Baked with Love

by Erin Wright

  “Creamsicle,” Gage repeated as he scooped Cady up into his arms, grinning broadly at her loud squeal of surprise, clearly reveling in his ability to carry her around as if she weighed nothing at all. “Creamy, Cream Puffs, Puffy, Puffs, Creamsy, Puffers…I’m sure I could come up with more variations if you gave me a minute to work on it.”

  “Where are we going?!” Cady demanded in a half-shriek, half-laugh as they headed for the back door of the store. “You can’t just carry me around if you want me to go somewhere,” she informed him, trying to keep her face serious and stern. “I’m not a doll you can rearrange whenever you’d like.” Damn her own dirty hide, she couldn’t stay as dour-faced as she intended to be, perhaps because he felt and smelled so damn good. She buried her nose in the crook of his neck and breathed in deep.

  Damn good.

  “You’re a lot more fun than a doll, it’s true.” He kicked the door to the smoothie shop closed behind them with the heel of his boot, and then carried her to the passenger side of his truck, sliding her onto the buttery soft leather seat. He scooped Cream Puffs up and deposited her into Cady’s arms. “You’ll hold onto her for me?” he asked, pressing another kiss to her forehead before closing the door and hurrying around to the driver’s side.

  “Why do you keep kissing me on the forehead?” Cady asked as he slid into the driver’s seat. “I’m not your Great-Aunt Bertha, you know.”

  Gage let out a roar of laughter at that. “Because, if I kissed you on the mouth right now, we might just end up in the backseat of the truck,” he said baldly. “My self-control is only so good, and you’re testing every inch of it.”

  “Oh,” Cady breathed, and then her brain stopped. Were they going back to his place? Or her place?

  Despite her brave words, a part of her panicked at the idea of doing anything more than having Gage kiss her forehead. What if he tried to pull off her shirt and she hyperventilated and hit him upside the head with her shoe? What if she freaked out again, like she had that day in the shop, when everything had overwhelmed her and she’d been so sure that he was going to rape her?

  When she was calm, rational, not stressed, the idea of Gage raping her was ludicrous beyond words but the part of her that worried about him raping her – about any man getting too close to her – never showed its face when she was calm, rational, not stressed. It lurked in the corners of her mind, ready to spring out and snap its jaws around her, drowning her in terror, when she wasn’t looking.

  When she let her guard down.

  They pulled up in front of Gage’s house, a sprawling two-story Craftsman with a huge front porch, but no decorations or comfy chairs were to be found on the plain porch. It begged for a homey touch, and the last (and only) time they’d been there together, Cady had asked him why the dearth of personality. He’d shrugged, saying that decorating wasn’t his thing. Apparently, the bakery only looked as homey as it did because of Sugar.

  The true selling point of the house was its kitchen, of course. Cady was sure Gage had told the real estate agent not to bother showing him anything that didn’t have a stellar kitchen in it, and that agent must’ve known their stuff because the kitchen in this house was to die for. Double ovens, granite countertops, two prep stations, wine cooler, oversized fridge and freezer…it looked like it’d be right at home in a Homes & Garden spread on the joys of a high-quality kitchen remodel. The house had been built in the late 1920s and had originally had a cramped kitchen in it, but the previous owners had knocked out a wall, combining a storage closet with the kitchen, bringing it up to modern standards.

  Last time she’d come over here, he’d cooked her dinner, making her sit on a stool and only watch as he moved around, clearly in his comfort zone, whistling cheerfully as he’d worked.

  He’d finished that evening with a kiss on the tip of her nose.

  Cream Puffs pawed at the window, barking with delight to see that they were at her house, and when Gage opened the passenger door, the puppy jumped down and streaked towards the front porch, sniffing and peeing on every clump and flower along the way. It was hard to see through the gloom of the evening, but Cady would’ve sworn the dog was grinning ear to ear as she practically flew up the steps to the front porch, dragging her leash on the ground behind her.

