Chapter 31

31

Grady

"Oh, fuck, baby, you're so damn perfect," I murmur to the raw steaks on Cooper's kitchen counter. "So juicy. I'm gonna heat you up until you beg for mercy."

Pretty sure a cow up in cow heaven just flipped me off for that, and I can't say I blame it.

I've never been able to sweet talk meat the way I can a donut. Doesn't feel right.

But I keep trying.

This better not be an omen for how tonight's going to go.

Everything should be perfect.

Cooper texted the whole family on group message to tell them he was having his house bug-bombed, and to avoid it this weekend, just like I asked him to. I told everyone in Shipwreck that I was taking Sue fishing for the weekend, and I left Georgia in charge of the bakery.

Annika reports her friend Liliana is covering for her.

Sue's grazing in the back yard behind the hot tub, and I'm almost positive that's not poison ivy he's eating.

I have all the ingredients ready for lessons on no-fail killer brownies and cake mix cookies, and I'm working hard on thinking about Nana naked every time my dick twitches in anticipation of being alone with Annika, because tonight's not about getting in her pants.

First, because she needs sleep and baking lessons more.

Second, because I can be fucking patient.

And third, because if I were planning to seduce her, I wouldn't do it in my brother's house.

Now all I need is for Annika to get here.

The grill's hot. Got corn on the cob and watermelon prepped too.

And because Annika's never late for anything, I catch the flash of the sun reflecting off a windshield through the front windows right at six o'clock.

I hit the front door and pull it open as she's climbing out of her car.

Her dark hair is tied back, and a baseball cap shields her eyes. She's in tight low-rise jeans with her phone sticking out one pocket and a tank top that keeps lifting to show a sliver of her belly over the white long-sleeve blouse she has tied at her waist.

And she's in hiking boots.

The first time I saw her, she was in boots.

They make me happy , she'd said.

Her happiness made me happy.

And now that I've finally figured out the magic of making her happy, I never want to stop.

"Get all dressed up for baking lessons?" I ask with a grin.

"If you're looking for makeup and a slinky dress, you asked the wrong girl to stick her hands in dough with you."

I clench my eyes shut and try to think of my Nana naked, but all I'm coming up with is Annika in my shower, her cheeks flushed, my fingers in her hot, tight pussy, and I shouldn't have borrowed my brother's house.

Screw the brownies.

And the steak.

"Grady?"

"Hold on."

Pop.

Yep. Think about Pop. Crusty nuts and saggy vaginas.

Okay.

This is good.

I toss a mime into the mix, and yep.

That does it.

Situation temporarily contained.

I open my eyes again, and Annika's giving me the lifted brows of what the fuck have you been smoking?

"Making sure I didn't forget anything before we pop the wine," I lie.

She smirks. "You were thinking about me naked."

And there goes my dick.

"Trying not to think about you naked," I correct. "I'm teaching you to bake. In my brother's house."

"Did you say he has massage chairs?"

She glances around the interior of the cabin mansion—yeah, cabin mansion . It's like a cute mountain cabin on steroids with high ceilings wired for surround sound, with those four massage chairs on the plank wood floor in the living room, the kitchen taking up the entire back corner with its rustic cabinets and gleaming granite countertops and island big enough for four chefs—or one horny master baker and his prodigy—and a loft bedroom overhead.

There are also six guest bedrooms in the basement, and a pool house with another guest room around a path out back.

I gesture to the closest chair, which looks like a designer leather torture machine with those leg slots and the arm liners and the thingies that can knead a man's neck right off if he's not careful with the remote. "Want a go while I grill some dinner?"

The other day, in my shower, she was looking at me like she wanted to jump my bones from here to the next century.

That's nothing compared to the lust in her eyes now.

Part of me wants to punch Cooper for having better toys than I do.

But I tell myself the bigger part of me wants Annika to be happy, and that what was left of my savings was better spent getting her an ice cream machine than a massage chair, so I tug her hand and guide her to the chair closest to the open kitchen.

"Just don't hit the red button," I tell her as I explain the remote. "That'll basically make you launch into space."

She settles into the chair, and I'm not three steps away before she moans in pleasure.

And hello, hard-on, we meet again.

"Are those steaks?" she asks on a blissed-out sigh.

"Top sirloin."

"So you don't have cereal every night for… oh, god, that's good ."

She whimpers and sighs and moans and I'm pretty sure my dick could best a marble rolling pin in a sword fight right now.

With the open floor plan, I have a clear view of her while I finish prepping the steaks with salt and pepper. There's a smile curving her lips, and if it were possible for a person to sink through the leather, she'd be doing it right now.

Her shoulders visibly relax, her chin droops, and by the time I've pulled the corn out of the fridge to add to the pile to take to the grill, she's passed out cold.

I wouldn't say she's snoring, but that's mostly because she'd probably hit me if I did.

But who falls asleep after seventeen seconds in a massage chair?

