“Body positivity ‘n shit?” she asked, a brow in the air.
“More like body acceptance. You need to start accepting yourself for who you are. The next time you date a guy who doesn’t like it, tell him to kiss it and sashay those hips and ass right out of there. Next time Darla walks into the bakery, swing those bad boys out there, and hip-check her into next week.”
“Accept me?” she asked as though she had to make sure she heard me right. “Like, all of me?”
My chuckle should have made her mad, but I think she was too curious to be mad. Apparently, the concept of accepting yourself was hard to grasp for drunk Haylee. “Yes, all of you. It’s like you don’t see that you’re the owner of a wildly successful business that keeps half of this town fed every day, and provides all the memorable food for their special events. You don’t see that you’re the reason over half a dozen people are employed and making a living in a tiny town like this. Instead, you’re always focused on what your hips and ass, your words not mine,” I said, holding up my hands in defense, “look like in your work pants. At the risk of getting slapped or fired, I have zero problems with those hips and ass or the way they look in your work pants. I don’t think being a fluffy cupcake is a bad thing. I’m not buying a bridge here, either. I’ve never been more serious about anything.”
Her eyes widened, and she had to clear her throat before she spoke. “Oh, sure, because you’ve dated so many women like me, I’m sure.”
“I haven’t, but not for lack of trying. You’re beautiful, and you deserve to be happy. Anyone who doesn’t think so can fuck off.”
“That’s easy for you to say, Brady. You’re a tall, strong, muscular guy that every woman wants to date.”
My finger went up in the air again and paused. “Not every woman. There is one particularly stubborn one who won’t date me. That said, the two of us,” I whispered, motioning my finger between us, “we’re not that different. We both came from places where we didn’t get a lot of positive reinforcement about who we are as a person. If you think I don’t know that you hired me because of my past, you don’t give me much credit.”
Her finger wagged back and forth as mine did. “That’s not true. I hired you because you were qualified for the job, and I saw a hunger in you to find a community of people to call family. I once had the same hunger in me that I saw in your eyes that day.”
My head nodded vigorously. “You just made my point. We’re not that different.”
Haylee stood and tipped to the right until I grabbed her shoulder and held her upright. “But we are. You’re the guy every girl wants to land. I’m the girl every guy wants to pretend doesn’t exist. At the very least, all they want to do is change me.” Her hand waved dismissively in the air. “That’s enough talking for one night. I’m tired, and you have to work tomorrow.”
“Are you going to be okay alone up here tonight? Please, don’t go down those stairs until you’re steadier on your feet,” I said, going to the door and grabbing the doorknob.
She crossed her heart and pointed down the hallway. “I’m going to fall into bed and sleep for about five hours. By the time I wake up, I’ll be fine. Thanks for tonight,” she said, waving and walking down the hallway, while I continued to stand by her door.
When she closed the bedroom door, I whispered the words that had been burning in my mouth since she spoke hers. “The very last thing I want to do is pretend you don’t exist or change you, Haylee Davis. I would live the rest of my life happy to be wrapped around those hips and ass.”
Ten
The air vents of the walk-in cooler blew a whisper of cold air across my neck. I might have noticed the shiver of charged electricity run down my spine if it weren’t for the aggravation filling my soul. “Where are my eggs?”
Nothing annoyed me more than being told my station was ready for the day only to find a key ingredient missing. I was going to hunt him down, and—the eggs are still on the shelf!
“Gah! It must be Monday,” I griped to the empty, cold space. I grabbed the tray and backed up to the door, nudging the handle with my generous bottom. It didn’t budge. I pushed on it again, expecting the latch to click over, but it wasn’t opening. “Great! Now I’m locked in the cooler!”
