A Taste of Passion. Ashley Lister
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‘Orange,’ she admitted. ‘Lime or lemon if you’ve got no orange –’
She was going to carry on listing potential alternatives but he reached for something large and red from behind her and then placed it in her palm.
‘What the hell is this?’
‘Rangpur,’ he said simply. ‘It’s sometimes called lemandarin. It’s a hybrid form between mandarin oranges and lemons.’
‘Shut the front door,’ Trudy whispered. She studied the fruit in her hand, incredulous that such a thing could exist – and that she’d never encountered it before. She sniffed the biting zest of its flesh, drinking in the acidic orangey fragrance, and fretful that the powerful flavour might prove too strong for the muffins she wanted to create. Then, realising the rangpur was being offered by a leading chef, she figured she could gamble confidently on the unknown ingredient.
‘Rangpur,’ she repeated, as she stepped past him and back into the kitchen. ‘Haven’t I learnt a lot tonight?’
‘The lessons have barely begun,’ he muttered.
She shivered as her thoughts lingered on the subtext of his words. She didn’t know what else he thought he could teach her in the kitchen but she knew she wanted to learn every lesson he had in mind.
The thought made her pulse quicken.
She grated the zest from the plump and succulent rangpur. Its fragrance was a powerful orange that would have been too bitter to tolerate as a main flavour. Trudy marvelled that she was now on the verge of creating the same divine delicacies she had sampled earlier in William Hart’s restaurant. She hoped, given her own approach to baking, the flavour would have something extra that came from the way she chose to combine ingredients.
If that happened, Trudy knew it would be an incredible accomplishment.
She folded the remaining ingredients into the bowl.
She creamed.
She mixed.
She stirred.
She found an electric whisk and blended. She rubbed her fingers thoughtfully along the brittle, fragile cinnamon quills. Their fragrance was as delicate as all the other mysterious ingredients she had discovered this evening. Reverently, she crumbled half a dozen quills into the mix. After mentally checking her understanding of the recipe, and convincing herself that she had everything in place, Trudy dropped a dozen pretty pastel pink paper cases onto a baking sheet and then used spatulas to place sponge mix into each waiting case.
The mixture stood stiff but she could sense its lightness in every scoop that she ladled into a case. The blueberries came next, to then be topped by a quarter more of the remaining sponge mix. She finished the muffins with a layer of the citrus rinds from the rangpur and a small handful of the remaining blueberries.
William Hart watched with a scowl of good-natured approval.
‘Are you happy with them?’
She placed them, not on the middle shelf, but on the shelf below. The trick to get the best from muffins, she had found, was to bake one shelf lower in the oven. It produced a result that remained thoroughly cooked and properly risen but with an improved sense of moistness that made the sponge all the more succulent. Pressing the door closed she said, ‘I’ll be happy if they turn out half as good as those your pâtissier made for me.’
She stood up and replaced the oven mitts on their hook. Swiftly, she pulled her smartphone from her pocket, and used a timer app to set a fourteen minute alarm.
‘Very efficient,’ he muttered. He sounded grudgingly impressed. ‘And what do you propose doing whilst you’re waiting for the muffins to rise?’
Ordinarily she would have used the time to clean her kitchen. She had messed up a modest collection of utensils, bowls and spatulas and the counter needed to be wiped down. However, it had taken a tremendous effort of will power to resist William Hart for this long and Trudy was adamant that she wouldn’t torture herself with unnecessary abstinence for a moment longer.
She stepped back into his embrace.
‘I thought we could continue with that kiss, Mr Hart.’
‘Call me Bill, for this evening, and I might let you.’
‘Bill,’ she repeated, testing the name on her lips and finding it sat pleasantly there. ‘Bill.’
He placed a finger on her lips and shook his head. ‘It’s Bill for tonight,’ he said. ‘It won’t be Bill on every occasion.’ And then he had his arms around her. One hand held her waist, pulling her closer to him and clutching tight. The other hand rested in the middle of her back. The fingers there crept slowly upwards, tiptoeing up the ridges of her vertebrae on a lazy dance to the nape of her neck. She wanted to melt in his embrace and yield to the animal desire he so effortlessly evoked.
His kiss was all she had hoped it would be.
Their mouths met in an exploration of raw and ravenous passion. His jaw was unshaven, making his kisses scratch lightly against her soft lips and adding a frisson of delightful discomfort with every caress to her face.
Trudy could feel her nipples hardening, as though they were straining to get close to him. Because their bodies were shielded by the barriers of his shirt and jacket, and her apron, blouse and bra, it felt as though there were too many layers between them.
She began to pull his buttons open, exposing his muscular chest and its coating of curled grey and white hairs. When she moved her mouth away from his, then pressed her kisses against his chest, her arousal grew even more profound.
‘I want you,’ he grunted.
‘I’m yours.’
She didn’t know where the admission had come from. But she was sure that she meant the words. She had never needed anyone more than she currently needed William Hart. The longing for him heated between her thighs like a beacon of sultry, broiling need. Her heartbeat raced at such a panicked speed she felt lightheaded with the swell of desire.
They staggered through to the adjacent head chef’s office, neither seeming willing or able to break the embrace, each battling to keep hold of the other as they struggled to find somewhere convenient so they could develop their intimacy.
Trudy didn’t take any time to study the room.
She realised Bill was guiding her towards a leather settee that stretched along one wall. She figured that would be a sufficiently comfortable spot for what she hoped they could do together. But, beyond that idea, her thoughts hadn’t progressed any further than the simple animal desire to be intimate with him.
She longed to have Bill’s naked body pressed against her own.
The wetness between her thighs was sudden and excessive. Her body felt so hypersensitive she was acutely aware of the rasp of the cotton crotch of her panties drawing against the moistened centre of her sex.
The music blared more loudly in his office.
Ella had stopped singing but the music remained light jazz: a smooth combination of piano, bass and sax. The sounds were pleasant and undemanding. They were familiar and yet somehow nameless. The music was slightly discordant and yet somehow perfect. She could feel the pulse of her arousal beating in time to the bass’s swelling rhythm. She could feel the urgency of her need quickening with the music’s accelerating tempo.
She broke their tight embrace to allow him to unfasten the apron and pull it over her head. Then she was trying to push herself back against him so she could again savour his kisses and explore his mouth with her tongue.
He eased her onto the settee.
She had expected to find herself laid across the sumptuous cushions with her back on the seat and Hart above her. Instead she was sitting down and he was kneeling on the floor between her spread thighs. He had managed to unfasten a handful of buttons on her blouse and his fingers