An exhausted, overworked, over-stressed Annika.

I toss the steaks and corn back in the fridge.

Leave the baking ingredients sitting out.

And I claim the chair next to her, lift the footrest, and flip on the TV.

She doesn't stir.

In fact, she doesn't stir for three solid hours.

By then, the Fireballs are getting their asses kicked in Milwaukee, which makes her startled exclamation of, "We forgot to put gravestones in the peanut butter bin!" a relief.

It's a good distraction from the sight of Cooper growling on the wide-screen TV. He's about to blow his stack tonight.

Can't say I blame him.

He's playing his heart out, and they just can't pull it off.

"Good nap?" I ask Annika.

Just like the other night at her bakery, she looks around wildly as though she's trying to find the bear waiting to pounce on her. Her chest lifts as she sucks in a big breath, then blinks at the dark windows over the dining room table just off the kitchen.

"What time is it?"

"Little after nine. Hungry?"

She fumbles with her pockets, and I grab her phone off the end table between us and hold it out to her. "No texts," I tell her. "No calls either. They're good."

She breathes out a long, slow breath. "Wow. Sorry. Didn't mean to fall asleep. This chair is like the sleep whisperer."

"You're tired."

"Whoa. Is that really the score?"

She points to the TV, where the Fireballs are down by twelve, and I wince. "Yeah."

"How's Cooper doing?"

I gesture around the room. This house is basically an oversize man cave, complete with a stone fireplace in one wall and a hot tub and designer fire pit out back before you get to the pool. "He's somehow managing to find a way to deal."

She rolls her eyes, a smile lighting her face. "Money can't buy happiness."

"Yeah, but at least he's close by during the season. We cheer him up. Or torment him the old-fashioned way." I drop my footrest, because she's getting dinner whether she likes it or not. "Pretty sure he has some master plans of finding a way to circumvent management to turn the team around, but so far, it's not working. Maybe next year. Don't get up. Give me twenty minutes, and we can eat."

"And then bake," she sighs.

An ugly thought strikes me. "You don't like to bake."

"Sure I do," she lies.

"Annika."

"Grady. I'm terrible at it. And it's not like I haven't had practice to try to get better. I burned water . Who burns water? But it doesn't matter. Mama needs me to bake, so I'm going to learn to bake, and this conversation didn't happen, because it's not even a conversation. It's a blip. Like four breaths. And poof! It's gone. Are we starting with cookies? Those are my favorites to turn into coal. I never know exactly what shape the coal will be, so it's always a fun time."

It shouldn't be a struggle to wrap my brain around the idea of someone not liking to bake. Being bad at it, fine. But not liking it?

Tillie Jean only likes to bake brownies. Ma doesn't bake anything. Dad prefers grilling hamburgers and frying up gold nuggets to baking the bread that Crusty Nut is relatively famous for—after the gold nuggets and banana pudding and those bacon gouda cheeseburgers, anyway—but actively not liking to bake is just…

It's so…

I look at the flour and cocoa and candies and butter waiting for us in the kitchen.

Then back to Annika.

"You need a baker."

" There aren't any . Not in this part of the mountains. I interviewed someone off the street this morning who came in and told me it'd always been her dream to work in a bakery, and I asked what she baked, and when she said her in-laws rave about her cookies, I asked what her secret ingredient was, and do you know what she told me?"

"Love?"

" Marijuana. "

I scoff. "Everybody knows that's better in brownies."

" Grady ."

"Okay. Okay. We can fix this."

"We can't. But you're going to teach me how to bake anyway, because this can't fail ."

My heart clenches. "What were you going to do? Whenever you got out of the Army?"

"I don't know." She rubs her eyes and sinks back into the chair, fussing with the remote. "I'd started thinking I'd stay in another ten or twenty years. Eventually retire when I had to. Guaranteed pension for life, plus the opportunity to work another job. Something administrative. Or in contracting. There's always work for contractors in the government."

"But what do you want to do?"

"Stop you from asking annoying questions that are irrelevant to my current life situation."

I smile, but I don't feel it. "Okay. How do you like your steak?"

"I don't know. Medium something? Whatever."

"You don't—" I cut myself off, because of course she doesn't know.

She grew up poor, and I know the Army doesn't pay shit for the first few years. Maybe more.

She's probably never had a truly good cut of steak.

"It was always either mooing or super tough whenever I had it at the dining facility and on deployment they boil it first," she grumbles. "I like chicken. At least I know to expect it to be rubber."

"One Grady Rock steak special coming up. And if you hate it, there are Cocoa Krispies in the pantry."

She curls into the chair and gives me a small smile. "Sorry I'm being a butt."

"Thanks for being comfortable enough to be a butt."

I tug her hair and kiss her forehead, then head to the kitchen.

Maybe she'll like dinner.

Maybe she won't.

But she's staying.

And that's all I care about.