Kissing Is the Easy Part

Chapter 46 The 1975 Bordeaux and jealousy

Sean

I was really glad for once Flora didn't whine about going outside or inviting all of our friends over for an impromptu party. She seemed perfectly contented with taking refuge in the beach house with me. Apparently the antidote for boredom was sex. To me nothing beat this; cooked up in an isolated place where it seemed like the end of the world, where the only things necessarily were the two of us and lots of condoms.

I was exaggerating, of course. "We still have to eat some time," I said.

"Yeah." She sighed unhappily as if eating was hard labor. "Maybe you can rummage around the cupboards and refrigerator to see if there's anything edible."

The kitchen was glorious, gleaming white and fully equipped with appliances, yet very empty. Flora explained they almost never cooked. I managed to come across some dry pasta, a chunk of cheese, a can of tomato paste, as well as various dried up spices.

"Do you want to have pasta?"

"You can cook?" Her eyebrows rose.

"Not really, but I can follow instructions. We can search for a recipe online. It shouldn't be harder than a chemistry experiment, right? And there's more room for error."

"A chemistry experiment? You're so romantic, Sean." She shook her head and smiled. "Since you're the expert, I'll let you conduct the experiment."

I started with the cooking and Flora started with the interrupting. She leaned against the large island in a silk robe, the very definition of distracting.

"My brother Edward is an epicure," Flora started telling me. "He's extremely picky and thinks of himself as some kind of food critic, and whenever he's eating he comes up with pretentious descriptions like simmering, robust, and crusts up in all the right places." She rolled her eyes. "But the thing is, he takes a small bite and never finishes his food."

I placed the spaghetti in the pot as the water came to life with bubbles. It took seven minutes to be ready. She came over to taste the tomato sauce, making an exaggerated sound of appreciation. "Yum!"

"Just yum? Not simmering and robust?"

She chuckled. "I appreciate fine food, but I'm just not good with compliments. The sauce is really tasty though. You're awesome."

She stared at me with unmistakable admiration in her eyes, and I couldn't believe how I missed that before. Like savoring cuisines, we didn't need well-structured lines to describe how we felt. I could probably name a hundred special things about her, although Flora never asked. She probably couldn't tell me anything other than she liked my face, even if I put a gun to her head, but I wasn't insecure anymore. We loved each other and words were redundant, the way we showed our appreciation with food by simply cleaning everything off the plate.

She hopped on the counter and crossed her legs. I glanced at her and our eyes met. It was inexplicable how I still felt a bolt of electricity, the way Benjamin Franklin probably did on the day he decided to fly a kite with a metal key into the storm clouds.

"Sean." The way she said my name had this strange, unexplainable pull to it, like it had claws. I dropped the wooden spoon and went over to her, and she wrapped her long legs around my waist and tugged me closer. I couldn't fight her even if I wanted to.

I cupped her face and kissed her slowly. A soft sigh fell off her lips, and my brain completely stopped functioning. It was like a feather falling off a cliff. I was floating, drifting, with nothing to hang on to. The attraction was stronger than gravity.

The timer sounded, indicating it was time to take the noodles out.

"I should turn off the stove," I murmured, not really caring. My hands moved to her breasts, and in the presence of those everything else paled in comparison.