Semi-Sweet On You: Hot Cakes Series

by Nicholas, Erin

  She looked just-out-of-bed, adorably mussed, and… a little pissed. Her cheeks were flushed and she was not smiling.

  Still, he couldn’t stop staring. Not even when the one, very tiny, part of his brain told him that this was not playing it cool.

  Of course, texting her about licking cookie dough off her nipples wasn’t really cool either.

  Speaking of her nipples… Surely she wasn’t wearing a bra underneath that nightgown either. Women didn’t wear bras to bed. He knew that much. His entire body reacted to the thought, the way the sheet molded to her breasts and the smooth pale bare skin of her shoulders.

  She didn’t cross her arms. She didn’t move closer so that the breakfast bar on the other side of the kitchen island would block his view. She didn’t even fidget. She just let him look.

  So he did. He drank her in.

  This was not the pretty, thin, young innocent girl whose virginity he’d taken down by the river.

  This was a gorgeous, trim, curved-in-all-the-right-places confident woman.

  Who was calling his bluff by showing up in the kitchen after the texts he’d sent.

  His gaze found its way back to hers and he could see the challenge there.

  “I never kid about nipple licking,” he finally said.

  She sucked in a quick breath but it was hard to tell if it was surprise or lust. “You have to stop.”

  “Why?”

  “You can’t tease me. And flirt. And get… dirty. Not when you’re living here. That is all kinds of inappropriate.”

  Inappropriate. Maybe. With anyone else it would be. But it did not feel inappropriate with them.

  Cam reached for the bag of dark chocolate chunks and dumped them into the bowl. He folded them into the dough, then set the bowl down, and tossed the spoon into the sink.

  He braced his hands on the counter and met her eyes.

  “I know I should say I’m sorry. I’m not.”

  She took a breath and let it out. “Cam, I understand that you’re teasing. But I have to be able to be comfortable here in my own home.”

  “I make you uncomfortable?” He frowned. He didn’t quite believe it, but he hated the idea that might be true.

  “You… could very easily make it difficult to sleep,” she said.

  Oh, well that was different. He grinned. “Dirty dreams never hurt anybody.”

  She lifted her chin in that sexy, stubborn way that he didn’t remember but kind of loved and kind of hated at the same time. “They will if they keep me from being fresh and sharp at work tomorrow.”

  He shouldn’t like the idea of getting her so wound up she couldn’t sleep.

  “What are you thinking?” she asked, clearly noticing the small grin he was trying to hide.

  “I shouldn’t say. It would be inappropriate.”

  She narrowed her eyes. “Is it something about helping me work off the pent-up energy and play out the dreams so I can sleep peacefully?”

  He let the grin go. “Yep.”

  She sighed. “Cam, this isn’t going to work.”

  He straightened. “It will. I promise. I’ll be good.”

  It was clear that she didn’t believe that, but she didn’t quite roll her eyes. She drew herself straighter and wet her lips, then said, “You’re my boss. And my ex. Having you here is weird. Having you sexting me is even weirder. We have to have some rules.”

  “First, that wasn’t sexting.” That wasn’t even close to the things he’d say and ask her to do if they were sexting. “Second, having me here shouldn’t be weird, Whit.”

  “But it is. Because…”

  He lifted a brow. “Because?”

  Her eyes dipped to the bowl of cookie dough then back to his. “Because it’s all tempting.”

  Damn right it was. “Well, good.”

  “No,” she said it with force and with a frown. Then she pulled in a breath and said more calmly, “I’m sorry, but I think that if you’re living here we need to work on the friends part of this whole… situation.”

  Their relationship was a situation? And why did she keep taking those breaths and changing her tone of voice while they were talking? “I told you that I want more than that. That’s partly why I’m here.”

  “You’re pushing.”

  He gave her a nod. “A little. I need to push with you.”

  She frowned. “I don’t like that.”

