Page 76 of The KING Review

The meat has been simmering for about an hour and a half. I could have started even earlier—so it’d be ready when she gets here—but truthfully, I want her here as long as possible. Still, I didn’t want to make it seem like I was ill-prepared, so I started the beef simmering earlier.

When she knocks, it’s a quick two-tap right as I’ve finished shredding the beef and added it to a bowl with the garlic and lime juice to marinate. I open the door to find her with a bottle of red wine cradled in her arms, nails painted blood-bright on the glass, and she’s wearing a coppery slip dress with a slit up the side that’s so obscene my brain unspools for a second. Her hair’s up in one of those sharp, witchy tortoiseshell clips that somehow makes the yellow-gold in her eyes even brighter. The fabric of her dress hugs every curve. I like that she dressed up, because I did, too.

“Hey,” I say, trying not to sound like a teenager inviting his crush over for the first time, although that’s what it feels like.

She smiles. “Hey, you.”

I press my hands into my thighs, wiping the sweat from my palms, and pretend I don’t notice the way her gaze tracks over me—from my neatly tucked button-down, sleeves turned up, collar open one button too far, to my jeans and socked feet. I usually don’t give a shit about clothes, but tonight, I care. I want to look good for her.

Neve sets the wine on the counter, eyes never leaving me. She watches my every move, hungry and focused, and it carves into me. I feel ten feet tall with her eyes on me like this.

She does a slow lap around the kitchen, but it’s not the kind of polite, hands-off perusal you get when someone’s sizing up your place on a first date. She’s got her whole palm pressed to the countertop, fingers leaving little streaks on the poured resin. She leans over the bowl of marinating beef, inhaling the savory steam and the scent of lime and garlic. Her lips part, and she gives a soft hum.

“God, that smells incredible.”

“I wanted to make something just for you,” I say sheepishly. “I’m not sure if you’ve had vaca frita before. It’s… kind of an all-time favorite of mine.”

I reach for the wine, hands trembling on the corkscrew as I pop it open and pour two glasses.

Neve watches, completely unsubtle—and that might be one of my favorite things about her, her unsubtlety. She fixes on every movement I make, like she’s memorizing it for later. It makes my skin hot and makes me want to show off, which is a feeling I haven’t had in years, but as soon as I recognize it, I’m greedy for more of it.

“You know,” she says, sliding up behind me as I agitate the beef in the marinade. “My old roommate tried to teach me to cook once. I almost set her hair on fire. Not mine. Hers.”

I bark a laugh. “Was this before or after you decided to become a sex therapist?”

She leans in, so her hip presses against mine as she peers past me. “That was when I thought I’d be a chef, actually. But turns out I like eating more than cooking. Lucky for me, I seem to attract men who want to feed me.”

I could die right now and come back as her fucking kitchen sponge, and I’d be satisfied.

She’s close enough that her perfume catches, floral and kind of witchy, sweet and dark at the same time. I lean back into her touch.

“Do you want a cocktail?” I ask. “The beef needs to marinate.”

“You can cook, and you’re good at cocktails, too?” she says with a soft groan. “Isn’t that Cade’s thing?”

“I got the recipe from him,” I admit, sheepish.

I make a show of pouring the cranberry juice, the fresh-squeezed lime, the vodka. I try to float the triple sec on top with a spoon, the way Cade showed me, but it slides under the cocktail instead of resting on the surface.

I stare at it, and I kind of want to smash it. There’s something uniquely humiliating about having a PhD and still being undone by a fucking Pinterest cocktail.

“I’m sorry, I—” I cut myself off, irritated and embarrassed.

Neve sidles close enough that the air between us goes thick. She doesn’t bother to hide watching me struggle with the drink, but when she speaks, it’s not a punchline. “You know, I think you might be perfect,” she says, her voice low, and then her arms are around my hips, snug and warm, her cheek pressed to my back.

I freeze. She holds me like she’s done it a thousand times, like it’s not a big deal, like she just wants to touch. She doesn’t let go. Her hands steady me, and I can’t remember why I was irritated at all.

“It’s a shitty cocktail,” I say warily, brows lowering.

“I think it’s really cute you tried,” she murmurs. “I love it. You’re adorable.”

I stand there, blinking, like every thought has been snatched out of my head by the force of her body pressed to mine.

She circles around, so we’re face to face. Her hands climb to my chest. She looks up at me, soft and serious, and I swear I can feel the weight of her gaze like a physical caress.

Her hands settle at the top button of my shirt, but she doesn’t move to undo it. She’s just… here. The rest of the world flattens and blurs to grayscale, and Neve stays in hypercolor, like her mere existence raises the saturation in the room, but only around her. There’s a wavelength she emits, some frequency too fine for anyone else to register but me, and it calls every nerve ending to attention. I can feel her in the way the hairs on my arms lift, in the electric ring left where her hands have been, in the subtle chemical charge under my skin.

She touches my shirt again, right above my heart, and her thumb rubs a slow, thoughtful circle over the button.