  Gage and Cady looked back at each other, suddenly awkward without the buffer of Creamy between them. “I didn’t bring you here to push anything on you,” Gage said in a rush. “I just thought you looked like you could use an evening of relaxation. I know Emma threw a lot at you and I thought you might enjoy an evening of watching movies and getting your feet rubbed.”

  “Oooohhhhhh…” Cady sighed happily. “You said the magic words.”

  Gage grinned boyishly, his gorgeous white teeth glinting in the gathering darkness, and then he was scooping her up into his arms again, hip-checking the passenger door to close it as he carried her up to the front door, his boots thunking on the boards of the porch.

  “I really can walk,” Cady protested…and then buried her nose in the crook of Gage’s neck again, breathing in deep. How was it that this man always smelled so delicious? It really wasn’t fair, honestly. How was she supposed to resist him when he smelled like heaven?

  It almost made a girl not want to resist him.

  “But why test that theory?” Gage asked with a naughty grin. “Best if I just carry you around. Just in case.”

  He opened the front door and carried her through – he didn’t have to unlock it, she noticed – and Cream Puffs came bounding in on his heels, barking and dancing around Gage’s feet with the excitement of it all.

  “One day, I’m going to be 1/10th as interesting as Creamsy thinks I am,” Gage said dryly as he carried Cady over to the deep leather couch and carefully let her slide out of his arms and into the depths of its cool embrace. “And have 1/20th of her energy. How is it that she can still tear around here like this after all of those leaves she defeated on our walk earlier?”

  “It does make you wish you could bottle up energy,” Cady said wistfully. She began to push herself off the couch as Gage headed to the kitchen, but he pushed her – gently – back down.

  “I’m just going to grab a few snacks and drinks,” he said. He grabbed the remote off the coffee table and hit a few buttons, bringing up the menu before handing it over. “I’m putting you in charge of picking a movie off Netflix. That way, you can feel like you’ve contributed to the evening.”

  She stuck out her tongue at his back – he’d sounded so damn patronizing just then – and then turned her attention to the selection. She idly stroked Cream Puffs’ head behind the ears until she found the cheesiest romantic movie available.

  Teach him to be patronizing…

  He returned with thick, soft snickerdoodles, mugs of milk, and a bottle of lotion.

  “It’s not rose scented,” he said with a disarming smile, “but at least it doesn’t smell like men’s aftershave either. Cucumber scented, which I guess means that if we get hungry, we’ll just have to eat your toes.”

  Cady shook her head as she laughed. She would’ve thrown her cookie at his head but honestly, that was blasphemous. It was warm – had he microwaved it to warm it up? He certainly hadn’t had time to whip up a batch of cookies in the last five minutes – and soft and oh-so-delicious.

  “How did you make the cookie warm?” she asked after swallowing her last bite and a swig of milk to wash it down. “I know you didn’t just pull these out of the oven.”

  “Microwave,” Gage said simply. “People really underestimate how much a quick reheat of the item increases your enjoyment of it. You can’t nuke it for very long, and you can’t nuke it multiple times, or it’ll turn into a brick that’s more likely to chip your tooth than bring you pleasure. But if you know you’re about to eat it, throw it in the microwave for 15 seconds. Makes all the difference in the world. Even passable cookies become delicious.”

  After they finished their cookies, Cady looking longingly at her em
pty napkin and wishing she wasn’t quite such a glutton, she stacked the pillows behind her head and laid sideways on the couch, placing her feet on the pillow on Gage’s lap where he began to rub them. The opening credits started rolling for the movie, but Cady hardly noticed. She was in seventh heaven. Cream Puffs was snuggled up against her, snoring her adorable puppy dog snore; her feet were in Gage’s lap, being rubbed; she’d just eaten one of the most delicious cookies of her life…

  She wasn’t sure when it started. They’d been almost like platonic friends at the start of the movie, just lounging on the couch and watching the sappiest, most over-the-top movie filled to the brim with declarations of love, of life not being worth living without the other, when Cady began to sink further and further into the couch. Gage’s hands were like magic – more than just rubbing, they were making her feel like she’d never felt before. Safe, loved, desired, wanted…

  Needed.

