Stolen Desire (The Lust List: Kaidan Stone #3) (6 page)

“Let's see what you got.”

I start hacking away at the vegetable and blush. My eyes tear up at the sting of the onion, and I can't even see what I'm doing. I'm making an ugly mess, like usual, so I stop. “Yeah, I think you should finish this.”

“Nah, try again.” He brushes the onion-tears from the corner of my eye, a gentle smile on his face. Then he wraps his hand over mine, adjusting the knife for me, showing me how to hold it. My hand tingles where he touches me, and my heart speeds up again. I can't be anywhere near this man without losing my mind.
Breathe, Hayley.

Kaidan gets behind me, so his chest is right up against my back, and guides my hand in a back and forth motion. He does it slowly, showing me the right rhythm. I'm trying to focus on the task, but I'm too aware of how his skin feels against mine, the scent of him so close. Finally we're done. Mine looks as nice as the vegetables he chopped by himself, even if it took me longer to get there.

“I see now,” I murmur and brush another tear from my eye. His hand hasn't left mine, and I lean into him. He's too close, the scent of him makes me want to resume our earlier activities. He presses closer to my back and nuzzles my neck, kissing me right below my ear.

I let out a sigh and drop the knife to turn and look up at him. His eyes are dark with desire again, and I arch up to kiss his soft lips. I can tell he'd take it further by the way he wraps his hand around my lower back. But I pull away. “We're never going to finish dinner like this.”

He drops his arms from around me, and I get out of his orbit. His allure is so powerful, it's like he's got his own gravity field sucking me in. I have to be physically a few feet away from him to break free.

He holds himself up on the counter, his eyes combing me over like he's hungry for
me
. Then he relaxes and shakes his head like he's amused. “Okay, back to dinner.” He looks like he's forcing himself to finish the chopping.

I sit back down on the stool and rest my chin in my hand. “So, Kaidan Stone. I want to know more about you. What's your favorite type of cuisine to eat and cook?”

“I like a lot of foods. Every time I travel somewhere, I find something new to enjoy. Then I come home and learn to cook it.”

“So you've probably traveled the world, right? My father took me to Europe a few times as a kid, and Hawaii, but he mostly traveled alone. I'm probably the least-well-traveled of everyone I went to school with.”

“I actually went to an American boarding school in France as a teenager.”

“How was that? What'd you do there?”

He pauses, as if remembering. “I got into trouble with friends mostly, but my favorite thing to do was to take a book and wander Paris. I tried different cafés, wandered the shops and parks. Did the same thing when I went back to Europe during summers off in college. I found a lot of great hole-in-the-wall restaurants that way. That's where you get the most authentic food.”

“You went alone?” I blurt it out and realize it's a dumb question. But Kaidan's seriously throwing me for a loop right now. Passion for cooking? Wandering the cafés of Paris, alone, with a book? He is nothing like I'm used to. Nothing like what I really expected.

He doesn't answer right away. He looks at me with intensity, then averts his eyes and moves to the stove to drop noodles in the boiling water. He sets up the wok with some oil, and comes back for the vegetables.

“Mostly alone,” he finally says. “But no one really knew who I was or cared back then. They focused on my father. I might never have that sort of privacy again.” His voice turns slightly bitter at that, and I reach over to lay a hand on his arm.

“You know what? Screw the paps. I'm sure there are ways to travel under the radar, get away from them. We can't let them invade our lives.”

“Yeah. I'm sure there are. It just
seems
impossible because LA's crawling with them.”

He goes to the stove to drain the noodles and makes a little bowl of some kind of sauce. I follow, and he hands me the bowl and a little whisk.

“Mix this, please.” Kaidan's happiness seems to have faded a bit, and his expression is serious as he adds the vegetables to the wok. “I've been working too much,” he says. “When this is all over, I think I'd like to get out of LA for a while.”

When
what's
all over? It's like he's talking to himself, telling himself what he wants. My heart sinks a little. He's going to leave? He did call me his girlfriend… Are we together or not?

He looks up from the vegetables, pensive. “Maybe you'll come with me?”

“I'd love that.” His offer makes me giddy, but then I remember
my
problems. I would
love
to just run away from them all, but I'm going to have to solve them instead. I force myself to push my worries away and stay in the moment.

Kaidan teaches me how to sauté the vegetables, then spears a piece of zucchini and hands me the fork. “I want you to know what perfection tastes like.”

My cheeks heat up at that, and I very nearly say “I already know.” I did, after all, taste
him
in his penthouse the other night. But I play along and take a bite off the fork instead. “Yum.” He
does
know his stuff. The zucchini is tender in just the right way.

“And this…” He holds up the sauce I whisked together. His eyes are shining. “Wait'll you see how the flavors of the vegetables brighten when we add this.”

I grin at his excitement. I'm usually not that excited about cooking or food in general, but now I can't wait to taste our food, experience what he experiences.

As he's plating our meal, there's a light knock at the entryway door.

Charles is standing there. “Everything's here, sir.”

“Thank you, Charles. Please move it to the guest room next to mine.”

Charles nods and disappears. Is my car here? I want to ask what that was all about, but Kaidan doesn't offer any explanation, so I keep my mouth shut and help set the table for our meal. Kaidan's got a whole set of dishware and chopsticks he got while visiting Japan, and he pulls them out to set the table. I love how passionate he is about this. I wish I was this passionate about something.

As Kaidan pours us some sake, I take a bite of the meal. “Wow. This is really, really good.
Really
good.”

Kaidan doesn't hide how pleased he is by my compliment. He clinks glasses with me. “To a fun night. And us. I'm glad I met you, Hayley.”