  “I think you do.” He crossed his arms. “I think that you don’t like that you like it. But I think you do like that I’m pursuing you and seducing you.”

  “You’re not seducing me.”

  “Talking about putting cookie dough on your nipples?” he asked.

  She shifted her weight and dropped her gaze to the bowl again and he wondered what sensations were going through her body. Was she tingling and hot? Were her nipples hard? Because he was hot and hard, for sure.

  “You have to respect what I’m feeling,” she finally said, meeting his gaze again. “This complicates things in a way that concerns me.”

  He studied her. She seemed to be holding back. Which was interesting. Whitney had always been happy and sweet and confident. The girl he’d dated ten years ago had been accommodating and roll-with-it and always up for whatever he wanted.

  “You’re the one who pointed out the doors and squeaky floor boards between your room and mine,” he said.

  She nodded. “Momentary lapse of judgment.”

  “Can we have a few more of those?”

  She didn’t smile at that either. She shook her head. “No. I shouldn’t have said that.” She sighed and her shoulders slumped slightly. “It’s fun to flirt and tease with you. But it’s a bad idea. It’s distracting, and with you here all the time now”—she frowned at that—“I think it could be very easy to go… offtrack.”

  “The track being Hot Cakes?” he asked.

  She nodded. Then bit her bottom lip.

  Them being together was offtrack? That was not how it felt to him. At all.

  But they were, evidently on very different tracks. He had accomplished what he wanted with work. Hot Cakes was great. He wanted it to be successful too. Absolutely. But his huge accomplishment had been Fluke, Inc. and Warriors of Easton.

  He’d absolutely been focused and determined when it had come to building the company and making it a fucking phenomenon.

  Whitney hadn’t had a huge business accomplishment yet.

  He got where she was coming from. But it was possible to have that and a personal life.

  Probably.

  He didn’t really know. He hadn’t had a relationship when they’d been getting Fluke off the ground. Hell, he hadn’t had a relationship since Whitney.

  But she was trying to be successful with Hot Cakes. She wasn’t doing it alone. But she didn’t believe that. Or she didn’t know what that really meant. Yet.

  “I don’t think I can keep from flirting with you,” he finally confessed. “Especially when you come down here at night in your nightgown looking…” He almost said totally fuckable. But that would likely go on her inappropriate list. “…so sexy.”

  Then he cringed slightly. That was a little better, but he probably should have said “beautiful.” Or maybe not have said anything at all about how she looked.

  He shrugged before she could say anything. “It’s going to be impossible for me to not notice how you look, Whit.”

  She blew out a breath. “Which is another reason this is a bad idea.”

  “Because it tempts you?”

  Her eyes flashed. “Because I should get to come down to my kitchen in whatever I want to wear and not worry about getting hit on.” Then she took another breath. “I’m not used to having guests.”

  He didn’t want her to think of him as a guest. That was for fucking sure. And he wasn’t hitting on her. That sounded like they were two strangers meeting for the first time in a bar or something.

  They were hardly strangers.

  Aren’t you? a tiny voice whispered at
the back of his mind. Yeah, maybe they were. They’d been apart for years. And a lot had happened to them both in that time.

  There was something else niggling at him. The way she kept seeming to calm herself. She’d never had a temper. Not that he’d seen anyway. She’d never snapped at him. Hell, he wasn’t sure they’d ever fought. They might have disagreed a few times, but they’d never had an actual argument. He’d never made her cry. He’d never laid awake at night regretting something he’d said. They’d never raised their voices.

  Not until the end. They’d fought the night she’d broken up with him. She’d cried. He’d laid awake that night. He’d regretted more than a few things from that night.

  But the idea of an angry Whitney was intriguing. If he could talk about bending her over her desk and licking cookie dough off her nipples, then she could certainly tell him if she thought he was being an asshole.

  Not this “inappropriate” or “uncomfortable” stuff. Those words made him itchy. They weren’t right between them. But she could definitely be angry or frustrated.