  But safe most of all. These were hands that would protect her, not hurt her.

  He tugged on her legs, easily moving her down the couch, sliding her along the soft leather, her upper thighs, her waist all within his reach now. She felt like she was melting into him, as if her body no longer contained hard, straight bones but was now just a boneless being of feeling and lust as his fingers continued to stroke higher and higher, getting closer and closer to the top of her thighs where her body positively ached for him…

  His fingers nimbly undid the button of her jean shorts, unzipping the zipper, fingers dipping inside where just the tiniest scrap of lace was covering her. Perhaps a part of her had known what was going to happen – maybe was hoping for what was going to happen – because she’d worn her skimpiest, sexiest panties she owned. They were just a bit of lace, really, hardly even enough there to qualify for the word “panties,” but either way, she was very, very grateful. If she’d been wearing her old-grandma panties, ancient and stretched out and faded, she would’ve died of embarrassment.

  “How are you?” Gage whispered, pulling Cady up through a few layers of lust, forcing her to concentrate on his words, and thus on the real world, instead of being able to slid into the world of desire where everything could just be decided and done and orchestrated by Gage. “Are you okay with me doing this?”

  She paused, not sure what to say. Not wanting to say anything at all. She’d been happy just floating along, letting Gage be in charge. Him making all of the decisions.

  Gage stretched, reaching up to her face where he wiped a few curls out of her eyes. “I want to make sure that you’re all right before we go any further,” he said, refusing to accept her silence as consent. “I don’t want you to be afraid of me.”

  “I could never be afraid of you,” Cady said without thinking, but all the more true because of their impulsiveness. Not this gentle giant that she was mostly draped across. Not this man who was treating her like spun glass. He’d chew off his right arm before hurting her. She knew that now. She caught his hand and brought it up to her lips, pressing a kiss to the palm of his calloused hand.

  “I’m fine,” she whispered, not brave enough to tell the whole truth – that she was more than fine. That she’d never been so wonderful, actually. She wanted him in that moment, more than she wanted to breathe or wake up the next morning or open up her own store.

  She wanted him and nothing else.

  She was too shy to say those words to him, so she told him the only way she knew how: She planted her feet on the arm of the couch and pushed her hips up in the air, freeing her ass to shove the shorts down and off her, leaving her in just the barest whisper of lace from the waist down.

  Apparently this was a language that Gage spoke because he sucked in his breath and then let out a heart-felt groan. “You’re killing me, smalls,” he said, and the pain in his voice was almost palpable. “I was going to take this slow. Make you whimper with need before I even touched my lips to your skin.”

  She wanted to tell him that she was already there – as his hands stroked up and down her legs, she felt trails of fire and she was sure her skin wouldn’t be able to contain her much longer – but speaking was too complex, too difficult in that moment. Instead, she reached over and squeezed his arm, trying to tell him without words how much she needed him.

  Inside of her, right then, please dear God…

  Before she could force the tangle of lust and phrases in her mind to come out of her mouth in words that would be understandable, Gage took pity on her, scooped her up into his arms, and carried her down the hallway and then up the stairs to the second story. She didn’t even bother protesting this time – if her life depended upon it, she wasn’t sure if she could walk just then. Instead, she nuzzled his neck, breathing in his scent and then kissing the skin she’d been craving for what felt like years.

  He carried her into a room and turned on a small lamp on the dresser as he passed, shedding gentle light in the evening darkness and then she was on a bed, laying there and just watching as Gage quickly shucked his shoes, his belt, his clothing, sure that this was all just a dream but because it was the best dream she’d ever had, she wasn’t about to make any sudden movements and wake herself up from it. She could just lay there and watch his body of valleys and ridges and dips come uncovered, just for her eyes only, and then when he was done stripping, he would…lay down next to her?

