Let It Shine by Alyssa Cole Read Free Book Online Page A

you,” she said. “Sometimes I think the same thing about my father. I try to make something good most nights. Otherwise, he would just survive on TV Dinners.”
    Ivan chuckled, then reached behind him with the knife and used it pull open the freezer, which was stuffed to the gills with the distinctive frozen meals. Sofie gave a bittersweet laugh.
    “Women from our synagogue cook extra food and bring him their ‘leftovers,’ but he hates eating that. He says it makes him feel ungrateful when he thinks their food isn’t as good as my mom’s.” Ivan dumped the barley, potatoes, and beans into the slow cooker, then took the onions off the stove and scraped them in as well. “The only person who could ever match Mom in the kitchen was Miss Delia. She never stopped talking about her, you know. Even on her death bed she said, ‘If Delia were here she could show these di skeynes how to make some real matzah ball soup!’”
    Sofie smiled. She remembered how hard Mrs. Friedman had been on her mother during the first few weeks. Mama came home complaining about the woman every night. But when Mama had shown her she was no one’s fool in the kitchen, they’d developed a type of friendship. As much friendship as could exist between a servant and the woman she worked for.
    Ivan washed his hands and wiped them off on his jeans. “Okay, you ready to get to it?”
    Sofie nodded, and felt the oddest trembling in her stomach as he approached her. She didn’t think she’d ever paid much attention to the way a man walked before, but she watched the play of muscle as he took each step and how his arms swung in a way that projected an unconscious self-confidence. He gave her his chip-toothed grin as he stopped in front of her and nodded in the direction of her hands. “You should take those off. I wouldn’t want to be responsible for sullying your gloves.”
    “They’ll likely be destroyed at a real sit-in,” she said.
    He took her hand from where it rested on the counter and undid the small button at the base of her glove, and it was if that one flick of his finger released a torrent of tingling heat that spread from her wrist to her arm and through the rest of her body. “I can only be responsible for my own actions,” he said. “And I don’t want to be the man who shredded these dainty little things.” He pinched the fingertip of the glove and gave it a tug, and Sofie felt the responding pull between her thighs.
    She should have grabbed her hand away from him then, as soon as that first bolt of pleasure went through her, but she simply stared up at him with wide eyes as he gave four more swift, gentle pulls and freed her hand from its encasement. He took the other hand, moving one step forward as he did, so that now the roughness of his denim pants rubbed against her knee as he worked.
    Sofie knew he could see her hand shaking, and her chest rising and falling heavily, and the way her knees were pressed together. She was embarrassed, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t disappointed too when he pulled her second glove off the final digit, her pinky, and laid it down besides its mate.
    She forced herself to look up at him, and was happy to see that his cheeks were flushed beneath his fading bruises. Ivan may have been cool now, but not so cool that she didn’t affect him, too. “Okay, we should go into the living room.”
    She stood on wobbly legs and clicked after him across the tiled kitchen floor. “Should I take off my shoes, too?” she asked. It was a brazen thing to ask, but her fingers were still tingling from his touch.
    Ivan stopped and looked back over his shoulder. His gaze fixed on her pointy black leather heels, then up her stocking leg until her skirt obstructed his view. His voice was low and his gaze intense when he answered, and his words made her throat go dry.
    “Leave your heels on.”

Chapter 7
    Half an hour later, they sat stiffly beside each other on the couch.
    “It’s okay. I’m sure it