Semi-Sweet On You: Hot Cakes Series

by Nicholas, Erin

  Maybe because there was more to see now. Maybe because he was more mature and more able to see it. She wasn’t sure. But they were not the same people they’d been ten years ago. This man she had very much had a huge crush on was not the same guy she’d crushed on in high school.

  It all felt new and exciting and scary.

  Scary because now they were adults and it could actually mean something now.

  She took a deep breath and focused on her phone and Piper.

  This was something else she needed to work on. If she wanted to have friends, she had to be a friend. That meant paying attention when people needed her.

  Are you sure you can’t get away for a drink? Whitney asked. We should talk now. I’m concerned.

  Don’t be concerned, Piper texted back almost immediately. This isn’t about Ollie.

  Whitney took a breath. Something she knew even less about than girlfriends was romantic relationships. Cam had been her only one. And they’d been kids. And now, in retrospect, it was clear that a lot of that excitement had been about a whole series of firsts—her first boyfriend, her first kiss, first sex, first defying her parents—and the rush of sneaking around and breaking her family’s rules.

  She hadn’t done that. Not before Cam. And not really since.

  Her parents had been married for thirty years. They’d been high school sweethearts and, well, they’d just done what they’d been expected to do—go to college, get married, take over the family business, have kids.

  Her grandparents had been married for fifty-one years. But she knew it hadn’t been all that happy. Her grandpa hadn’t been abusive. At least not physically. She was realizing now that both her grandfather and father had been emotionally abusive, and her grandfather had been financially abusive toward her grandmother, making all of the money decisions and doling money out to her like she was a child, requiring her to get his “permission” for the things she bought. And he’d taken over her company. The thing she’d first taken a chance on. The thing she’d lost her best friend over.

  Yeah, Whitney didn’t know much about strong relationships. Except with her grandmother. And she wasn’t going to win any granddaughter of the year awards over the past couple of years.

  I can come over to your house, Whitney finally typed to Piper. Piper was a woman she wanted to be friends with. Because she had a feeling Piper could teach Whitney how to be a good friend. Piper would tell Whitney when she was falling down on the job and she’d tell her exactly what she wanted Whitney to do to make her feel better. I can bring cookies or liquor. Your call.

  The cookies were ones Cam had made but she didn’t think he’d mind if she swiped them for this.

  In fact, she smiled thinking about telling him that she was “borrowing” the caramel-and-toffee oatmeal cookies he’d made last night to have some girl talk with Piper.

  He’d approve. He’d like that she and Piper were getting close. He’d like that she was developing a friendship. He’d like that his cookies were a part of that.

  Whitney felt a wave of heat sweep through her.

  He was so damned sweet. And she wanted him so damned much.

  She’d always been attracted to him and they’d had some hot moments over the past few weeks. But it was the freaking cookies and the dusting and the way he was caring for Didi and—more than any of that—the way he seemed so happy to be doing it all. He truly seemed to be happy to be doing all of it with the knowledge that Whitney could then focus better on work.

  It was the weirdest turn of events.

  And it made her want to strip his clothes off of him and cover him in cookie dough and lick every swirl of every tattoo on his body.

  She really hoped he had some she hadn’t seen yet because they’d been covered by his jeans and shorts and…

  Her phone pinged, pulling her attention back to her texting conversation with Piper.

  The woman she wanted to be friends with.

  Man, she really sucked at this.

  Cookies and liquor both sound awesome. But honestly, it’s not like that. I’m out here talking to Drew about a project. It’s truly about alpacas. It’s not a date. Rain check on the drink? And the cookies?

  Whitney sighed. A project with Drew? About alpacas? Okay, well, she was launching a new snack bar with fox footprints on them and she’d had alpacas and goats at her dessert tasting. Who was she to judge?

  Deal, she texted back. Soon.

  Definitely.

