Chapter 33

33

Grady

While we eat, we tell each other stories about things we've done and seen the last ten years, falling back into those easy patterns of listening, teasing, and sharing, no judgment, just curiosity.

We pretend we're not playing footsie under the kitchen table, and Annika finishes every last bite of her steak, and then eats four more bites of mine before she finally leans back in her seat with a contented sigh. "Okay. I'm sold. Steak is delicious when it's cooked right, and I'm positive the only reason I've never been able to bake is because I've never had a meal that delicious to warm me up. Watch out, ovens. I'm coming for you now."

"That's the spirit."

We clean up quickly, shoulders bumping, hands touching, with Sue trying to push us into each other at every opportunity until I finally kick him out of the house.

I turn back around and find Annika at the island, staring down the flour, butter, and cake mix box. "I will own you," she growls to it.

I stifle a laugh. "I see where the first problem is. Here. Watch."

I stop behind her and press her body to the countertop, then guide one of her hands to the cake mix box, which we pet like it's a dog. Or a goat. "Repeat after me. Hello, lover. Let's make some music ."

"Are you talking to me or the cake mix?"

"You're not repeating. Let's try again. I can't wait to sink my fingers into your silky depths ."

"Okay, hot flash in the hooha, but is cake mix really silky?"

If I weren't already hard as one of her normal baked creations, that would've done it. But I ignore my needy cock and slide a finger under the box lid to pop it open, then pull out the bag inside and slice it open with a knife out of the knife block. "Here. Feel."

She twists her head to look at me.

" Feel ," I repeat.

I dip my hand into the bag and crumble the fine powder between my fingers. After a moment of hesitation, she does the same.

"Soft," she says.

"Don't tell me. Tell the mix."

She giggles.

Home fucking run.

"You're so soft," she says shyly to the cake mix. "I kinda want to just keep fingering you."

"That's it," I murmur while my cock pulses.

"This is so wrong," she whispers.

"But it does feel good."

"Silky," she agrees. "And powdery. I better not get pulled over with powder all over me on the way home."

"And I'm going to stir you until you give me all the good stuff," I say to the mix.

She snort-giggles this time. "I am not saying that while my mama and sister are listening, so I don't know how this is going to help me bake anywhere else ."

"It can hear your thoughts."

"It's cake mix ."

"Annika. You're right. You have to bake. Do you want to do it the easy way, or do you want to do it the flaming brick of moon rock way?"

"Okay, okay. You're so beautiful and powdery and not at all drug-like, and I want to make you wet."

My aching cock surges against her, and she goes still.

"Did I do that?" she asks.

If I answer her, we're not getting our baking lesson done. "Pour the mix into the bowl and tell it that it's about to meet its soulmates."

"Oh, baby, you get to have a seven-some for life," she croons while she tips the bag into the Pyrex mixing bowl.

I swallow hard. "Threesome," I correct. "But it'll be good."

"Seriously? Only three?"

"Cake mix, eggs, and oil."

"What about butter?"

"You master this first, and we'll talk about what you and I can do with butter."

"I feel very turned on right now."

"Tell it to the eggs, baby. Tell it to the eggs."

I could get addicted to that giggle.

"Crack the eggs, but promise them it'll be worth the pain," I tell her.

"I can't crack eggs."

"They're eggs ."

"But you're watching. And I saw you do that one-handed egg thing the other night and if I tried that, I'd explode egg all over the kitchen."

"Baking is a lot like sex. The messier, the better. And I'll never object if you use both hands."

"Hoo, boy, did you know nipples can have orgasms?"

Shit. My pirate mast just tried to raise another flag, and based on the way she's rubbing her ass against it, she knows exactly what she's doing. "You can't say orgasm."

"You mean when you're denying both of us orgasms ?"

"Crack the eggs, Annika. The cake mix needs some love."

"It's not the only thing in need of some love. Is steak an aphrodisiac?"

"Eating is an aphrodisiac."

I reach around her and grab an egg, and I crack it single-handedly into the bowl.

"That's really sexy. Do it again."

"Annika—"

"The cookies will feel the love if we both feel the love, right? Do you work out, or are your arms this incredible because you spend all day working with your hands?"

"Both."

My voice is strangled, and having her so close isn't helping.

Nor is her mouth.

It's like someone has turned off her filter and she's either legitimately into me, or she's trying to drive me crazy and she's going to bury me in this bakery war.

