rushed, and the kitchen was warm in the way of rooms where something has been cooking for hours. Sofia's kitchen was nothing like mine.
No stainless steel, no commercial equipment, no floor-to-ceiling shelving organized by frequency of use. Instead, a vintage stove, a scarred wooden bench, copper pots hung in order of size, and forty years of excellent decisions baked into the walls.
"You know what's wrong with those corporate companies," Sofia said, settling onto her stool at the end of the bench. This was her teaching position. I recognized it. "They think food is fuel. Something you consume so you can keep working."
"I think for many people it is."