  Whitney sat back in her chair. Well, that had not gone the way she’d expected. She chewed her bottom lip. There was one other woman who she would like to have drinks—or cookies—with. It was more of a longshot than Piper, who she saw every day and had gotten to know better over the past few months the guys had been in town. They at least had Hot Cakes and the guys in common. But there was one other option, and she really was in the mood to go out and be social.

  She could just go home, of course. She always wanted to go home and see Didi. And take her heels and bra off. And now Cam was there and that made it even more enticing. Plus the house always smelled amazing now. A combination of cleaning products, which she knew were homemade by his mother because she’d overheard the guys joking about it one day, and food. Usually baked goods, but he also made casseroles and he’d talked Didi into burgers at an actual decent dinnertime the other night. They ate at Maggie’s most nights, but they ate at home every once in a while. And they always saved Whitney some food. They either brought her a plate from Maggie’s or they saved her some of whatever they made. So the house always smelled very homey when she walked in.

  She was really getting used to having Cam around.

  Not just because of the housekeeping/cooking/caregiving tasks.

  But not not because of those.

  Throw in some naked baking and/or orgasms and she’d never let him leave.

  Hell, she’d be okay with him just walking around without his shirt on a regular basis.

  Huh, it seemingly took just a few minutes of free time with her to-do list crossed off and her brain immediately, happily, shifted into another gear all together.

  But she couldn’t just go home and throw herself at Cam.

  Probably.

  Until later. When Didi was in bed.

  No, she scolded herself. Not even then.

  She’d made a big deal out of the fact that she didn’t want to do the relationship thing, and then he’d made a big deal out of supporting her in that and she should really let him. And respect that. And stuff.

  Free time was obviously a problem. If she had too much time to think about things other than Hot Cakes, she got into trouble. She needed to keep busy.

  She took a breath and pulled up Paige’s number in her phone.

  Paige was quite a bit younger but she was very… Whitney wasn’t sure of the word. Mature sounded dumb. She was, of course, but there was something else about Paige that made her seem older than her just-turned-twenty-two years. It was her calm spirituality. Or something. Paige was just very sure of herself, who she was, what she wanted. She did yoga and collected cats and was a vegetarian in a little town in Iowa where that was regarded as a bit strange. But she did it all with a smile and a general disregard for what others thought of her.

  She was just… calm. She was very soothing.

  It was why Whitney loved her yoga classes and just enjoyed talking with Paige whenever she had the chance.

  Whitney probably needed more soothing in her life.

  So she should definitely invite Paige for drinks and a girls’ night out with her.

  Whitney typed and hit send quickly before she could think about it too hard.

  Hi! It’s Whitney. Wondering if you’d be up for having a drink tonight?

  Again, the two-minute lag time between sending and receiving a response felt like years.

  Hi! I’m so sorry, Whitney! I have plans tonight. I would love to do it another time.

  Oh, no problem. It’s last minute, I know, Whitney typed bac
k quickly.

  I can’t believe you’re asking me to go out on the ONE night that my friend is back in town from Louisiana and can get together! Paige texted back.

  It’s fine! Whitney assured her. You should see your friend.

  She moved to Louisiana because she fell in love a few months ago. Paige sent an eye-rolling emoji at that.

  Whitney had to laugh. Paige was really not into falling in love and people upending their lives to be with Their One True Love.

  Paige loved to date and didn’t sit home on the weekends unless she wanted to. But she did not get serious. Every time someone asked her when she was going to settle down, or worse, get married, she got another cat.

  We can do it another time, Whitney replied. Maybe Paige would talk her out of all these mushy, semi-in-love feelings she was having for Cam.

  Would that be a good thing? Or not?

  Tori is a vet, Paige went on. She’s the one who took care of all my cats. Lol! So she’s looking at my new stray for me. She’s here to collect her own animals and take them back to Louisiana with her.

  Whitney smiled. Seriously, no problem.