I don't care if she buries me.

Hell, I want her to bury me.

So long as I get to bury myself in her along the way.

Show her I can be what she deserves.

What she needs.

Finally convince her she can't live without me. Because now that she's back, I don't know if I can live without her.

I swallow hard and crack the second egg.

"I could watch you do that all day long," she whispers.

I palm her belly and pull her closer against me. "Grab the measuring cup and oil. We need a third of a cup."

"Mm, oil. So slick and lubey."

"Are you trying to torture me?" I murmur into her hair.

"Like you can talk, Mr. Food Porn. You feed me things that make my mouth happier than it's been since the dining facility fixed their soft serve machine, and then you go and put those hands that bake so well on me, and you think I can resist?"

"The oil, Annika." I'm holding on by a thread.

Do I want to boost her up on the counter and sprinkle cake mix all over her breasts and lick it off her?

Yes.

But she needs to learn to bake, and I'm trying to do the noble thing here, and it fucking sucks, but she needs this.

"Are you this bossy when you're naked?" she murmurs while she pours the oil.

Christ . "Are you talking to me or the cake mix?"

"Oh, I don't know. Maybe one of you. Maybe both of you. Is baking like getting involved in BDSM? Because I don't know much about the lifestyle, but I know I'm about to beat this cake mix until it begs for mercy."

And now I'm picturing her in assless leather chaps, bent over the island while I slap her cheeks, and that's never really done it for me before, but I'm having to concentrate damn hard on just breathing to keep from blowing my load in my pants.

"Is there a magic trick to stirring the dough?" she asks.

"Batter," I rasp out, momentarily confused, because she's short-circuiting my brain.

"Butter? You smear it with butter?"

" Annika ."

"I'm not a cock tease, you know," she says. "I'm just enjoying the foreplay."

"We don't have to?—"

"But don't you want to?"

"I want to earn you. To deserve you. And since you've been home, I've done a piss-poor job of it."

She frowns up at me, studying me like she's looking for the real me, the kid who used to wait for her by her locker in the morning, or maybe the me who almost kissed her at our sophomore homecoming dance when she showed up in a second-hand dress that some of the rich girls were whispering about because it was one of their hand-me-downs, or maybe the me who used to compete with everyone for everything until the first time she tried one of my cookies, when she looked at me and said, you need to quit trying to beat your brother in baseball and put your heart into doing what you LOVE. And by that, I mean bake, because this is almost as good as my mama's .

Or maybe she's looking for the guy who learned his lesson about pushing too hard, too fast, and who would wait for years so long as he knew he had a chance.

I fell.

I fell hard at fourteen.

And I never got up.

"We need to mix the dough," I tell her.

She breaks eye contact and reaches for a wooden spoon, and I cover her mixing hand with mine and guide her through the strokes.

My pulse is whipping like a KitchenAid dialed up to ten. I can't smell the cake mix, because I'm consumed with the scent of her shampoo. My hands are shaking, and my cock has never been this hard.

"Is it supposed to be this thick?" she asks, and I don't know if she's talking about the dough or my raging hard-on poking her back.

So I just say, "Yes," and we keep mixing.

While my hand drifts lower on her belly.

Her breath is coming faster too now. "Are you a two spoons guy, or a scoop guy?"

"I'm a you guy." I pull open the drawer to the right of us and feel blindly for the cookie scoop I saw earlier while I press my lips to the side of her neck. "But here. This'll work for the dough."

I shift to her other side and reach under us for a cookie sheet, then press my lips to the other side of her neck on the way up.

She wants foreplay.

I can do foreplay.

For days if I have to.

So long as she feels good.

"I thought this was fun when I was just torturing you, but I like this too," she whispers.

"Scoop the dough, Annika. You know how to space them?"

"I know lines."

"Do you?"

"On graphs and charts. Yes. Here?" She presses back into me again. "Here, I don't want lines."

Her hands shake while she scoops the dough into even lines of cookie balls on the pan.

Probably doesn't help that I'm stroking her neck with my fingertips.

"Okay," she finally says. "These beautiful balls of foodgasms are ready to get hot."

"That's the spirit," I murmur. "Slide them into the oven. And set a timer."

"I do set timers," she informs me.

"Ten minutes, then check them."

"That's not very much time."