I absolutely did not need this today. I had a ton of orders to finish before we opened, and it was already five a.m. It didn’t help that I had the slightest hangover from my excessive and embarrassing drinking escapades. I wanted to groan every time I thought about spending hours with Brady last night with my filter disabled. Drunk Haylee said things sober Haylee would never have said. Brady knew it, too. He took advantage of the situation. At least when it came to getting me to talk about the things I otherwise wouldn’t talk about. Not going to lie, sober Haylee hates him a little bit because of it. Okay, she doesn’t, but sober Haylee is embarrassed and wishes she could do last night over.
I balanced the tray on one arm while I flicked the emergency button on with my free hand. That would shut down the cold air and alert those in the kitchen that I needed help. In the meantime, I had to cool my heels in here, quite literally.
“Did someone say locked in the cooler?”
Surprised by the intrusion, I spun around, jostling the eggs when the end of the tray clipped a shelf. Several smashed against my white uniform, leaving streaks of disgusting yellow goo dripping down my chest.
“Seriously, Brady!” I exclaimed, setting the remaining eggs down and searching for a towel.
He flicked his down off his shoulder and started swiping at my coat. “Sorry, I thought you knew I was in here.”
I angrily snatched the towel away. I didn’t like his hand so close to my chest or the way he caressed my breasts with every brush of the microfiber towel. Well, that wasn’t entirely true. I liked it, but I would never let on. I thought about the conversation we’d had last night and decided I didn’t need to egg him on. See what I did there? I snorted at my joke until his statement brought me back to the present.
“Why would I know that? You’re always off doing something other than your job,” I grumped. “I had no eggs at my workstation!” My hands flailed around while bits of eggshell floated through the air like confetti.
Brady shook his head with a sexy smile on his face. “You wear egg yolks surprisingly well, cupcake, but then again, you wear everything well.”
He was not taking me seriously, and it was starting to piss me off. “The eggs, Brady. Why are they in here and not out there?” I asked, the volume of my voice increasing with each word.
When he grasped my wrist and lowered my arm, I couldn’t help but notice his hand was still incredibly warm, even after standing in the cooler. I was starting to shiver, but if he kept touching me, I’d be hot and bothered in no time.
“The eggs are still in here because the recipe requires cold eggs. I couldn’t put them out until you were ready for them. I guess you didn’t read my note.”
I tossed my hand up, the one he wasn’t holding onto—still. “I didn’t see a note! I have a ton of work to do, and now I’m stuck in here with you!”
His lid came down in a wink of sexiness that had me swallowing hard. “Anyone ever tell you that you’re sexy as hell when you’re all riled up.”
“You’re skating on razor-thin ice of sexual harassment, Brady,” I said from between clenched teeth. Something in his smoldering expression of explosive maleness told me he didn’t care.
He took a step closer to me until his white coat was sharing the splattering of yolks with mine. He pressed his hot, hard chest into mine and backed me up against the rack in the cooler. The contrast of temperatures was startling. The cold against my back grounded me while the heat of him against my breasts made them tingle with desire and anticipation. I hated and loved every single second of it.
“Really? Razor-thin?” he asked. I barely nodded and tried to swallow over the lump in my throat. “All I can say is, after seven years, it’s sure as hell time to fall in.”
His
warm lips landed on mine, and in surprise, I grabbed the front of his coat and held on for dear life. His lips teased mine into not listening to me when I told them to stop kissing him. They kissed him back with everything they had, and the audible moan from my throat said I didn’t even care. It said I liked the way the hard lines of his muscles pressed against me. It said I liked the way his hands kneaded my shoulders until his hand came up to grasp the back of my neck tenderly.
Unable to resist the temptation any longer, my traitorous hand slipped up to tangle in the soft hair at the nape of his neck. The silky-soft smoothness on my hand was a sharp contrast to his hard body and the way his lips were firmly planted on mine.
He angled his head in to get closer, to take the kiss deeper, his hand now pressed against my cheek to move my head to his desires. When the tip of his tongue ran along the ridge between my lips, another moan of desire ripped from my throat, right before my mouth fell open to allow his tongue entrance. Oh God, he was silky smooth everywhere.