  Well, she did bring her boyfriend and his HOT cousin with her. Paige sent a smiley face emoji with the tongue hanging out and then a fire emoji. So I’m not exactly upset. She included a winking emoji.

  Whitney laughed. Have fun!

  Oh, I will! This Louisiana drawl is doing it for me. Paige sent a grinning emoji. But I really want to go out with you sometime soon, okay?

  Whitney nodded. She wanted to do this too. She had rain checks for two girls’ nights out now. That was a lot more than she’d had an hour ago. For sure. And then I can hear all about how things went with this guy. She hesitated before sending that, but that was the kind of stuff women talked about on girls’ nights out, right? She finally pushed the button.

  Sounds good! Paige sent a GIF of a girl fanning her face. Then she added And then I can hear all about you and Cam.

  Oh.

  Well… if Paige was going to spill about this guy and whatever happened, then Whitney probably had to tell her something too. She just didn’t have much to tell. Well, nothing physical anyway. She had a whole lot of emotional stuff she could spill.

  And suddenly having someone to bounce all of that off of sounded kind of great. She could use some advice.

  Okay.

  She sent the response, feeling like she was making a huge commitment.

  The heart emoji she got back from Paige made her feel good though and she put her phone down smiling.

  A second later though, she blew out a breath as she looked at her especially clean desk. She really was done for the day.

  Well… fuck. She’d finally gotten her nerve up to reach out to potential new friends and they both, of course, already had plans. Normal people probably did make plans ahead of time. Whitney never really made plans because she worked all the time. But if she were going to do something other than work, she probably wouldn’t be able to plan it too far ahead. She never knew how long she’d be at the office.

  But she sighed as she thought that.

  It wasn’t entirely true.

  She was in control, to an extent at least, of how long she stayed at the office. She worked a lot, yes, but she did it intentionally.

  And she’d been realizing more and more over the past few days that it was, in part, because she’d been trying to prove herself. First to her family. Then to the Fluke guys. But it was also because she hadn’t really liked going home. Because she’d felt pretty damned useless there.

  She wasn’t a cook or a baker. She didn’t enjoy keeping house. Not that anyone probably loved cleaning toilets, but she knew people liked decorating their homes for different holidays and changing up the little touches like throw pillows and centerpieces. She got the impression that Maggie McCaffery enjoyed things like making the little sachets Whitney had found in her drawer the other day. There was no way Cam had made those and she would bet half her salary he’d gotten them from his mother. Just like he’d surely gotten the hand soaps in the powder room on the first floor from Maggie.

  Some people enjoyed that stuff. Cam even, clearly, enjoyed baking.

  That wasn’t Whitney.

  And she hadn’t known what to do for Didi, to make her happy and to help her. She’d struggled with things like the little parties at 3 a.m. and knowing if it was right or wrong. She’d struggled with juggling those things with work. She’d struggled with feeling that she was really doing a good job with any of it.

  At work, at least she’d known what she was doing. Her dad and grandfather hadn’t let her do much, but she understood what was going on and enjoyed the atmosphere at Hot Cakes. It was more familiar. Her grandmother and mom had always had people cooking and cleaning for them, so she hadn’t seen that as a nurturing, happy thing people did.

  Until Cam.

  Cam had been raised with a mother who clearly loved to cook and have her family and their friends around in big groups, feeding and taking care of them.

  It made Whitney wonder about Letty. Had she been like that too? She’d certainly been a baker. And she’d apparently staunchly stood by the idea that fresh-baked, homemade baked goods were superior to mass-produced snack cakes.

  And that made Whitney wonder if Didi had missed that part of Letty too. Cam had told her that Didi said she missed Letty’s baked goods. But Whitney wondered if Letty had had that nurturing spirit too and if Didi missed that as well. Or more. She was certainly soaking that up from Cam. And his family.

  Which gave her an idea.

  A crazy, maybe-I-shouldn’t-do-this idea.

  But as she pushed away from her desk, she felt a little flip in her stomach that told her she was going to do it.