My stomach goes fluttery at his words. “To a fun night. I'm glad I met you, too.”

We dig into our food, every bite delicious and perfect. Just like Kaidan right now.

“So now you know my secret talent. What's yours?” he asks, when we're half-done and starting to slow down.

“I…” I shift in my seat, embarrassed because I always just did what other people told me to do. I went to school. I got decent grades. I dated boys and smoked pot and shoplifted from boutiques to pass the time. How do I answer this?

“I think my parents kept all the talent for themselves,” I say lightly, like it's a joke.

He tilts his head to the side. “I don't think so. What are you passionate about?”

Right now? You.
I stuff more food in my mouth so I have time to think of a better answer. Every day I live in LA, every time I stupidly read internet troll comments, I'm reminded that I really don't have any talents. I just got “lucky” being born to parents with talent and money.

“I'm not that good at anything,” I admit. “Maybe it sounds strange, but… here? The people I know… They're the best in their industry. The
best
. I could never compete with that…” I can't believe I just admitted I'm 100% untalented. Why would he want to be with a boring girl with no talents or passion for anything?

“So… you're saying you don't want to try anything because you don't think you can be the best?”

I shrug and focus on my food. When he says it like that, it sounds pretty dumb.

Kaidan sips his sake. “I think everyone has a talent for something. And the only thing that separates successful people from the rest is practice and perseverance. A person could have more raw talent than anyone else in the world, but someone with less talent who
practices
daily and treats it like a job will always win out.”

“I don't know. It seems like… you either have it or you don't,” I say lamely.

“I've been around to see hundreds of wannabe stars nearly get record deals, or get them and then lose their careers because they didn't want to do the work. Practice and hard work separate the wannabes from the professionals.”

I think about Levi and the way he's always looking to make new friends with good connections. “So you don't think 'who you know' matters? I'm pretty sure lots of people hire their friends in the entertainment industry.”

He laughs. “Okay, some of that, too. But if you're not an asshole, it's not so hard to network and meet the people who will help you further your career.”

“Well I don’t even know what I want to
do
for a career. And I'm not sure I’d have enough passion to be the best at anything.”

“Well, you don't have to be the best. It's also fine to do something you enjoy and not be the best. The point is to keep working on it and enjoying yourself. That's why I keep cooking. I'll never be a chef, though.”

That's when I think about the boxes from Boston. The ones I still haven't unpacked. There's one in there full of sketch books—drawings I haven't looked at for years… not since I left high school. “Actually, I used to love to sketch.”

“You like to draw?”

“Yeah. Just… clothes. Outfits. I loved coming up with new designs. But I probably wasn't very good at it. I stopped all that when I went to college. I focused more on wearing the clothes and less on coming up with new ideas.”

“Well, there you go. Maybe you should start again.”

“Maybe.”

Kaidan's gold-flecked eyes are soft as he looks at me. “When you love something, you don't let it go.”

The “L” word sends my heart into a frenzy, and I murmur agreement, barely hearing myself.

The chef shows up soon after, saving me from obsessing over the way Kaidan was looking at me when he said the word 'love,' and if there was any deeper layer of meaning there.

I grab my purse, and Kaidan leads me to the front staircase.

Serena and Calvin are on their way down, dressed casually in jeans. I don't think I've ever seen Calvin in jeans. Two of his personal guards wait at the door with an array of matching suitcases on a luggage cart.

Calvin says something to his guards, and Serena waves at us brightly as she walks toward the door. “Headed out for rehearsal, then a weekend at the resort. See y'all later!”

She doesn't even wait for a reply as she bounces through the door. But my heart is beating faster now, because I did notice one thing. No diamond. She wasn't wearing it. Was it in her luggage?

I force myself to forget about it. I'm not stealing it. Theft is no longer an option. My lawyer is gonna fix this.

Calvin shoots me a disapproving look, then completely ignores me. “I need to have a word with you, son.”

“Wait for me upstairs?” Kaidan asks.

I nod and head up the stairs. The maids are up here at the top of the stairs, tidying the bi-level party room that's a step down between the two staircases.

Kaidan arrives a few minutes later, and his face is grim. He takes my hand and leads me to the right, down the hallway I
didn't
choose the last time I was up here.

“Do you have any friends you'd like to invite tonight?” he asks tersely.

I wonder what Calvin said to Kaidan to upset him, but it's none of my business. If he wanted to tell me, he would.

“Um…” I think of Char, of how lonely she looked the other day in her movie room. I would love if she found someone. Maybe even one of Kaidan's friends. We could double date. “Actually, yes. My best friend Charlotte would probably love to come. You met her at the club.”

“Sounds good. Give her a call.” He gestures down the hall with a sweep of his arm. “We have a few guest rooms on this side of the house, but it's mostly our private rooms.” He points to a door we're passing. “That's my room.”

I guess we didn't have almost-sex in his room the first time after all. That room was in the other hallway.

We go one more door down, and Kaidan leads me into a pretty room, feminine, with floral prints and a dark canopy bed. Heavy velvet curtains frame windows that span half the room. They look out over the trees next to the house and give a partial view of the ocean and beach in the distance.

I turn and notice the rack set up next to a dresser. It's packed full of garment bags, shoes, and wrapped boxes. And next to the rack, my car key and remote. My car's been returned to me. I suck in a breath and give Kaidan a confused look.

“Charles picked you up a few essentials,” he says. “All new. All washed and ready to wear.”

I drift over to look at the rack. I unzip a few of the garment bags and find gorgeous party dresses, sexy lace bra and panty sets, and even a silk nightie that's tasteful, yet sexy. “These are
really
nice. I'm impressed Charles has such good taste.”