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…
about Kimberly || 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.
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.
{ excerpt } .
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.
I knew that FIRE ME UP was part of a series, but I had no idea that it was book four. FOUR! I thought maybe 2 -- obviously the previous book would have been that of Adrian's best friend/chef buddy, Carly. But low and behold, Carly's book was actually book 2, and there's another between hers and Adrian's.
Due to the nature of the series, do you need to read the previous books? Nope. Not even a bit.
...but it would be fun to see the other couples.
I liked Adrian and Teagan, and I liked them together, as well. Parts of the story felt too 'plain' to me though, as if the characters were just going through the motions. I did enjoy the suspenseful aspect of the story, though, which was the driving factor of the '1/2' after the 4 stars.
I felt that, although not really touched upon, there was growth in these characters. Adrian is a punky platinum-hair wearing, eyebrow pierced guy who cooks for a living -- and cooks well. On top of that, he's a Harley rider. These things didn't jive together in my mind, but they worked in Kimberly's mind, so I let it pass. Anyways, he goes from this half-cocked, punky adult, to this guy who gives two bee's behinds about someone else -- and I rather enjoyed watching that transition. Adrian learns to live by slowing down.
Teagan, too, grows simply by slowing down. Neither of these two characters slow down by choice -- Adrian's a bit broken and Teagan's dad is a bit of a mess -- but by slowing down, they opened their mind to other possibilities.
The major unbelievable part to me was that Teagan didn't question Adrian's parole. Even when speaking of it with someone else, she says how any joe-shmoe you meet could have a parole officer. And maybe it's a result of small town living, but she puts a bit too much trust and faith into this man she doesn't know, who has a parole officer, and has a history that she wasn't privvy to for a little while.
...but that's me being a bit nitpicky and looking deep into the book.
Had I just read the book for pleasure? I likely wouldn't have noticed the easy-acceptance, no questions asked about it, parole part. Teagan and Adrian's lives are thrown together by 'accident', and their lives progress and intertwine nicely. Adrian, for his tough exterior, is a rather sweet guy.
He calls Teagan 'Red' for reasons other than her hair (did he ever confess said reason to her? Readers knew, but did Teagan?), but when he had something he needed to say, something that was serious, he'd call her by her name -- and Teagan recognized it for what it was.
Additionally, one of my favorite sweet factors of a certain Mr. Adrian was how he ended up having to keep a secret from Teagan, and it kills him to do so -- he nearly bursts at the seams.
So like I said -- as a reviewer who tries to be a bit critical? There was room for improvement...
But as a reader who likes to get so lost in a story and never come out? It was a damn good read.
{ giveaway } .
{ review } .
What I like about many series is the fact that you don't need to read other books to know what's going on. Do I like the series' that follow one couple? Abso-freaking-lutely. But the series that follow towns and their people, that follow family members or best friends... I like those just as well.I knew that FIRE ME UP was part of a series, but I had no idea that it was book four. FOUR! I thought maybe 2 -- obviously the previous book would have been that of Adrian's best friend/chef buddy, Carly. But low and behold, Carly's book was actually book 2, and there's another between hers and Adrian's.
Due to the nature of the series, do you need to read the previous books? Nope. Not even a bit.
...but it would be fun to see the other couples.
I liked Adrian and Teagan, and I liked them together, as well. Parts of the story felt too 'plain' to me though, as if the characters were just going through the motions. I did enjoy the suspenseful aspect of the story, though, which was the driving factor of the '1/2' after the 4 stars.
I felt that, although not really touched upon, there was growth in these characters. Adrian is a punky platinum-hair wearing, eyebrow pierced guy who cooks for a living -- and cooks well. On top of that, he's a Harley rider. These things didn't jive together in my mind, but they worked in Kimberly's mind, so I let it pass. Anyways, he goes from this half-cocked, punky adult, to this guy who gives two bee's behinds about someone else -- and I rather enjoyed watching that transition. Adrian learns to live by slowing down.
Teagan, too, grows simply by slowing down. Neither of these two characters slow down by choice -- Adrian's a bit broken and Teagan's dad is a bit of a mess -- but by slowing down, they opened their mind to other possibilities.
The major unbelievable part to me was that Teagan didn't question Adrian's parole. Even when speaking of it with someone else, she says how any joe-shmoe you meet could have a parole officer. And maybe it's a result of small town living, but she puts a bit too much trust and faith into this man she doesn't know, who has a parole officer, and has a history that she wasn't privvy to for a little while.
...but that's me being a bit nitpicky and looking deep into the book.
Had I just read the book for pleasure? I likely wouldn't have noticed the easy-acceptance, no questions asked about it, parole part. Teagan and Adrian's lives are thrown together by 'accident', and their lives progress and intertwine nicely. Adrian, for his tough exterior, is a rather sweet guy.
He calls Teagan 'Red' for reasons other than her hair (did he ever confess said reason to her? Readers knew, but did Teagan?), but when he had something he needed to say, something that was serious, he'd call her by her name -- and Teagan recognized it for what it was.
Additionally, one of my favorite sweet factors of a certain Mr. Adrian was how he ended up having to keep a secret from Teagan, and it kills him to do so -- he nearly bursts at the seams.
So like I said -- as a reviewer who tries to be a bit critical? There was room for improvement...
But as a reader who likes to get so lost in a story and never come out? It was a damn good read.
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