"It's a lifetime for a cookie."

I step back so she can turn and put the cookies into the oven, and that smile dancing on her lips puts a smile in my soul.

She's so fucking gorgeous.

"You're going to love it in here," she tells the cookies. "It'll change your life."

She closes the oven, stares at the controls until I'm about to step in, and then she hits all the buttons right to set a ten-minute timer.

I pull a second cookie sheet out of the cabinet and gesture her to it.

She plants a fist on her hip and cocks it. "Are you kidding me?"

"Still more dough. Shame to waste it."

"There's ten minutes that we could make out."

Hells to the yes , my cock agrees. My hands itch to grab her. My hair asks if she'd put her fingers through it again. And my lips are aching to touch hers.

"Is this a test?" I ask.

She shakes her head and goes back to the cookie dough, flinging it onto the sheet.

"Whoa, hey." I slide behind her again and wrangle the scoop away. "Gentle. We love the cookies. Remember?"

Her lips twist in a gotcha smile. "Oh. Whoops. I forgot."

"Annika Williams, are you trying to get me to touch you again?"

"Why would I do that? I'm a strong, independent woman who doesn't ever need me time or to be spoiled or taken care of by another person. I can carry the weight of the world without rest. I don't need hugs or kisses or pampering. Or to have my ego soothed. Or reassurance that I'm attractive and a good friend and that you still want to get into my pants."

"Pampering?"

"Of everything there, you want to talk about pampering ?"

"The rest of it, I can handle. I know about egos and kisses and getting in your pants. But everything I know about pampering a woman, I learned from my sister. And the internet."

"Do I want to know what the internet taught you about pampering a woman?"

"I know it involves goop. And skin. And cucumbers."

Her shoulders shake while she suppresses a laugh. "You know that wasn't a euphemism, right?"

"So women don't want my cucumber on their eyes?"

"Probably not random strange women you pass on the street, no."

"What about the goop?"

"You want to know about the goop?"

"I should be informed if I'm going to be in charge of making sure you get pampered."

"It's like—here. I'll show you."

"You have goop here?"

I catch the glint in her eyes a moment too late as she twists in my arms. "Yep. I have goop here."

I duck, but I'm too late.

She's smeared cookie dough all over my face.

"Goop!" she shrieks, eyes dancing, mouth laughing as she grabs the bowl, tucks it under her arm, and dashes around the other side of the island, feet braced, hand buried in the yellow dough while I stalk around, trying to get closer, the raw cookie heating against my skin and dripping to the floor.

I crook a finger at her while we dance around the island. Fuck , she's so pretty. And that smile is my life.

It is.

She's my life.

Her happiness.

Wanting to make her happy is shifting everything back into place.

"Your turn," I tell her. "You want goop on your face. I need to pamper you and give you your goop too."

" Sshh ," she chastises, switching direction around the island when I fake to the left, then re-centering herself when she catches the ploy. "Don't call the dough names. It doesn't like it, and then you'll ruin my cookies."

"I'm gonna give you your cookies."

Her cheeks are flushing deep, her eyes crinkling at the edges, and her smile lights up the whole fucking mountain. "You have to catch me first."

I take off at a run around the island.

She shrieks and runs too, but I stop and dive over the island, sending the flour bag and salt canister and the cookie sheet with three ugly dough balls flying.

"Gotcha!" I announce as I grip her arm.

She rubs a handful of dough over my cheek and lips, and I grab my own handful to smear across her neck.

" Ah! You got me."

"You started it."

She's cracking up while I lie there splayed half across the island and smear dough into her hair, which is only fair, since she's rubbing it in my hair too.

I crawl the rest of the way across the island, twist, and drop to the ground, then bend and lick the sweet dough off her neck. " Mmm ."

Her breath catches, and she licks my cheek.

"Oh," she whispers. ‘That's good."

"Put the bowl down, Annika," I whisper.

"We should bake naked so I can rub this all over your chest and lick it off." Her mouth is working my cheek while she talks, and I don't answer, because I'm devouring her all the way down to her collarbones.

"Grady?" she whispers.

It's a plea and permission all in one, and I don't answer.

Instead, I pry the bowl out of her grip, and then I toss her over my shoulder. "You know what I do to dirty girls?" I ask.

"I hope it's strip them naked and lick them clean," she replies.

Yeah.

I'm a complete and total goner for this woman.