He cradled her face in his hand. “I don’t want to let go of you.”
Had he heard any other man utter something so goddamn sappy, he would have laughed his ass off.
But here, with her, he meant every corny word.
She hummed a satisfied little sound. “You don’t have to. At least, not yet. But you will need to leave this bed.”
His eyes went wide. “Why? I thought that we had something.”
Jesus! Had he read her wrong? He’d transformed himself into a pool of sappy bullshit for this woman!
She covered his mouth and chuckled. “Because you need to raid the Frosty jar.”
“The Frosty jar? Are you talking about the condom-filled Frosty the Snowman?” All those stupid nerves dissolved into a naughty grin of his own.
She raised a teasing eyebrow. “Don’t forget. I know exactly what you’re capable of, Soren Rudolph. And that was only round one.”
He kissed her forehead, then her cheek, then the tip of her nose, completely enamored.
“Bridget Dasher, you are part angel, part vixen, and all mine. And all I can say is one more thing.”
She smiled up at him. “What’s that?”
He gave her a wicked grin. “Good old Frosty better be stocked.”
16
Bridget
“When you said you wanted to play with my balls, this is not what I was expecting.”
Bridget gasped, almost knocking over the croquembouche and nearly spackling the kitchen in the hot caramel used to hold the dessert together.
Thanks to the events of Cole’s unscheduled Christmas fairy expedition last night coupled with an evening—and a few early morning hours—spent tangled in Soren’s embrace, making love like they were born to do nothing else and depleting the Frosty filled condom receptacle, she’d failed to assemble the croquembouche until now.
And even that was up for debate thanks to her sexy as sin baking assistant.
“Shh! They’ll hear you,” she whisper-shouted, glancing toward the other side of the kitchen where Delores and Tanner were prepping the Cornish hens for the rehearsal dinner.
This was it. Tonight, they’d have the wedding rehearsal, and then tomorrow, like her parents did thirty years ago, Lori and Tom would recite their wedding vows inside the Kringle Chapel on Christmas Eve.
All her planning and organizing had come to fruition along with something she’d never expected.
And what was that crazy revelation?
Soren Christopher Traeger Rudolph, the good old super player, uber-creep, stupidly nicknamed Scooter, was no longer her mortal marital adversary.
Now, the thought of the man sent her pulse racing—and not in the God, I hate you way, but in the Oh, God! Oh, God! Don’t stop way.
They hadn’t talked nuts and bolts or any long-term relationship plan. And honestly, between all the sexytimes and all the wedding preparations she’d already tackled today, there wasn’t a moment to spare. Not to mention, they’d been around everyone, and there was no way she would take the spotlight off Lori and Tom by announcing that she was possibly dating the former worst, now, truly best man.
But after last night, she knew that, whatever they had, it was real.
Between hating him and lusting after him, and then hating him a little more, she couldn’t deny that somewhere between screwing him and screaming at him, she’d fallen for him.
Her once curmudgeon of a baking assistant was now positively the devil of baking—in the best and naughtiest of ways.
She held Soren’s gaze, those cat-like eyes glittering with mischief. “You must have misheard me, Scooter. I said that I needed your assistance stacking the profiteroles into a cone shape.”
The mischief factor in his eyes dialed up another notch. “And then I said, ‘What are profiteroles?’ And then that little line appeared on your forehead, and you made that face like you’re pissed off at me. But you’re not. And then you said, and I remember this quite clearly, ‘I need your balls.’”
She bit back a grin. “That is not at all how that conversation went, and you know it!”
“Ah, semantics! It must be the law school in me,” he teased.
She dipped her wooden spoon into the warm caramel and drizzled it over the decadent dessert, putting on the final touch.
She did her best to disregard his provocation, but the man was hard to ignore.
She cleared her throat. “If you can’t tell, I’m engaged in some serious caramel application, mister. You do not want to upset a woman wielding a spoonful of hot, sticky deliciousness.”
He leaned in, all cat-eyes and chiseled cheekbones. “Bridget Dasher, you make baking a real turn on.”
She felt her cheeks heat as he moved in a fraction closer. She’d never look at caramel the same again.
“If you’re not going to play with my balls, then you have to let me kiss you,” he said, his voice a low, sexy whisper.
She threw another glance at Delores and Tanner. They weren’t even twenty feet away!
“Right now? Right here?”
This man made her a tingly, lip biting mess. Again—a dangerous thing to be while working with hot, sticky deliciousness.
Gah! She had to nix the hot, sticky, delicious thoughts, or else she might not be able to stop herself from doing a lot more than just kissing this baking scoundrel.
His gaze flicked to their kitchen companions. “They won’t even notice. Look, Delores is in the zone with those little chickens.”
“Cornish hens,” she corrected with a giggle.
Soren shrugged. “Cole calls them little chickens, so that’s what I’m sticking with. And we both know there’s a good chance Tanner’s hit the gummy bears today. He wouldn’t notice if Santa’s sleigh plowed through this place.”
She stifled another laugh and shook her head. “I’ll have you know that Tanner is stone-cold sober. He promised that he wouldn’t bring any of his special medicinal treats to the mountain house. I think I freaked him out that night I ate half the bag.”