  She was frozen for a moment, in shock as he just laid next to her, like they were going to just lounge around in bed and stare at the ceiling together.

  “Gage?” she squeaked, and then cleared her throat. She rolled onto her side, suddenly grateful that she still had a t-shirt, bra, and panties on, not sure what was going on but wanting to be covered up while it was happening. A part of her wanted nothing more than to crawl underneath the coverlet, hide there until she knew what they were doing. “What’s going on?”

  She was pulling in on herself, embarrassed. Her bones were back again, and she suddenly felt awkward and ugly and unwanted. He obviously didn’t want her. Was it her boobs? She’d always known she was small up top but then again, if she had DD breasts, she wouldn’t be able to stand up straight because of the weight of them, constantly tipping her forward.

  Or maybe it was how her hip bones stuck out—

  She noticed the sheen of sweat on Gage’s face then, and peered closer, fighting through the haze of self-doubt and worry to look – really look – at him. He looked like he was fighting himself, and losing. His hands were clenched by his sides and he had a pinched look on his face, like every bit of self control he could muster was keeping him in just that position.

  “I’m yours,” he croaked, and then cleared his throat. “I’m going to lay here. I won’t move. Whatever you want to do, you can. I want you to be in charge. On top. No worries about me overpowering you.”

  It was dead silent in the room as she stared at him, almost incapable of understanding what he was trying to say. Her? In charge? But she’d wanted him to be in charge. She’d wanted him to take over so she didn’t have to think. So she couldn’t think. She wanted to be swept away.

  “Please,” Gage whispered, and his voice broke on the one-syllable word. “I need…”

  He trailed off to nothing, his hands still clenched by his sides, his face in what she could only describe as agony.

  In agony because he wanted her.

  She reached out a tentative hand and stroked her way down his abs, letting her fingers follow the ripples of the skin, soft over the hard muscles, his gasp of pleasure telling her that he wanted this.

  A little bolder now, she followed the light happy trail from his belly button to his dick, standing straight up in the air, a drop of precum glistening on the tip. Somehow, this Greek god wanted her. He could have any woman in the world, dripping with muscles like he was, his square jaw, his brilliant blue eyes, and yet, he wanted her with the wild curls that got frizzy on a humid day and too-small boobs and a height that was more suitable to a junior high girl than a grown woman.

 
Even laying on his back, though, his muscles seemed too large, too ready to do anything he wanted to her, and she realized that he was oh-so-very-wrong in his approach. By giving her the space to be in charge, he was also giving her the space to think, and thus to worry.

  Gage won’t hurt me.

  She knew that, and yet remembering it and acting on the information was a totally different ball of wax.

  I can do what I want to, and he’ll just lay here. He’ll let me. I’m not in danger. He won’t hurt me.

  Testing his self-control, she ran her nails lightly up his thighs, running over the ridges and valleys, heading for his dick, still straining in the air, still glistening with pre-cum.

  He didn’t flinch. He did close his eyes tightly and mutter what sounded like a plea for help, but he didn’t spring on her like a giant jack-in-the-box.

  She wrapped her fingers around his red, almost purple dick, and could feel his heartbeat in it, pulsing through it, through him. His eyes squeezed tighter and this time she was sure he was muttering a prayer.

  This made her giggle, which turned into a laugh, which turned into a snort, which made her laugh harder. She collapsed against him, letting every bit of panic in her drain away. No would-be rapist would pray for the self-control necessary to keep his hands to himself.

  “Wanna share with the class?” Gage asked, his voice rough with need. He still had his face screwed up, his eyes tightly shut as he laid on his back, defenseless against anything she might get a hankering to do.

  “I’ve not had a lot of guys pray while having sex,” Cady finally said, once she got her giggles under control. “I just wasn’t expecting it.”

  A quirk of the corner of his lips was his only acknowledgment, and then, “I love being all noble and shit, but Cady, I’m about a hair’s breadth away from going completely insane. Either help me out, or I’ll go into the bathroom and help myself out.”