Tour Wide Giveaway for: Three Paperback Copies of FIRE ME UP by Kimberly Kincaid
Fire Me Up
Pine Mountain # 4
Pine Mountain # 4
By: Kimberly Kincaid
Releasing February 3rd, 2015
Zebra/ Kensington
IF YOU
CAN’T STAND THE HEAT…
Teagan
O’Malley can handle a crisis. She’s a paramedic, it’s her job. But she never
expected to land in the kitchen of her father’s pub, with no notice, no cash,
and no room for error. The kitchen is not her favorite place. Lucky for her,
she just scraped a bad-boy chef off the pavement after a motorcycle
accident—and something about him says he can turn up the heat in more ways than
one.
Adrian
Holt has had a rough few years, and he’s not eager to get tangled up in
anything more complicated than a good risotto. But with a broken arm and a head
full of bad memories, he needs a challenge to keep him sane. Teagan’s dare-me
attitude and smoldering mess of a bar are just what the doctor ordered. And the
two of them together might cook up some even better medicine…
But then her eyes blinked open and she
lowered the glass.
“I’m not sure about the whole deep
experience thing, but the wine is nice,” she admitted, taking another sip.
“Told you.” Adrian scooped the potatoes
from the stockpot with a slotted spoon, letting the heat from the steam wash
over his face. He’d been fighting the desire to kiss Teagan again ever since
he’d botched things that stupid morning he’d first taught her to cook, only
this time, he wanted to dive into her and never come up for air.
This time, if he kissed her, he wasn’t
going to stop.
Without fanfare, he scooped one of the
potatoes into a tea towel on the counter. After a second’s worth of awkward
fumbling, he got a decent grip on it with his left fingers, although his
incapacitated thumb itched to get in on the action. Keeping the towel-wrapped
potato steady as best he could by cradling it between his fingers and chest, he
started to peel it with quick precision. Long ribbons of light brown skin, thin
enough to see through, snaked over the tea towel as he worked, and the task
helped him focus.
“How come you didn’t peel those before
you boiled them? I mean, isn’t it easier that way, so you don’t burn your
fingers?” Teagan leaned forward on her elbows, watching him start on the second
potato with an inquisitive stare. Damn, she didn’t miss anything.
“It changes the starch content if you
boil them that way. Plus, when they’re hot, the peels slide off easier. Pretty
helpful when you’ve only got one and a half hands.”
“Oh. That was probably a stupid question,
huh?” Teagan didn’t look sheepish very often, or, okay, ever, but hell, if it
didn’t light him up like the Fourth of July right now.
“No such thing as a stupid question.”
Teagan eyed him over the rim of her
wineglass and smirked. “Does this make me look fat?”
Adrian finished peeling the last potato,
shooting her a disapproving look even though he knew it wouldn’t stick. “Okay. Almost
no
such thing as a stupid question.”
He scooped just enough flour into a soft
mound on the counter, giving it a gentle roll with the backs of his knuckles to
create a well. Going through the familiar motions, even without the full use of
his left hand, sent another wave of calm through his chest.
“You don’t measure anything,” Teagan
noted, more statement than question, and Adrian nodded in agreement.
“After a while, you start to recognize
when things are right. A lot of it is by feel and taste. But I’ve made this
enough to know it by heart.”
Holding one of the still-steaming
potatoes in the thinly textured weave of the tea towel, Adrian hooked his left
fingers beneath the handle of a bell grater. Slowly, he worked the potato over
the holes, watching as the cream-colored flesh left a trail of steam on the
stainless steel. He moved in brisk, even strokes, watching the curls of
yellow-white potato drop into the well like confetti. “So even though we don’t
have a whole lot of ingredients here, we still have to make sure that they play
nicely together.”
“Playing nicely doesn’t seem to suit
you.”
“And yet that doesn’t bother you,” Adrian
flipped back, working the second potato into fine shreds.
One red-gold brow lifted. “I don’t play
nicely either.”
Right. Because just what he needed was
another reason to want her.
“Well, you’d better learn quick, because
you’re up.”
Teagan’s shoulders lifted in a slim line
of surprise, and she pulled back from the counter to stare at him. “You can’t
be serious.”
“When it comes to food, I’m always
serious.” Adrian tipped his head at the counter, dividing his expression
between trust me and I dare you. Damn,
she was full to the brim with tension and tired, and all he wanted was to get
her to relax. “Come on. I can’t do this part alone, and I’ll walk you through
it. I’m a chef. It’s not like I’m going to steer you wrong.”
For a second, she didn’t move, and hell,
maybe pushing her had been a bad plan. But then she gave a barely perceptible
nod and slid from her bar stool to round the corner into the kitchen.
