Hot and Bothered (Hot in the Kitchen) by Kate Meader

he had ever seen. A clear verdant emerald, like that first flush of spring grass on a Tuscan hillside. And he knew that when she opened them again, he would kiss her until she realized she had been kissed.
    So he got a jump on that terrible idea and held her tight instead. Wrapped his body around her and whispered words of comfort against her golden hair. Put that smooth mouth he wanted to ravish her with to more benign uses. But it couldn’t last, not with this relentless pulse thrumming in every cell, telling him to make her better. And in the harbor of her body, he might finally get some of that elusive peace he had been seeking.
    Drawing back, she tilted those weapons up and blinked away a tear. God, she was killing him.
    “Tad,” she whispered, her voice filled with a longing that scrunched his heart, and he was helpless in the face of her softness. Her Jules-ness. If pressed in a court of law, he couldn’t say who kissed whom first. One second turned into three, then five… Her soft, supple lips tasted of bubble tea sweetness with a hint of salt from her tears, the electric fuel that sparked his body to life.
    He pulled away before the recharge was complete because if he’d let it get to fifty, even seventy-five percent, there would be no going back.
    “Jules, we—we shouldn’t do this.” They shouldn’t get hot and sweaty and dirty. They shouldn’t tear off their clothes and twine their limbs and fuck each other stupid. Most of all, they shouldn’t comfort each other and lose all sense of reason. Since his parents’ death, he was a broken mess, an amalgam of jagged pieces held together by sheer force of will. His need for her in that moment knocked him on his ass, and while he had no doubt she would ease the pain in the short-term, he couldn’t reciprocate. He would take and take from this amazing woman, and give her nothing but heartache in return. With her it would be real and raw and there would be no coming back from it.
    Her shock at his reaction sent a dread chill to his gut. He continued to compound it with his stupidity because he was a guy and that’s what guys did.
    “We would be terrible together. Absolutely terrible,” he said.
    Stupid, absolutely stupid.
    “Right.” Clipped, British, final. Those beautiful green eyes frosted over.
    She slunk to the other end of the sofa and he slunk out the door, mumbling like an idiot. They barely spoke for two weeks until Evan fell ill, and with Jack and Lili out of town, he stepped up to take them to the emergency room. The little blighter was fine and suddenly, so were they.
    Their friendship had survived but his sex life had plummeted into the toilet.
    Eleven months. He’d gone eleven months without so much as a whisper across his zipper. It wasn’t that he couldn’t perform—he had a very satisfying relationship with his right hand that was prepared to suffer a blast of blister burn in the name of self-love. He just couldn’t get excited around any of the women he dated. He would drop them home and they’d look up (one looked down, but that was another story) with eyes wide and expectant. Cherry red lips were licked, finely sculpted breasts were heaved. Occasionally, he would kiss those lips, waiting for the click in his dick. That chemical explosion of endorphins or connection or whatever the hell was supposed to happen to move him from first base to home. More often, he just politely went on his way, ignoring the surprise on their faces.
    It ain’t you, honey, it’s all me.
    It wasn’t as if he saw Jules as soon as he puckered up and went in for the kill. That would be a blessing because at least then he could run with that fantasy to slide all the way home. No, it was worse than that. He saw nothing. Just a void where his libido should be. Only later, lying awake and pondering why he couldn’t close the deal, would he allow his hand to take over and relieve all that pent-up frustration. And if thinking about a certain blond beauty got