A Lesson in Lust by LilBird9898
To Lillian, Valentine’s Day was just another day on the calendar. It wasn’t that she was against it. It just seemed like an expensive holiday there for the soul purpose to make money off people’s desperation to love and be loved. When she was single – like now – it was another time for people to feel sorry for her for being alone.
Because she didn’t pay attention to the date, she signed up for the vegetarian cooking class for two, on February 14th. When she shoved open the door that blustery night, a good twelve minutes before the class started, she expected to be one of the first people there. Who took a cooking class on Valentine’s Day?
Couples, she realized, looking around. Five cooking stations full of couples very much in love and/or lust. They went silent at her solo appearance.
Damn, Derek Andrews, the celebrity chef teaching the class. She got distracted by his forearms — firm, muscled, just the right amount of hair — in the online brochure and failed to notice she would be taking a couple’s cooking class on Valentine’s Day.
The celebrity chef — a hometown hero who won a prestigious cooking competition — and class instructor, pushed open the door just as Lillian settled in place. She tucked her braid over her shoulder, shoved her glasses into place, and stared toward the front, ready to learn.
That he was even handsomer in person, should have been unfair. But, if she was going to be subjected to pitying stares from the couples around her, at least she could enjoy the view. And Derek Andrews, smoky grey eyes, salt and pepper hair, and those fucking forearms — honestly, he shouldn’t be allowed to have them on display — it had to be a code violation. People must burn themselves getting distracted by his muscles.
Her silent daydream distracted her just long enough she didn’t notice the chef pause at the front of the room and zero in on her.
Derek Andrews buttoned the top of his chef’s coat and surveyed the class. Each of the six stations had a couple, leaning into each other, hands entwined, love just dripping from them, except one in the back.
She had long blonde hair pulled back in a simple braid, horn-rimmed glasses, and dimples. And her partner was late.
Irritated, Derek marched to the back of the classroom. People didn’t show up late to his kitchen.
The woman blinked at him when he stopped in front of her. The rest of the class followed his progress, silent and watchful.
“Your partner is late.”
Despite the blush flaming her cheeks, she met his angry gaze head on. When she opened her mouth the speak — he hated when people made excuses for others — he stopped her with a curt, “Don’t let them interrupt my class when they get here.”
Derek had no tolerance for people who didn’t respect other people’s time. He did two classes a night, he didn’t have time for tardiness. Or rather, his sister, who ran the business end of the school and helped Derek cash in on his celebrity, didn’t have time for it.
As he turned away, she said, “I’m here by myself.”
Because everyone was already watching her, she had to announce it to the entire class. Shame flooded through him as she met his gaze, her brown eyes, richer than a veal demi-glace, steady and unblinking.
The rest of the class started murmuring, and Lillian fought back the urge to be embarrassed by the situation. She was not ashamed. She didn’t care what these random strangers thought about her. And she certainly did not care about an arrogant chef who had the audacity to assume she would be with someone who showed up late for a class.
Especially since he had clearly advertised tardiness was unacceptable in his kitchen.
That powerful authority, so clearly stated in black and white, did not send a bolt of lust down her spine when she read it. Honestly, she couldn’t assume just because he didn’t tolerate tardiness in his kitchen he demanded more from people in the bedroom.
It was her damn imagination’s fault. And here she was blushing because she had pictured this man naked, and he wanted her to feel bad for an imagined transgression.
His eyes, surrounded by impossibly thick lashes, traced the line of Lillian’s face, down her neck, to her cleavage — she had excellent tits, who was she to not share that gift with the world — where they paused before snapping back up to her face.
Somehow in the short perusal, he figured her out. Instead of looking at her with pity — the way the brunette with the perfect messy bun was — he watched her with interest and a flare of desire. He knew she was there, not because someone dumped her and she couldn’t get a refund, but because she wanted to be there alone.
Derek murmured, low and gravelly, “My apologies for assuming that.”
He wasn’t sorry she was alone. With a quick glance at his roster, he found the single name. Lillian. Then he turned back to the class and began his lesson.
While Derek chopped, he moved slowly so his students could keep up. When he explained how to hold produce so you didn’t chop off your fingers, he did it kindly.
He had a way of cradling an onion in his big, solid hands so delicately, that Lillian imagined he treated everything in his life with that gentle care.
Derek talked about Italy as he chopped, the recipe coming from one of his friends who lived there. He could talk about cooking for hours. He liked sharing his knowledge with people. These two classes of the year, thank god the first one was done, were his least favorite. Normally, the students in the Valentine’s couples’ classes were too wrapped up in each other to notice him. He couldn’t blame them. They wanted to make some sexy food then go home and fuck.
Sounded like a good time to him.
He glanced to the back of the room, eyes drawn to Lillian. She had paused in chopping her eggplant to watch him work. A small smile played at her lips. Steam from her stove had flushed her cheeks and made the hairs around her face curl wildly.
She started when she met his gaze, her cheeks flushing even brighter red.
Caught, Lillian dropped her gaze and started chopping her own eggplant. She nicked the tiniest edge of her knuckle and sucked in her breath.
Suddenly, Derek was there, those hands that distracted her, gripping and turning her own hand over for examination. He was so close she could feel the heat radiating off his chest.
She couldn’t look up from their hands, how small and delicate hers looked cupped in his. He had the most extraordinary hands, with tiny scars showing years of knife nicks, and traces of burns from hot pans and ovens. His hands revealed part of his history.
And he was holding her hand in his, so delicately, while the index finger gently traced the edge of her finger down to her knuckle.
“What happened?” His voice was a deep rumble. He felt it, too, the heat between them, starting with their hands and zinging down Lillian’s body straight to her pussy, which pulsed insistently.
‘I was imagining your hands on my body’ was not an appropriate answer. She couldn’t tell this intense man, who took their knife skills so seriously, that she cut herself because she was having horny thoughts about his sexy hands.