“Fine. Let’s do this before I change my
mind.”
Adrian turned to get an egg and some
butter out of the refrigerator, trapping his satisfied smile between his teeth.
“The trick here is to get the ingredients incorporated just right, and the best
way to do that is to go by feel.”
Returning to the counter, he closed his
fingers around the smooth contours of the egg, giving it a one-handed tap and-
break into the flour well.
Teagan scoffed. “Show-off.”
But Adrian kept steady with the food,
nice and easy so she would, too. “It’s important to go slow—you don’t want to
maul it, or else the dough turns out too tough.” He reached forward for a pinch
of salt from the covered bowl on the counter, sprinkling it over the well
before stepping back to gesture her into the space.
Her lips parted. “You want me to use my
hands?”
“Yup. It’s just like the wine, only
instead of breathing it in, you’re letting it talk to you by feeling it.”
“I hope you have the pizza guy on speed
dial, because I’m totally going to screw this up,” she muttered, but she sank
her fingers into the mixture anyway. Her brow tugged down in fierce
concentration, but Adrian countered it by stepping in behind her.
“You’re not going to screw this up.”
Caging her body gently with his own, he put his right hand over hers to guide
her through the motions. He worked his hand—and hers—over the mixture, first
one pass, then another. “Take a breath. Relax, and let the food do its thing.”
“Like that?” Teagan asked, her back
melting into his chest with each move of their hands. She tipped her chin
toward her shoulder to look up at him in question, and he sucked in a breath
full of rosemary and total, undiluted want.
“Yeah,” he said. “Like that.”
Slowly, the ingredients began to find
their way together, and a ball of dough the color of spring sunshine began to
take shape between Teagan’s palms, smooth and pliable. Her shoulders rolled,
low and easy against his body, her breath coming in soft pulls as she looked
down at their entwined hands. “God, that’s amazing.”
Adrian threw every last shred of his
focus into the food. “Isn’t it? It’s only a few ingredients, yet when you bring
them together without forcing them, they just find their way to where they
belong.”
“So now what?”
“Now all we have to do is roll it out and
cut it,” he said, stepping back from her even though his body screamed in
protest. He skimmed a thin layer of flour over the countertop, reminding
himself that this was about taking care of her.
Without quite meeting her gaze—God, he was such a selfish bastard—Adrian
gestured for her to place the dough on the flour-coated counter and pressed a
rolling pin into her hands.
“Nice and even, Red. It’s all about
feel.” He fixed his eyes on the dough as she rolled it out, her movements
tentative yet efficient. “Good. Use your fingers to check for ripples in the
surface. Missing them with your eyes is easy, but you’ll catch them if you go
by touch.”
“Oh.” The word rode out on a sigh as she
skimmed the pale yellow disc of dough with one hand, then the other. “It really
is
all
about feel.”
“See? You’re a natural.”
Adrian palmed a dough cutter, the handle
smooth in his
palm, and he edged in next to her to begin cutting the
dough with one-handed movements. Teagan watched as if
in a trance, and he watched her face the same way, drinking
her in as she stared.
“If you know how to listen, the food
tells you everything.” He ran the gleaming tines of a fork across each little
bead of dough, imprinting the supple surface with the trademark triple slash of
gnocchi.
“The way you do that is really
incredible.” Teagan swung her gaze upward to meet his, her face as open and
pure as sunrise, and in that moment, Adrian knew the difference between just
wanting someone and being hungry for someone.
He was fucking starving
for
her.
Another great addition to the Pine Mountain series! Adrian is a sex-on-a-stick chef - need I say more? Teagan is no damsel-in-distress, but she needs help running her dad's bar. Together they generate heat in and out of the kitchen. I loved that Teagan never once hesitated trusting Adrian, even when she finds out about his past and the reasons why he can't officially work for her.
Overall a light read with a hint of danger and no drama between the main characters. The recipes at the end are great - I'm really looking forward to trying the pulled pork.
ARC via NetGalley for the purpose of providing an honest review.
Kimberly
Kincaid writes contemporary romance that splits the difference between sexy and
sweet. When she's not sitting cross-legged in an ancient desk chair known as
"The Pleather Bomber", she can be found practicing obscene amounts of
yoga, whipping up anything from enchiladas to éclairs in her kitchen, or curled
up with her nose in a book.
Kimberly
is a 2011 RWA Golden Heart® finalist who lives (and writes!) by the mantra that
food is love. Her digital Line series is all about the hot cops and sexy chefs of
Brentsville, New York. She is also the author of the Pine Mountain series,
which follows small town singles as they find big-time love. Kimberly resides
in Virginia with her wildly patient husband and their three daughters.
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