Risky Pleasures - Brenda Jackson [41]
Vanessa held out her hand to Cameron. “The sharp knife.”
He carefully placed the item she had requested into her hand and then watched as she expertly removed the bone and skin from the four chicken breast halves before tossing the meat into the slow cooker.
“Bell pepper.”
He scooped up the bell pepper strips that he’d cut and tossed them in the pot to join the chicken.
“Now the can of pepper-jack cheese soup and the chunky salsa mixture.”
Before handing those items to her, he eased closer to her while she stood at the kitchen counter. “My mouth is watering already.”
His closeness and the low chuckle that rumbled close to her ear actually made her shiver. Even after a week her body still reacted whenever he was near. “Then I expect you to have a clean plate later,” she said, placing the lid on the cooker and setting it to cook on low for six hours. “This is what I call easy and tasty.”
“I can certainly see that.”
Considering her mind had been elsewhere all day, ever since talking to Sienna, Vanessa had wanted to prepare something that didn’t take a lot of thought, and this was the first thing that had come to mind. It was one of the first dishes she had prepared in her home economics class in high school and she had served it to her family, or anyone else who wanted to eat it, for three nights in a row.
“So it’s going to take six hours?” Cameron asked, easing still closer to her.
She smiled, already knowing where his mind was going. “Yes, just about.”
“Would you like to go swimming while we wait?”
“Sure. Why not? But I didn’t bring a bathing suit over here with me.”
Cameron’s smile nearly sizzled her insides. “Who said anything about you needing a bathing suit? Let’s be daring.”
Vanessa chuckled. “If I recall, you’ve already been daring. I was sitting on the beach that day you decided to bare all before diving into the ocean.”
He leaned over and touched her lips with his. “I saw you and even from a distance, I got turned on and needed to take a quick dip to cool off.”
“You expect me to believe that?”
He took her hand in his. “Yes, because it’s true. Haven’t these past days we’ve spent together proved it?”
To Vanessa’s way of thinking, these past days they’d spent together proved how quickly she had succumbed to his charm. What bothered her most was knowing that sooner or later she would have to start withdrawing. Their time together was now a clock slowly ticking away, and every second, minute or hour counted…until the end.
The end.
She inhaled deeply and instinctively snuggled closer to him, and he wrapped his arms completely around her. They’d had a lot of these types of moments, usually after making love when there were no words left to say and he would just hold her. Making the decision to have an island fling with him had been hard, but now what would be even harder was walking away knowing there would not be a repeat. This was all they would have.
“Yes, I’ll go skinny-dipping with you, Cameron,” she finally said, turning in his arms and looking up to meet his gaze. “But I won’t walk out of this house down to the beach naked,” she added. “I’m going to need something to wear.”
A smooth grin curled the corners of Cameron’s mouth. “Will one of my T-shirts do?”
She couldn’t help but laugh, recalling how many times she had walked around in his T-shirts and how very little they covered. She remembered one night in particular when, in one of her seductive moods, she had seduced him while wearing his L.A. Lakers T-shirt. He had practically ripped the thing off before taking her right here on the kitchen table.
“If that’s the best you can do, then yes, one of your T-shirts will do,” she decided to say, trying to block the memories of that particular night from her mind.
“You know where they are.”
A grin tugged at her lips. “Yes, I do, don’t I?” She pulled herself out of his arms. “I’ll be back in a second.”
Vanessa was halfway up the stairs when she glanced back over her shoulder. Cameron was standing in the doorway separating the kitchen from the living room. His hands were braced on either side