Petite Madeleine: Drew's Story (Meadows Shore Book 3) Read Online Free Page A

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    The final assignment of the semester had been to take a scene from a novel they’d studied in class, write a paper, and accompany it with some creative element. They chose In Search of Lost Time , and their creative piece would be to recreate Proust’s miniature cakes. To make the petite madeleines so tasty, so memorable, that everyone who ate them would be left with a lasting impression on their subconscious.
    It was her idea, and he’d readily agreed—what could be bad about cake? Problem was, he didn’t know a pot from a pan.
    Fortunately, she loved to bake, so she made the madeleines, and he carried the ingredients from the grocery store, washed dishes, and eagerly sampled every new batch.
    One evening, while he was sprawled on the counter of her dorm kitchen, studying for an economics exam, she cried, “I think this is it!” Her excitement woke him from the boring theory he’d been trying to make sense of. And when she leaned over the counter to offer him a taste, he grabbed her wrist and pushed it away, tasting her instead. The kiss had been more than three months in coming, long, long overdue.
    He fed on her, gently at first, but when she parted her lips for him, he dragged her up on the counter, where they explored every crevice of each other’s mouths until the resident assistant interrupted them.
    “Hey, what are you two doing?” she chastised. “That’s unsanitary! This is a communal kitchen. Take it somewhere else.”
    And they did.
    She gave him her virginity that night, in a bed that smelled of almonds and honey. He hadn’t had all that much experience either, but he tried to make it special for her.
    He had five female cousins who’d grown up next door, whose virtue he and his brothers protected with their very lives, so he fully understood the gift she freely gave him, and did his best to be worthy of it.
     
     
    The alarm blared , jolting him out of his favorite dream. He was foggy, with a raging hard-on begging for attention. Stretching his arms toward the ceiling, he wondered for a minute if seeing her at the bakery yesterday had all been part of the dream. He shook his head. It had been real, and she looked exactly like she had the last time he saw her. Maybe her hair was a little shorter, and her breasts a little rounder, but otherwise the same.
    Thinking about her breasts did nothing to appease his erection, and he shifted uncomfortably under the covers. The shower, he needed to get in the shower.
     

Chapter Three
     
    The Blues won handily, giving him a reprieve from the stinging barbs the Boston press had been firing at him all week. The team had done its job, and now it was up to him to do his—to win Cassie back.
    He shoved the phone back in his pocket. She’d insisted on meeting at the restaurant, and now he was pacing on the sidewalk out front, checking his phone every two minutes, for the time, or for a message cancelling their date. His breath hitched when he spied her rushing around the corner, dark hair sailing behind her, caught in a passing breeze.
    “Sorry, I’m late. I had trouble finding parking.”
    “You’re here now, that’s all that matters,” he said leaning over to place a kiss on her cheek. She stiffened in response, grimacing when his lips touched her skin, leaving him cold despite the sweltering temperature.
    The hostess led them to a cozy table in a quiet corner of the restaurant.
    “Nice place. How’s the food?”
    “Amazing.”
    “They serve anything besides zucchini blossoms?” he teased before opening one of the menus the hostess had left with them.
    “The paella is to die for, you’ll love it. But you are trying the zucchini. I brought my camera,” she added in a sassy voice that made him want to leap across the table and claim her mouth.
    But instead, they busied themselves behind menus, commenting on the offerings, hiding from the raw emotion, and avoiding the sparks of crackling energy laden with nerves, anticipation, and fear.