  “Are you actually uncomfortable around me?” he finally asked. He didn’t think it was true but he needed her to know it wasn’t true.

  He couldn’t quite name the emotion that flickered across her face with that. It was surprise maybe, mixed with confusion. And maybe relief?

  “Not exactly.”

  “We still have chemistry.”

  She swallowed hard. “Yes.”

  “But you don’t want it. You’re afraid of it.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “I don’t know if I’d say that.”

  “You do want it?” He knew that wasn’t what she meant.

  “I’m not afraid of it.”

  Good. That was really fucking good. “You just want to ignore it.”

  “Yes.”

  “But I’m pushing you on it, making you feel it and face it.”

  She shifted her weight again and her hand tightened on the sheet where she was holding it between her breasts. “Yes,” she finally said.

  “And that doesn’t make you uncomfortable. It makes you mad.”

  She met his eyes. “Yes,” she said after a moment.

  “Then tell me that,” he said.

  She just pressed her lips together.

  “Don’t try to make it polite and business-like,” he said. “Tell me how you really feel.”

  “You’re my boss,” she said.

  For fuck’s sake. “Not in this house, I’m not,” he said, letting his own exasperation show.

  Her eyes widened. “You’re my boss no matter where we are.”

  He shoved a hand through his hair. “No. I’m not even really your boss at Hot Cakes and you know that.”

  “Do I?”

  “Of course you do. You know I’m not going to fire you. Even if I wanted to, which I don’t because I’m not a fucking idiot, the guys would never let me do it.”

  Again emotion flickered over her face. It looked like she really wanted to believe him but didn’t quite.

  “I don’t want to give you all any reason to think I’m not up to the job.”

  “Your job is safe.” He was trying hard not to grit his teeth. She’d never been this obstinate before.

  She’s not the same girl, that annoying voice whispered.

  Yeah, yeah.

  “Even if I don’t sleep with you?” she asked.

  For just a second, the obstinate, contrary part of him reared its head and he wanted to tell her that she was absolutely required to be in his bed every single night. The job was that important to her? Then fine, he’d use that to his advantage.

  But, of course, he didn’t say that. He would never say that.

  “What happens outside of the office has nothing to do with your job,” he said.

  Though that was maybe not entirely true either. Because the more he was around her, the more he wanted to be sure she stayed working for them so that he could see her every day.

  “What about if something happens at the office?” she asked.

  “If you do finally let me bend you over your desk and hike up one of those ugly skirts, then no, that will have nothing to do with your job,” he said, unable to hold back.

  Her eyes narrowed at that. “I meant what if I tell you one of your ideas is terrible or tell you that you’re being an asshole in the office sometime?”

  His brows rose. “Your job would still be safe,” he said. “In fact, if I do have a terrible idea or I’m acting like an asshole then you better tell me.”

  She didn’t look entirely convinced but she didn’t say that she didn’t believe him either.

  “Tell me that right now,” he challenged.

  She chewed on her bottom lip.

  He moved around the edge of the kitchen island, closer to her. “Whitney. Tell me right now what you’re feeling.”

  “This is a terrible idea,” she said softly.

  He nodded. “Okay.”

  For a second she looked a little sad. Then she lifted her chin again. “And it’s an asshole thing to do to text me about cookie dough and nipples when I’m trying to go to sleep.”

  He stopped moving but not truly outside of her personal space. He could reach out and touch her easily.

  “So I should do it earlier in the evening going forward?” he asked.

  She shook her head but there was a ghost of a smile on her lips. “Not what I meant.”

  “Tell me what you mean,” he said.

