Isn't It Bromantic (Bromance Book Club #4) by Lyssa Kay Adams

            Vlad didn’t turn around. “Elena, stay back.”

            She shoved his crutches at him. “For God’s sake, I just need some tvorog.”

            The scuff of the tarp brought a collective gasp from all three of them. At once, they turned their heads in time to see a tall, dark figure emerge from behind the curtain. He wore a long apron and carried a towel on which he slowly wiped his hands.

            “A woman who knows her cheese. Color me aroused.”

            His voice was smooth, warm, like a melted raclette, soft and creamy and hot. Elena felt herself sink into it like a crust of bread in a fondue pot. She turned toward it and began to walk.

            “Elena, no.” Vlad’s fingers skimmed her elbow, but it was no use. She was under a spell.

            The man descended the ramp. When he finally stepped into the dim light, he spoke to the dude with the bandanna. “It’s okay, Byron. Let them in.”

            To Elena, he extended his hand. “I am Roman. You are?”

            “Elena,” she breathed.

            “A beautiful name for a beautiful woman.” He raised her knuckles to his lips. “It is a pleasure.”

            “That’s my wife,” Vlad said behind them.

            Roman lifted a perfectly formed brow. “A gorgeous woman who is also a turophile? You are a lucky man, my friend.” He cupped Elena’s elbow. “Please, let me show you to my fromagerie.”

            The click-scruff of Vlad’s crutches behind them had an aggressive cadence to it as he followed. Roman lifted the black plastic curtain. When she walked through, bright lights automatically turned on, momentarily blinding her. But after blinking a couple of times, she slapped her hand to her chest. This was a cheese paradise.

            Elena wrapped her arms around her torso and shivered.

            “My apologies, love,” Roman said, brushing a fingertip down the goose bumps that had erupted along her triceps. “We must keep it cool in here. Your husband should have warned you to bring your coat.”

            Vlad made an ugly noise.

            “As you can see,” Roman said, bending seductively close to her ear, “we have everything you could want.”

            “Tvorog?”

            He turned and pointed with a long, slender finger. She followed with her eyes and . . . there it was. “You have it,” she whispered, her feet moving of their own accord toward her quarry. Her mouth watered.

            “Ah yes,” Roman said, following closely. “Authentic farmer cheese. I use the original recipe of my great-grandmother.”

            Elena looked over sharply. “You are Russian?”

            “On my father’s side. My great-grandparents came over in 1911.”

            “Do you speak any Russian?”

            He winked and made a dirty proposition in their native language that made her cheeks flame.

            Vlad squinted in suspicion. “You have never spoken Russian to me.”

            “I only know enough to get me in trouble.” He laughed in Vlad’s direction.

            “I don’t understand,” Elena said, shaking her head. “This is amazing. Why don’t you open a store to the public?”

            The air seemed to escape the room. She glanced at Vlad, who was frozen in place, a slice of Havarti halfway to his mouth.

            Roman chuckled quietly, but his laughter held a sinister undertone. “Big Cheese would never let it happen.”

            “Big Cheese?”

            “Corporate dairy farms. They lobby the government to pack the FDA with their friends who set regulations that make it impossible for a small cheesemaker to succeed. They set standards that strip away the joy, the artistry. They have sold their souls”—he pounded his fist into his other hand—“to factory-made cheese. And then they destroy the environment with their mass-production farms that milk their cows too often.”

            Elena blinked. “How often do they milk their cows?”