He stroked my tongue with his in a way that said, ending up in his bed would never be a bad thing. When that magic tongue started its trek across the roof of my mouth, I nearly came right there surrounded by broken eggs and piles of cupcakes. Why did he have to be such a good kisser? This kiss was just going to make it harder to resist him. Everything was going to be awkward after—his tongue went back to mine to tangle with it roughly. It was almost as if he knew where my mind went, and he was going to drag it back one long stroke at a time. His hips bucked against mine, the hardness evident in his thin bakery pants proof of how affected he was by the kiss, too. He was most definitely enjoying this unexpected tangle of tongues.
Was it unexpected, though? He’d been trying to get in my pants for years, though I never believed it to be anything but a challenge he couldn’t resist. A conquest he wanted to prove he could make. Now, I wasn’t so sure.
His soft moan filled my head and drove every thought out of it, but how much I liked kissing him. It drove away every thought but how orgasmic it would be to make love to him with long, slow strokes until he came with my name on his lips. At the thought, my hips pressed into his, and my hand tightened against the back of his neck. I was desperate for air, but at the same time, I was desperate for the taste of him.
It was him who broke the kiss off abruptly, his chest heaving and his breath heavy on my lips when he rested his forehead on mine. “Tell me you felt that, Haylee. Tell me I’m not the only one feeling this way.”
My head nodded, his bobbing with the motion. “I felt it. I don’t think I liked it, but I felt it.”
Brady’s lips captured mine again for a too fast tumble until I was begging for air to soothe my burning lungs. I put my hand against his chest, and he reluctantly released my lips. “Still don’t like it, cupcake?” he whispered, brushing a long piece of hair behind my ear.
I sagged against the rack and rested my forehead on his chest, so I didn’t have to see his face and want to keep kissing his delectable lips. “We can’t do this, Brady. We’re not a good match. You’re a playboy who isn’t looking to do the same woman twice. I’m nearly thirty and looking to settle down. It won’t work between us.”
His hands grasped my ass and tugged me up flat against his hard, trim six-pack. The action allowed me to feel every inch of his loaf of bread, too, which was hard as steel. That was probably his plan. My hands wanted to know what it would feel like to hold him. Was he silky smooth there, too? Would he twitch in my hand when I ran my finger over his tip? The thought had me biting back a moan of needy desire. I was a hot mess, and I had to get away from him before I did something I shouldn’t.
One hand still on my ass, he used his other hand to brush the hair off my forehead. “Cupcake, I’m nearly thirty-three, and there is only one woman I’m looking to do twice. I happen to be looking at her. I’m not a playboy, and I don’t sleep with most of the women I take out, contrary to popular belief,” he said, one brow raised in the air.
“Haylee?” Amber called from outside the cooler. “Are you okay?”
Brady was across the cooler mindlessly counting cupcakes by the time she yanked the door open two seconds later. “Oh, my gosh, were you guys locked in here?” she asked innocently.
Too innocently.
Damn this woman!
I grabbed what was left of my eggs and breezed past her. “We were, but everything’s fine. Thanks for noticing the light.” I lowered the eggs to the workbench and started cracking them into the bowl like I didn’t just make out to the point of almost coming. Dammit! It had been too long since I’d had sex. That was the reason I was even considering what he said to be the truth. Did he mean I was the woman he wanted to do twice? I mean, he said he was looking at her, so he had to mean me, right?”
Amber brushed past me with a tray of cupcakes for the bakery case, a naughty grin on her face. I acted cool and calm while breaking my eggs into the bowl and waited for her to leave so I could freak out in private. “Did you get cold in the cooler?” she asked, her eyes drifting to my chest where my nipples peaked like Mount Kilimanjaro.
I crossed my arm over my chest, innocently. “It was pretty cold in there.”
“Good thing you had Brady with you. His hotness surely kept you warm.”