  And she couldn’t wait to see how Cam reacted.

  17

  Wanting to tell his parents and friends and little brother that they needed to get the hell out of the house so he could put Whitney Lancaster up on his mother’s kitchen counter and do very, very dirty things to her where he’d just helped make a chicken and ham casserole was probably not appropriate.

  That was still his reaction when his mother came back into the kitchen with Whitney in tow.

  Maggie had gone to answer the doorbell because Steve had been taking corn on the cob out of the pot on the stove, Grant, Aiden and Dax were setting the table, Zoe, Jane and Josie were out on the back patio, and Henry and Didi were in the middle of a quest in Warriors of Easton and couldn’t stop according to Henry’s shout from the family room.

  No one came to the front door anyway, so they’d all assumed it wasn’t anyone all that important.

  They’d been wrong.

  Cam was literally standing in the middle of the kitchen, holding a hot casserole dish, his mouth hanging open, staring at Whitney.

  She looked shy and unsure and completely gorgeous.

  Her hair was down, falling in loose waves around her shoulders. She wasn’t wearing any of her usual “office” makeup. No eye shadow or lipstick. She also, thank you Lord, was not wearing one of her office skirts. She wore a pink sundress and cock-hardening scuffed brown boots. She looked every bit the girl next door in a small Iowa town and he wanted her with every fiber of his being.

  “I knew better than to bring food, and especially dessert,” she said with a little smile. “So I brought liquor.” She held up a bottle of lemon vodka in one hand and a bottle of red wine in the other.

  Maggie laughed and took both bottles. “Brilliant girl,” she praised. Then she nudged Whitney toward Cam. “We’re so happy you’re here.”

  Someone—he wasn’t sure who—took the casserole dish from Cam, then slipped the oven mitts off his hands, and nudged him toward Whitney.

  They met partway across the kitchen.

  “Is this okay?” she asked him softly.

  Right. He still hadn’t said a fucking word. Like how happy he was to see her. Here. At his parents’ house. On a weeknight. For one of their big group dinne
rs.

  “This is…” He couldn’t properly express himself here in the middle of the kitchen with people around. “Come on.” He took her hand and tugged her toward the hallway and into the bathroom just past the stairs that led up to the bedrooms.

  He pushed her into the tiny room in front of him then stepped in behind her and kicked the door shut.

  They wouldn’t be able to hide out in here long. And they weren’t alone. At least not enough to do all the things he wanted to do to her. But he needed a few minutes without eyes on them.

  “Cam, is every—”

  She didn’t finish that thought because his mouth was on hers a moment later. He slid his fingers into her hair, holding her head still, and stepped her back until she was against the wall by the sink. Then he kissed her. Hard, deep. With tongue and moans and his fingers curling into her scalp and her hands gripping his shirt at his waist.

  She arched into him. She moaned too. She opened her mouth and let his tongue stroke deep.

  He heard footsteps in the hallway outside of the door and knew their time was running short, but he couldn’t let her go just yet. He dropped his hand to her hip and skimmed it down to where the hem of the dress hit her thigh, then he dragged his hand up the silky smooth skin, bunching the skirt as he went.

  She shuddered under his touch. He didn’t stop until he hit the skin-warmed silk of her panties. He slid his hand over the slick fabric to cup her ass and then dragged his mouth along her jaw to her ear.

  “This skirt is so much better than the others.”

  She gave a soft laugh and nodded. “I agree.”

  He squeezed her ass, then reluctantly let her go. He leaned back, looking down at her. “I’m so happy you’re here.”

  “You are?”

  “Surprised, but yes.”

  “I got done early and... realized I wanted to do something.” She lifted a shoulder, then admitted, a little sheepishly, “I actually invited both Piper and Paige out for drinks first. But they were busy.”

  Cam felt his grin. She’d reached out for a girls' night. He loved that.

  “I’ve got you,” he said. He took her hand and turned toward the door.