Chapter 29

29

Grady

I shouldn't take my own truck to Sarcasm—someone might recognize it—but I don't have time to go borrow one of Cooper's old beaters up on the mountain.

Not when I'll already have a hell of a time pulling off what I'm about to attempt to pull off.

When my headlights finally slice through the darkness in the alleyway behind Duh-Nuts, my pulse goes into hyperdrive.

The back door's open.

And the lights are on.

Some asshole is breaking into Annika's bakery.

I kill the engine two shops down and leap out, shutting my truck door as quietly as possible before tiptoeing to the back of the bakery.

If I'm caught here, I'm in trouble, but not nearly as much trouble as whoever thinks they can break into Duh-Nuts and get away with it.

Gravel crunches under my feet, and I slow my pace to a crawl as I angle through the shadows to peer into the kitchen.

And relief makes me sag against the wall.

Annika's passed out cold at the worktable, her phone propped on the side of her face like it slid off her ear and didn't have the energy to go all the way to the table, lips parted, dark smudges under her eyes.

She was here when I told her that awful boring story about nothing happening in the Fireballs game.

I grin to myself while I ease the screen door open and slip into the bakery.

It worked.

I told her a bedtime story, and it worked.

Which means it's time for me to get to work.

Doesn't take long to find the recipes Bailey was planning to use tomorrow. I pull out butter and eggs and open the flour bin, though I have to hunt for the baking powder and salt.

Considering they're right there on a shelf over the flour bin and all, they were doing a damn good job of hiding.

The ovens are a newer model of my wall ovens, and I have a minute of oven envy while I flip them on to three-fifty and crank up the proofer.

But the measuring cups and spoons and bowls—these are recycled.

They have history.

They've been places. Seen things.

Made a lot of sweet, sweet cookie dough.

Reminds me of Nana's kitchen.

Used. Loved.

This bakery has good bones. Good heart. I can feel it.

While the butter warms to room temperature, I also flip on the fryer, double-check the donut recipe and find the donut dough in the fridge. Feels like silk, smells like cookies.

Fucking good dough.

I eyeball the recipe, then decide it's none of my business how she's making a yeast donut dough smell like a chocolate chip cookie.

This is the Duh-Nuts domain.

I'm just playing baking fairy tonight.

I roll it out and find the donut pin to cut them, then set them in the proofer to rise. They'll be a few hours older than fresh when the Duh-Nuts doors open, but they'll still be good.

"Sorry, Annika," I murmur when I can't put off starting the industrial mixer any longer.

Cookie dough's gotta get made.

"The marshmallow requisition is on the captain's desk!" she shrieks.

I turn back to her, eyebrows raised, and her glassy brown eyes slowly focus on me. "You're not the— Grady ?"

"Go back to sleep."

She shakes her head and looks around like she's never seen this kitchen before. "Where—what—how—oh, shit . What time is it?"

She leaps up, the stool clatters to the ground, and her phone follows when she tries to grab it.

I flip on the mixer to get the butter and sugar creaming together and bend over to retrieve her phone. "Sit. Better yet, go home ."

"What are you doing?"

"I'm not here. You're dreaming."

"I am not." She shoves my shoulder, and I snag her hand and help her wrap it around my waist.

"So maybe I'm dreaming," I say with a grin. "Not every day I get full access to a sexy woman's…ovens."

"You—" She pauses, thick, dark lashes fluttering while her arm tightens around me. "You're saving my ass."

"I like your ass. It's worth saving."

"You read romance novels," she blurts suddenly.

"I—yeah. Time to time. Tillie Jean has this singles club she runs, and?—"

"Is that like a book club?"

"Yeah. Without the books. Most of the time. Until a new historical romance that she's been dying to read comes out."

She smiles.

I go lightheaded.

Not unusual.

"You're a big ol' softie," she whispers.

"There is nothing soft about me."

Her eyes crinkle when she smiles, and yep.

Lightheaded again.

She turns into me so we're toe-to-toe, thigh-to-thigh, hip-to-hip.

Right back where we were in my shower earlier.

Complete with my hard-on aching and ready, because that's all it takes.

Just one look from Annika. One touch. One whisper of her voice.

"I'm glad you're home," I tell her.

"I'm getting there." She loops her free arm around my neck. "You know I don't have time for this."