Soren blew out an exaggerated breath. “Yeah, you freaked out a lot of people that night. If it wasn’t for me, you probably would have ended up in the Kringle detox unit.”
She lowered her voice. “I was not that bad, and I highly doubt there’s a Kringle detox unit.”
He eyed her skeptically. “You had a conversation with an egg, Bridget.”
She rested the spoon in the copper pot and leaned against the counter. “I’ve never met an egg I didn’t like.”
He picked up a dish towel and draped it over a carton of eggs sitting on the counter.
“Why did you do that?” she asked as he carefully covered the entire container.
He leaned in, and his breath tickled her ear, sending a charge of heat through her body. “So, we can agree that nobody, not even your little egg friends, are going to catch us.”
She swallowed hard. More of his sexy voice, and she’d be the one ransacking Frosty for another six condoms.
Yep, they’d been busy last night.
“I can see why you’re so successful. You’re hard to turn down,” she replied.
“It’s my specialty,” he rasped.
Holy hot sticky caramel surprise!
That voice would be her demise.
She threw another glance at Tanner and Delores. Soren was right. The cooks were busy with the meal prep and not paying a lick of attention to them. And while she and Soren hadn’t discussed the future, they had adopted an unspoken no PDA rule. In front of the Abbotts, the mountain house staff, and her sister, they’d continue on as Birdie and Scooter, cordial combatants—not Bridget and Soren, the vixen and the sex god. She’d tell Lori everything after the wedding. But until then, the maid of honor best man cliché hookup scenario would stay on the down-low.
“All right, I will agree to a kiss. But first, you have to agree to my terms.”
That cat-like glint was back in his green eyes. “The vixen’s playing hardball. I like it. Shoot.”
This wedding wasn’t over yet.
She poked him in his chest. “You cannot let me forget to pick up the wedding cake after dinner. We’ve got a lot going on this evening. There’s the rehearsal up at the chapel, then the big meal at the mountain house after. And then, you and I need to take the truck and go get the cake. It’ll be fine to sit out overnight.” She glanced out the window as snow fell at a steady clip. “And who knows what the weather will be like tomorrow. I cannot stress this enough. There’s going to be so much to do. No matter what happens tonight, we positively must remember to drive down to…” she trailed off as a thread of anger wove through her heart.
She couldn’t help it, and Soren noticed the shift.
“To the Cupid Bakery. And yes, I know that you’re not happy with me regarding their fate but, it’s the way it is sometimes,” he said, reading her mind.
She adjusted one of the profiteroles at the base of the croquembouche that did not require adjusting. “Yeah, I understand that.”
She could make peace with it, right? This is what he did. But that nagging voice in the back of her head still wasn’t totally sold with it being okay.
He tilted her chin up. “And just think what we can do in the front seat of that old Ford F150.”
He was trying. She could see it in his hesitant expression. And this wasn’t a man who hesitated. She pushed her disappointment over Cupid Bakery’s demise out of her mind—or at least tried to.
“The seats are rather bouncy if I remember correctly,” she replied, giving him the hint of a grin.
They could figure this out. They each had a life outside of this mountain wedding bubble. They’d find a rhythm. They could do that.
The muscles in his shoulders relaxed as the unease receded from his beautiful face.
“They are quite bouncy,” he affirmed, looking more like the man who’d rocked her world all night long.
She’d figured him out, or at least, she was pretty sure she had.
He wasn’t an awful person.
He just didn’t like change. And who could blame him after the childhood he’d endured. She could relate to being underestimated and underappreciated. Thanks to Gaston and a string of lackluster boyfriends, she’d earned a Ph.D. in those uns.
But she’d never been unwanted or unloved.
She’d grown up surrounded by love. From baking and singing in the kitchen to cuddly bedtime stories to the reassuring comfort of listening to her mom and dad talk about their day in hushed voices as she drifted off to sleep as a child. Her parents and her grandma Dasher never missed a moment to show her and Lori how much they cared. Sure, she’d been the timid sister, never one to take a risk. But that was changing.
Perhaps, she would look into opening her own business or maybe apply to culinary school. Soren had awakened her inner vixen, and what once seemed impossible now appeared strangely possible.
“What’s going on inside that head of yours?” he asked.
She gave him her best vixen pout. “I’m deciding which part of my body I want you to kiss.”
He twisted the tie of her apron around his fingers, sending sparks right to her lady parts. If he kept looking at her like she was tonight’s dessert, she’d be lucky to make it out of that kitchen with anything left underneath her apron.
He stroked her bottom lip with the pad of his thumb. “How about we start here and see where it takes us?”
“It takes us all the way up to the top of the mountain, Uncle Scooter!”
As if they’d been shocked by a cattle prod, she and her devil of an assistant baker pulled apart.
Soren cleared his throat before addressing the pint-sized kiss crasher. “Hey, Cole! What’s going on?”
“It’s time to go! Everyone is getting in the gondolas,” the boy said, taking a few more steps into the kitchen, then frowned.
“What is it, bud?” Soren asked.