  She swallowed. “Fine. I want you. I know that doesn’t surprise you and I know it’s just going to make your ego even bigger but, yes, I want you. Yes, there’s chemistry. But I want to do a great job at Hot Cakes too. Maybe more.” She didn’t seem entirely sure of that, however. “Even if it doesn’t affect my actual job, even if you wouldn’t fire me if we had a fight at home or whatever, it affects my performance because it distracts me and makes me jumpy and makes it hard to concentrate on work. I want to do a good job for me too, Cam. I haven’t had a chance to prove myself to others before, but at the same time I haven’t had a chance to prove myself to me either. Because I’ve never been able to really implement my ideas or projects, I don’t actually know if they’re good. I think they are. They seem to be. But…” She pressed her lips together. “Ollie thinks my ideas are good.”

  “Of course he does,” Cam said.

  “But Ollie also thought having a petting zoo at the cake tasting was a good idea,” she said.

  Cam couldn’t help his grin. “Everyone loved the petting zoo.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Well, implementing ideas, actually doing the things I think up, is new to me. I have no idea if I’m actually good at any of this.”

  “You are.”

  “You have no idea if that’s true,” she said. “And you have to stop saying it until you do. Don’t placate me. Don’t compliment me because you want in my pants. Just let me do my job and do it the best I can and let’s see how it turns out.”

  She had a point.

  Dammit.

  He figured she was good at it, but honestly, if she hadn’t had much to do with Hot Cakes other than having her name associated because of her family then… well, maybe she wasn’t good at it. He didn’t believe that, really, but she had a point about wanting to prove it. To them and to herself.

  This was important to her for her too.

  “Fine,” he finally conceded. “No more compliments on your work until you prove yourself.”

  She nodded. “Thank you.”

  “But I can still say that you look hot as hell wrapped in a sheet with your hair up like that?”

  Heat flickered in her eyes. The only sign that he wasn’t way off base here.

  Still, she shook her head. “No, you can’t say that.”

  “Because it makes you uncomfortable?” he asked.

  She hesitated, then said, “Because it makes me think about how hot you would look wrapped in only a sheet.”

  That hit him with heat but also satisfactio
n. She wasn’t uncomfortable with their chemistry. She was distracted. That was okay.

  “I would look really good wrapped in only a sheet. Down low. Around my waist.”

  She pulled in a long breath. “Stop it.”

  He grinned. “Okay.”

  Her gaze tracked over his torso, then she sighed. “Asshole thing to do before I go back upstairs.”

  She could take that thought with her when she went back upstairs to bed. He wasn’t apologetic about the idea of keeping her awake for a bit.

  “Not sorry.”

  “I know.”

  Then she narrowed her eyes again. Though this time it seemed she was just thinking about something. “So I can do whatever I want? Say whatever I want? No consequences? No issues?”

  He hesitated for some reason, but then nodded, mostly curious. He wanted her to be totally honest with him. He wanted her to feel free to feel and think anything and to tell him. “Yep.”

  “Okay.” She stepped close, took the front of his shirt in her fist, rose on tiptoe and kissed him.

  It was the first time their lips had been against the others in a decade. Far, far too long. Which had to be why it took him a good three seconds to respond. Just as he was lifting his hand to cup the back of her head and deepen the contact, she pulled back, smiled up at him, and then turned and left the kitchen.

  He stood staring at the doorway for a good minute, his hand suspended in the air.

  She’d tasted like toothpaste. She’d smelled like soap. Not a specific aroma, just soap. Clean and fresh and sweet.

  But mostly she’d felt like… home.

  He had never forgotten what it felt like to hold her, to kiss her, to make her laugh, to taste her—all over—and it all slammed into him in those moments after she left him in the kitchen.

  It was like when memories came flooding back when he heard a song from the past or tasted one of his mom’s recipes he hadn’t had in a long time or when he saw one of the photos that hung on the wall on the way up the stairs to his childhood bedroom.

  It was as real as if it had just happened and yet seemed a little like a dream.

  Holy hell.

  He wanted more of that. A lot more.

  Yeah, moving in with Whitney and her grandmother on a whim had to be the best idea he’d ever had.

  Grinning and feeling pretty fucking good about everything, he wrapped and stored the cookie dough in the fridge for baking tomorrow and cleaned up.