"For a visit from the master baking fairy?"

"For a relationship."

"This? This isn't a relationship. This is two old friends trying to have sex while one bakes cookies for the other."

"So it's just sex and cookies."

"And donuts." I kiss her forehead, give myself a moment to fantasize about spreading her naked on the worktable and licking her from head to toe until she's panting my name and can't remember any man except me.

She presses her breasts into my chest and tilts her pelvis against mine, and I groan.

"Cookies," I mutter.

"Cookies?"

I jerk my head at the mixer. "I'm going to tear your clothes off you and make you come so hard, the only thing you'll be able to say for a week is Grady Rock is a sex god , but not while I'm baking cookies."

She gapes up at me, all bags under her eyes and lips parted with lust, then she blinks and cracks up. "Cookies keep you from performing?"

"It's not clean ." Yeah. I'm that wet rag in the kitchen. "And you need cookies and donuts before I can give you…well, your cookies."

"I can't decide if I'm pissed or amused or just plain turned on."

"I'm all three."

I let her go, because I've creamed the butter and sugar enough, and I'm not letting her sell sub-par cookies tomorrow just because I got a boner—again—and wanted to shove her up against the fridge and bang her senseless.

I wash my hands—I don't fuck with hygiene when I'm baking—and I grab the eggs and start cracking them into a bowl. She sidles up beside me, her fingers trailing down my back.

"You're putting my bakery first," she murmurs, leaning her breasts into my arm, and fucking hell , it makes my cock leap and strain and beg for five minutes between her legs.

I can make her come in five minutes.

I know I can.

Probably two, if I whisper dirty things to her first.

I was nearly there in three just this afternoon. I know I was.

"That's right, baby," I tell the dough. "You never knew you could be this good, but you're about to get even better."

"I liked you, you know," Annika says.

I crack an egg too hard and it splatters all over the countertop.

She trails her fingers down the inside of my left forearm while I single-handedly crack the rest of the eggs into the bowl. "Does that usually happen your first time in a new…kitchen?"

"Only when I'm unexpectedly…excited."

"Wow. You must be very excited."

"Creamed sugar turns me on."

"You turn me on," she whispers. "I don't want you to. But you do."

"We're not kids, Annika. We don't have to resist this."

"But we're still not in a place to be parents."

"I'd make a damn good dad. And it's not what I want right now, but that doesn't mean I wouldn't change my whole life around and make the most of every minute."

Her fingers still.

"That's what it's about, right? Not wanting to be a single mom, like your mama was?" I drizzle vanilla into the mixer, watching the creamed sugar and butter and eggs turn into shiny satin ready for some flour, salt, and baking soda. "Or am I missing another objection that's swirling in that lightning-fast brain of yours?"

Her head tilts into my shoulder. "Why were we friends?"

Not the answer I was looking for.

But with Annika, it never was. Which is exactly why she was perfect.

"Because you're smart and I'm funny, and we're both friendly, though you're a little scary with a color-coded planner and a goal, and I sometimes forget I need to let my goat outside. We're peanut butter and chocolate."

"I'm funny too."

"Not on purpose— oof ." I tip too much flour into the bowl when she pokes me in the gut, but I'm grinning.

Everyone else in high school thought she was stiff and bossy and driven.

But she's right.

She's funny. Smart-funny.

She made me want to be smarter.

She made me want to bake better, because her mama—her mama can bake .

People thought I baked because it was the one thing I was better at than Cooper and Tillie Jean, but I couldn't hold a candle to Maria Williams, and I knew it.

And Annika let me bring her baked goods every day of high school, and I swear she knew I was waiting for the day she said I made something better than her mama.

It never came.

But I have a lot more experience under my belt now.

In everything .

"I'm a pain in the ass," she says slowly.

"No. You're a woman with a goal. You're driven. You put your family first and you give back more than you take, because you don't want to be a drain on anyone. And you know your limits. That's not being a pain in the ass. Don't ever apologize for being a good person."

" Oh ."

I tap the rest of the flour into the mixer and glance at her.

She's staring into the mixing bowl like the dough's just spelled out the answer to life.

"Oh?" I ask.

" That's why we were friends."

"Because you put it in your planner?"

Her hand slips into mine, and she squeezes. "Because you saw me."

