I hadn’t even realized I had been tense since she had come down dressed for the morning until I felt it all slip away at realizing she hadn’t changed like I had feared, but that she simply had to play a role, that she managed to find a balance between her work persona and her true self.
Noticing I was being a bit more of a creep than I liked, I slipped the key into the lock, and let myself into my house.
I didn’t get too far.
Once I was inside, and the door closed behind me, all the things that had been missing for a while hit me all at once.
The low hum of music playing on the stereo, something unfamiliar, some singer-songwriter, heavy on the guitar and a memorable voice. The smells of food cooking. Something rich. A little tomato, garlic, Italian seasoning. I didn’t know what all the scents meant as a dish, but I did know that I wanted to find out.
Shaking myself out of the moment, I made my way toward the kitchen, finding Gemma with her back to me once again, standing at the stove, stirring the giant pot found there, her hips swinging around to the music in the other room.
There was an unexpected gut-punch of desire at the whole scene, at the woman starring in it.
Gemma had been a girl when she’d joined up at the office. Underage. Off-limits. The mind didn’t even factor her in as anything other than a kid.
Somehow, seeing her again hadn’t, at first, made my mind make that leap from the past to the present. From her being a girl to a woman.
But there was no denying that I was acutely aware of this change as I stood there, as I noticed for the first time the perfect way time had shaped her. The gentle slope of her waist to the flare of her hips, the roundness of her ass, the perfect shape of her thighs.
Add that to the fact that she was standing there in my house, comfortable, at home, making me food, yeah, it was impactful.
Miller, Nia, and Bex would all likely want my head for being attracted to the idea of a woman cooking for me, but that didn’t change the fact that it worked for me, that it did something to me to see it.
My cock was stiffening by the second, making me realize my need to get a hold of myself before I let it get out of hand.
I took a deep breath that shook my chest, then went ahead and cleared my throat, making Gemma jolt and turn, hand slapping over her heart.
“Didn’t mean to scare you,” I told her, giving her an apologetic head tilt.
“You’re early.”
It was an accusation. And, if I wasn’t mistaken, there almost seemed to be some disappointment mixed in as well.
“I’m sorry?” I said, brows moving together.
“No. I mean… it’s your house. I just…” she sighed, pulling a dishrag off of a bowl on the island.
“Is that dough?”
“Yeah.”
“You were going to bake bread?”
“Fresh bread really rounds out a meal. I knew I should have just bought a loaf…”
“No.” That came out too fast, too awkward. I wasn’t sure I had ever come off as fucking awkward with a woman before. “I have never had homemade bread.”
“Well, that is a crime,” she told me, throwing the towel back over the bread. “It should be ready to bake in another twenty minutes or so.”
“Do you always bake your own bread?” I asked, already suspecting she did, knowing her aversion to all preservatives.
“Pretty much. I keep some Ezekiel bread in my freezer for a pinch, but I really like baking bread. It reminds me of doing it with my mom and sister on the weekends as a kid.”
“I’m excited to try it. What kind of soup did you make?”
“I went simple with minestrone. I didn’t want to get too crazy, not knowing what your tastes are yet. You can’t go wrong with minestrone. Well, you can’t go wrong with my minestrone.”
“Pretty cocky about your cooking skills, huh?” I asked, liking the way her eyes were twinkling. I knew I was supposed to ask how her day went, if anything else had happened to make her worry. But I simply didn’t want to ruin the mood, didn’t want to dull the light in her eyes, the ease of her smile, and the calm in her body.
“I have always been pretty good at convincing even the pickiest of eaters that vegetables taste good.”
“Well, if it tastes half as good as it smells, you will have another convert.”
“You eat vegetables,” she objected, having ordered us food at work more than a few times in the past.
“I have a handful that I don’t hate. Can’t claim I love them all though.”
“We’ll get you there.”
The casual way she used the term ‘we’ mixed with the certainty of her words, yeah, it was causing a warm feeling in my chest there was no denying.