“It’s Birdie’s eyeball again,” the boy answered, watching her closely.
She stole a glance at Soren, but all he gave her was a hell-if-I-know expression.
“My what?” she asked.
Cole pointed to his eyes. “When you got here, Birdie, Uncle Scooter was helping you get dirt or an eyelash out of your eye. Don’t you remember? Your hair was all messy, and Uncle Scooter’s pants were too tight.”
She shared another perplexed look with Soren.
“My pants fit fine, Cole,” Soren said, glancing at the pair he had on.
The child adjusted his glasses. “They looked a little small below your belly that day.”
She bit her lip to keep from laughing as Soren turned as red as Rudolph’s nose.
“I must have had something in my pocket. That’s all,” he replied, clearly going for nonchalant, but Cole’s frown said he wasn’t buying it.
“A really big banana? I didn’t see you eating a banana,” the child replied as Soren’s blush deepened.
She could watch Cole take this man to task all day.
But as much as she’d love to watch the man squirm a bit more, they were on a schedule.
She clapped her hands, taking control of this conversation on the brink of completely flying off the rails. “Cole, could you tell everyone to start heading up to the chapel. Your uncle Scooter and I need to put the croquembouche in a safe spot, and then we’ll catch the next gondola.”
“Do the pants you have on today fit, Uncle Scooter?” Cole asked, not moving on.
Now it was Soren biting back a grin. “They do now, buddy. We’ll see you up there.”
“Okay,” the boy chimed over his shoulder as he skipped out of the kitchen.
She chuckled. “There’s never a dull moment with Cole.”
“Never,” he agreed, dusting off his hands.
She set the croquembouche in the center of the worktable, then removed her apron.
“He’s great. All the Abbotts are.”
The teasing glimmer in Soren’s eyes dimmed. “Yeah, they are. They’re the best. I’ll get our jackets. It’s really starting to come down out there.”
“Sure, I’ll be right out,” she replied, pretending not to notice that the muted man had returned.
Breathe, Bridget.
The guy’s best friend was getting married. A new Abbott, well, a Dasher-Abbott would be joining the mix. That had to be what had him on edge. She’d already Psych 101-ed him on that, and by now, he had to see that Tom and Lori were not only a good match but madly in love.
Tidying up her workspace, she checked in with Delores and Tanner. The savory scent of the Cornish hens baking away in the oven combined with the aromatic cranberry stuffing—the same meal her parents had dined on thirty years ago—already had her mouth watering. The dinner was coming along nicely, and everything would be good to go once they returned from the chapel.
They were on schedule.
No lost children.
No baking catastrophes.
All was good.
But she didn’t feel all good. A shiver that had nothing to do with the dropping temperatures and thickening blanket of snow covering the mountain spider-crawled down her spine.
Stop overthinking it.
She smoothed her dress and joined Soren at the door. Robotically, he helped her with her coat.
“Are you okay?” she asked over her shoulder.
“I’m fine,” he answered, sounding the exact opposite.
Maybe marriage made him uncomfortable. That would also fit into his narrative. Crummy parents, who didn’t love him or each other? That could put a dent in anyone’s perception of vowing to love and honor someone for all the days of your life, right?
“What about my perception?” he asked.
Dammit! She was doing it again.
She waved him off. “I’m just running through all the preparations that need to be done before tomorrow. That’s all.”
He nodded. She w
as a terrible liar, and she expected him to call her out. But his mind was somewhere else.
They stood on the porch and waited for the gondola to make its way to the bottom, then hurried through the swirl of falling snow to enter the enclosed space.
“We’re the last ones up,” she said with a touch too much enthusiasm as she took the seat across from him, unable to think of anything else to say.
He must have sensed her apprehension because just as she was about to drop the upbeat Birdie persona and go full vixen and demand he explain exactly what had turned him back into the Tin Man, he leaned forward and took her hands into his. “Sorry, I’m just—”
“No, you don’t have to apologize,” she interrupted.
She needed to give him a break. He hadn’t done one damn thing to endanger this wedding. Strike that. He did send strippers, but that was before. Yes, he’d been a killjoy and had mentioned to Tom his concerns about the wedding, but he hadn’t acted on his fears. Not really. She’d prepared to go to war with the worst best man. She’d expected for him to try to undermine her at every turn. Instead, he’d helped her. In his curmudgeon way, he’d taken care of her.
She entwined her fingers with his. “You don’t have to explain anything. I get it.”
That had to be it. A terrible childhood plus a warped view of marriage would equal trepidation when witnessing one’s best friend’s nuptials.
But what did that mean for them?
Was he against marriage? Did he detest the entire institution?
Did she want to marry him?
Stop!
Their chemistry was off the charts, but they’d known each other for five days.
They hadn’t even had the boyfriend-girlfriend talk. It was hard to say much of anything after six orgasms.
She leaned forward, ready to shift gears and cash in on that missed promised kitchen kiss, when the gondola lurched. She gasped as the steel cables whined under the weight of the now swaying structure. The gondola rocked from side to side at the mercy of the wind as it dangled above the mountain.
Not Your Average Vixen: A Christmas Romance Page 25
