Read Best of Best Women's Erotica for Free Online Page B

burning in her chest. That he’d chosen jasmine, her own scent, tormented her. How could he have known?
    She ordered and stored the food he requested, things she seldom used. She took care to shine her kitchen to its highest polish. Late at night she reviewed cookbooks for the parts of the menu she would carry, determined to prove that she didn’t need him.
    The week before the party, she got on her knees in the damp, dewy grass and prayed to the moon. “Help me, Grandmother. Someone is invading my life. I’m sure you have a purpose for this, but I don’t know what it could be. I’ve worked hard, Grandmother. Don’t let me lose it all.”
    Would the moon forsake her? No, not when Tara needed her support so much. The Beaumonts’ house had become her home in these last five years. She would hate to leave. Surely the moon would respond. It always had, ever since her grandmother had initiated her into the old rites. But she had been lax. It had been a long time since she had come to the moon like this.
    She got her answer when the moonlight filled her as her grandmother taught her it could, its power throbbing deep inside her. As always, she felt it pounding in her bones, in her heart, and in that sweet place deep between her sturdy legs.
Confident that the big house was quiet, she stepped behind the jasmine bushes, stripped off her gown, and lay in the grass. The moon made love to her, kissed her breasts, stroked the wetness between her thighs, cradled her in its warmth. Moaning and writhing, grasping the moonlight as her lover, she climaxed, peaking once, then again.
    The prayer and the lovemaking completed, she lay in the lush velvet grass, confident for the first time in weeks that she would hold her own. Exhausted, she crawled to bed. She looked forward to a good night’s sleep—the first since she’d gotten the news about the invading chef.
    Â 
    She waited for him, fear pounding in her chest. Trying to control it, she wiped furiously at the squeaky-clean counter. The maids assigned to help her ducked their heads and made up excuses to avoid her. Remembering last week’s foray into the moonlight, she shook her head, frightened by the power of what she had felt and done. The moon had never touched her so deeply. Would it show her the way to defeat this man?
    Then the Missus came in to introduce him. “Tara,” she said, her hands fluttering. “This is Mr. Charles.”
    Tara stared at the small, compact black man. He winked at her. His brash laugh filled the kitchen, filled her ears. She reminded herself that she couldn’t afford to like him. When his gaze traveled up and down her body and he gave her a brilliant appreciative smile, heat rose in her cheeks. She was appalled; the heat threatened to spill over into her heart. Something loosened inside her.
    He swept his eyes across her kitchen and whistled through his teeth. “I don’t see many kitchens this well kept,” he said to the Missus. “I don’t know why you hired me. You’ve got your
own chef right here.” He turned back to Tara, again giving her that brazen appraising look. “I’ll learn a lot from you, Miss Tara. I’ve heard of you clean down to New Orleans. They say your stew is the sweetest-tasting thing you could ever get your mouth around. It’ll be like getting paid to train under one of the greats.”
    She tried to push away his flattery, the look, the little emphasis he had put on the word under, but her heart thumped, and her mouth puckered from sudden dryness. Licking her lips, she chose not to respond. Instead she watched him closely, relieved when he shifted his attention back to the Missus. He obviously knew how to handle women. Teasing the Missus gently, he soon had her blushing like a youngster and giggling behind her hand. Finally, she allowed herself to be ushered out of the kitchen.
    Mr. Charles turned back to Tara. He wore a crisp