She sashayed into the other room with her cupcakes, and I groaned, my arm falling away from my chest. She didn’t, did she? If she locked us in that cooler, I was going to have a word with her in private! What are you going to say? Are you going to thank her for giving you the best fifteen minutes of your life? The sound that left my throat was strangled, and I broke an egg too hard, the shells falling into the bowl with the yolk.
“I don’t think the recipe calls for shells,” Brady whispered from behind me, and I jumped, his nearness causing my dirty thoughts to flare back to life. “Let me help you with that,” he whispered, his lips connecting with the back of my neck while he scooped the shells out with a spatula. “That’s much better.” He buried his nose in the back of my neck and inhaled deeply. “I hate and love how you always smell so good, cupcake. All I want to do is lick you...for starters.”
I cleared my throat, his lips leaving trails of goosebumps down my back, and a shiver ran up my spine at the thought of him licking me. “I call it Eau de Cupcake.”
He ran his thumb across the nape of my neck, and the sound he made could have been bottled and sold for sexual pleasure. “Mmmm, well, I’d eat your cupcake, cupcake.”
He drifted off to his end of the workbench and began punching down loaves of bread, his breath heavy with every punch of the dough. If I didn’t know better, I’d think he was frustrated. Then again, if he was feeling the same way I was, frustrated was too mild of a word.
Eleven
The bakery was finally closed, and I lowered myself to a chair at a table by the window.
“Tired?” a voice asked, and I raised my head to see Amber standing by the table, holding a sandwich and a cup of coffee.
I sat up and accepted the food and drink, offering her a smile while I took a bite. “Exhausted, but I think all the cakes are baked and ready for the morning. It’s been a long day.”
“Made longer by your need to walk around the other side of the bench rather than pass by Brady.”
I moaned and dropped the sandwich back to the plate, resting my forehead on my palm. “He kissed me,” I whispered, my voice barely audible in the now quiet building.
“Come again?”
I hadn’t, but I still wish I had. That was the problem.
“Did you just say he kissed you?”
I nodded slowly without making eye contact. “When we were locked in the cooler.” I lifted my head. “Wait a minute. How did we get locked in there if we were both inside, and you were the only other one here?”
She gave me the palms out. “Faulty latch?”
“Amber Phyllis Larson!”
“What?” she asked innocently. “It was an accident, I swear!”
“Accidently on p
urpose!”
She held up her hands. “It was an accident. I think I bumped into it when I got the first set of cupcakes out. I didn’t realize it until I went back for more, which is the reason I then let you out.”
“You didn’t do it on purpose?” She swung her head back and forth, and I could tell she was being honest. “Well, regardless, it happened. Now I don’t know what to do.”
“About?”
I tossed my hands up in the air like a lunatic. “The kiss! Brady! Everything!”
Amber grasped my hand and squeezed it. “Talk to Amber about it, sweetie. What’s the problem?”
I lowered a brow to my nose. “You know what the problem is. I’m his boss.”
“Maybe, but that doesn’t mean you don’t need to get laid.”
“Amber,” I moaned, drawing out her name in frustration. “You know what I mean.”
“Let’s start at the beginning. Why did he kiss you in the cooler?”
“He smashed eggs against my coat by accident, and I got worked up.”
“Shocker.”
I lowered my other brow, and she snickered but stopped talking. “He said I was sexy when I was all riled up. I told him he was dangerously close to sexual harassment in the workplace, and he said then he might as well go all the way.”
“But he didn’t. Go all the way, that is.”
“He went far enough! He kissed me, and—and grabbed my ass!”
She bit her lip, and whether it was to keep from being a smart ass, or to avoid laughing, I couldn’t say. “I noticed he couldn’t take his eyes off your ass all day. He even dropped an entire loaf of bread on the floor when he missed the pan.”
“When I told him about the date last night with Maxwell, he told me I should own being all hips and ass. He said he liked the way my hips and ass look in my bakery whites.”
Cupcake (The Fluffy Cupcake Book 1) Page 8
