Total pages in book: 79
Estimated words: 77879 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 389(@200wpm)___ 312(@250wpm)___ 260(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 77879 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 389(@200wpm)___ 312(@250wpm)___ 260(@300wpm)
Low enough I could trace the lines of his abs with my eyes down to the carved muscle that formed a tight V.
He arched his eyebrow and gave me a cocky little grin as he caught me staring at him. I arched my eyebrow right back, daring him to say something.
Without a single word, we left the bedroom, and I followed him into the kitchen.
The space was sleek, expensive, all dark countertops and state-of-the-art appliances.
It looked like it came directly out of a magazine.
Just like him.
I ignored the way he leaned against the counter with his arms crossed over his chest as he watched me like I was some kind of puzzle he was still trying to figure out.
Instead, I moved toward the refrigerator, running my fingers over the ingredients he had stashed and then checking the pantry for flour, butter and everything else I would need.
He had made me a dish from his childhood, something that his mother made to comfort him. I didn’t have a family recipe like that, but I had one dish that had always brought me comfort.
One that a nanny my father had hired to watch me and make sure I was trained to be a wife had made me when I was sad. Or when the wind was too cold for anything else and I needed to be warmed from the inside out, or when my father’s temper turned glacial.
It never failed to make me feel better.
That didn’t mean I needed to let Roman know why I was making something so time-consuming when I was starving.
“I’m making kurnik,” I said.
“Isn’t that usually for weddings?” he asked. “Are you proposing?”
I shot him an annoyed look. “No, you have the ingredients for it, so that’s what I’m going to make. Is that a problem?”
He lifted his hands in mock surrender. “By all means, make the kurnik.”
It was a lot of work, and I probably should have cooked something easier that would have let me eat a lot faster. But I wanted to make this for him.
There were so many thoughts racing through my mind, so many things I didn’t understand. Maybe if I could busy myself with cooking, I could start sorting through everything and come up with some kind of plan.
Thankfully, whoever usually cooked here bought things pre-chopped. It was a practice I found wasteful, but since I wasn’t allowed to have any knives, I guessed it was convenient.
I got to work making the dough, kneading it and working out my frustrations in the cold butter and flour mixture.
“Can I do something?” he asked. My back straightened as I stared at him in shock. Was he asking if he could help? In the kitchen? Something every other man I knew would never do. Cooking was women’s work.
“Uh, yeah. Can you roll out the dough while I make the filling?” I asked.
“Show me how,” he said, moving behind me and putting his arms around my waist, caging me between him and the counter.
The thin T-shirt I wore did nothing to stop his body heat from seeping into me. I braced myself on the counter as my knees went weak, my mouth went dry, and my heart pounded.
It was just because of the blood loss.
I said that to myself over and over, hoping that maybe if I kept repeating it in my head it’d become true.
Roman picked up the rolling pin and started rolling out the dough, and I placed my hands on top of his, showing him how to apply even pressure, how to stretch the dough into the desired shape.
“We need two discs. The smaller one we make with about a third of the dough. The larger one is made with the rest of it.”
“Why the size difference?” he asked, his breath tickling my neck.
“The smaller one goes on the bottom, and then the bigger one will form the dome.”
He nodded. I didn’t see it, but I could feel his movement against my hair. Roman pressed into the dough again, leaving a pretty large ditch, and I stifled a giggle that felt light. Felt good.
“Here, try it like this.” I took the rolling pin from his hands and showed him how to stretch the dough into a perfect circle.
For a moment, one brief, fleeting, but perfect moment, we weren’t captor and captive. He wasn’t my enemy. I wasn’t trying to bury his family in ash.
We were just two people in the kitchen with something between us. I didn’t dare give it a name. It was too fragile, too intangible. Like if I named it, or even really acknowledged it, it would evaporate into nothing.
That connection still stretched between us, threading its way into the air, tying us together.
Then I ducked under his arm and stepped away.
I broke that connection before it could break me.
When he started expertly rolling out the dough, I took in a deep breath of fresh, cold air that wasn’t filled with his addictive scent and started making the filling. Thank god he had chicken thighs, carrots, onions, and everything else I needed, including a surprising number of fresh herbs.