"At the risk of irreparable harm to my pride and ego again, I should confess that you and those eyes and that hair and that body are impossible to miss, and I saw you from day one, and I wanted you from day one."

"Did I see you?"

"At the risk of insulting your eyesight and taste, duh . Yeah. These dimples? Chick magnets. You put up a good fight, but?—"

Her hand clamps over my mouth and she turns my jaw until I have to look at her.

"No one knew how talented you were," she tells me.

Heat creeps up my neck.

"Tillie Jean was the smart one and the artistic one. Cooper was the athletic one. And you were everything , but not enough to stand out at anything ."

"So we were friends because you like settling for second best." There's a balance to sweet and bitter, and if I don't perk up, these chocolate chip cookies are going to taste like black licorice soaked in vinegar.

"I was second string on the softball team until senior year. Didn't make top ten in our graduating class. Never promoted to junior management at the grocery store. Part of the crew instead of the cast that one time I tried out for the play. And I didn't graduate top of my class in Basic, or ever get that number one enlisted slot on my performance evaluations. But I wasn't second best , and neither were you. Because we were both playing a different game."

I kill the power on the mixer, and the background hum slows to a halt while I grab a scraper and attack the sides of the bowl. "You ever want to go back? Try it again? See what we could do differently?"

She shakes her head.

"I do."

"No, you don't."

"I would've written you all those letters I promised."

She inhales sharply.

"And I would've waited for you." Raw honesty isn't easy, but Annika won't let me in if I don't let her in.

"How long?" she whispers.

"However long it took."

Her dark eyes are studying me, and I don't have to ask if she sees me.

I know .

She sees me.

She always has.

"I'll still wait, Annika. As long as you want me to."

"You shouldn't put your life on hold. Mine might always be in chaos."

And that's pure Annika.

Expecting she'll just do it alone. That she's not worth the life that comes with another person.

Pop keeps asking when I'm going to settle down.

I didn't know it until just now, but there's a reason I haven't yet.

I've never found someone worth giving up sleep for.

Worth coming in second for.

Worth going through life with.

The good and the bad.

The up and the down.

The give and take.

Not like I had with Annika in high school.

"You say chaos ," I tell her. "But the things that take us by surprise are what make life interesting."

"I like a little calm with my storm."

"It'll come." I give the dough one last ride around the mixer paddle, then unhook the bowl and grab the chocolate chips.

She watches while I give the massive batch a few strokes to mix in the chocolate, and I can't decide if she's watching my arms or the dough.

"Want a lick?" I ask.

"You know I can't resist."

Oh, I know.

I know very well.

I grab a spoon and dish out a serving of dough, then swipe it onto my finger and hold it up just out of her reach.

"This?" I ask.

"You're evil."

The longing in her voice makes my cock throb again.

"Is it my finger, or the dough that you want?"

"Both," she whispers.

Fuck.

Didn't expect that.

"Only good girls get to lick."

"That seems backwards."

"If I let you have this, you have to promise to go home and go to bed."

Her hands slide around my waist and dip to squeeze my ass. "Hard pass."

"Or you can go home without a treat first."

"This is already a treat." She squeezes again, my dick asks if we can please lose the clothes yet, and my eyes almost cross, but I know what I need to do.

I need to be the fucking good guy.

I'm not seducing Annika in the middle of her bakery when she's four days short of sleep and under more stress than the bottom layer of a ten-tier wedding cake.

"Don't your cookies need love?" She tilts her head, lids lowered, breath coming fast. "This is inspiration."

"Didn't you just tell me we can't do this?"

"That was before you threatened to deny me cookie dough and your company. And we have unfinished business."

"I'm not making out with you again tonight." Christ, who am I? How did that just come out of my mouth?

"But you'll let me suck on your fingers?"

"I—"

"Just one lick, Grady? Please? Let me live the dream that I can whip up delicious cookie dough that you'd want to lick off me."

"You're playing me for dough, aren't you?"

"Is it working?" she purrs.

"Yes. No. Fuck . You need to go to my bed. To your bed. Alone. To sleep with me. To sleep. Dammit , Annika."

"You started it. You teased me with cookie dough. You've been a bad, bad boy, Grady Rock. And now you have to pay the price."

I give in with a groan, even though there's some part of me insisting I shouldn't, because if I let her lick my finger, I'm going to kiss her. If I kiss her, I'm going to have to touch her.

And if I touch her, I'm going to give her the orgasm to end all orgasms.

She won't be able to walk without thinking my name.

And I can't see where that's a bad thing.

Plus, orgasms are good for sleeping.

And she needs to sleep.

I'd be doing her a favor .

Her lips close around my finger and she sucks, a low moan of appreciation emanating from the back of her throat while she licks the dough off, eyes sliding shut, and I haven't come early since I was nineteen, but I'm about to blow my load right here, right now.

"Annika—"

"You are such a master baker," she murmurs.

The sweet hints of chocolate and vanilla and sugar linger in the air between us. Her fingers are still digging into my ass, her belly pressed against my hard-on, and I can't resist.

I angle my lips to hers, and she melts into me like ice over an open flame.

I was fifteen the first time I wanted to kiss her senseless.

Eighteen the first time I tried.

And I've spent over a decade with fantasies of this woman. Sometimes the fantasies are front and center, sometimes quietly lurking in the background, waiting for the right moment to catch me off guard.

But none of them come anywhere close to reality.

To the taste of cookie dough on her lips. The heat of her breath. The press of her breasts into my chest. The eagerness of her tongue.

That happy, aroused moan as I run my hands over the curve of her hips.

My shirt is suddenly jerked from behind, Annika's lips are wrenched away, and a booming voice yells, " You! "

"Oh my god, Roger, put him down," Annika orders.

Huh.

My feet aren't on the floor.

Also— fuck , my collar is straining at my neck, and that's before he gives me a shake.

"Think you can sneak in here and steal all our secrets, do you?" Roger growls. "Take advantage of our defenses being down on account of all the worry over Maria? Go back where you came from, you dingy rat."

And there's the toss.

I land on my feet and brace a hand on the worktable while Annika leaps between us. "Roger. Stop ."

"You deserve better than some backstabbing, two-bit master faker coming in here and sweet talking you out of all your mama's recipes so he can win this blasted bakery war that he never should've started in the first place."

"I can't bake!" Annika explodes. "I can't bake, and Bailey needs a week off, and Mama can knead dough and roll cookies, but she can't stand there at the fryer. It's not safe. And she can't see when cakes and cookies and muffins are done, much less frost them, because she can't see . So how the hell else am I supposed to keep her dream alive without help? How? "

"Well, whaddya think I came over here for?" he shouts back. "To do all your baking for you!"

She blinks.

I blink.

He glares, then grabs his belly and gives it a jiggle. "You think I got this gut with take-out? No, ma'am. I got this gut the old-fashioned way. I might not claim to be a master baker "—he tosses a sneer my way—"but I can damn sure bake some chocolate chip cookies and fry up some donuts. Don't think just because I spend my day with pipes and clogged shitters that that's all there is to a man."

Her lips part.

Mine do too, but I snap them shut, because he's right.

Tillie Jean's not just the manager at Crusty Nut. She's also a painter.

Cooper's not just a baseball player. He's been dabbling in writing a fantasy novel forever.

Pop isn't just a horny old—no, wait.

He really is just a horny old pirate.

Bad example.

But Roger the plumber—he's sweet on Maria, and his stomach does speak for itself.

He glowers. "Now. Get out. The both of you. I gotta fix the mess this shithead made. And you —" He points at Annika. "Go home. Sleep. Right up until five minutes before you want to open this place. I'll have everything ready."

"I'll help," I say.

"Shut up," Annika hisses at me.

He points at me. "You. Leave first. Go. Now."

"I'm not?—"

"Grady." Annika turns, and dammit .

I can't be one more thorn in her side. She's laying in a whole field of rosebushes right now with as much as she's dealing with.

"Thank you," she says quietly. "We've got it from here."

I don't want to leave. I want to kiss her again.

Hell, I want to take her with me.

Make her sleep for a few days.

Feed her and kiss her and touch her and eat her and plunder and pillage her between naps.

Her mouth quirks in a wry grin, and yeah, sorry, my pirate roots are showing.

Pretty sure she knows it.

"Go," she repeats.

I don't want to, but staying will only cause her more trouble.

So I have to find another way to help.

Damn good thing I have a kitchen too.