“Lei?”
Still, no matter how big and strong and capable he was, he had feelings, too, and it wasn’t fair to let him hang out there, thinking he was suffering alone. She took a breath, and just put it out there, once and for all. “Once you realized there was no future to be had between us, you’ve been kicking yourself about bringing the show here, about being shortsighted, not thinking this through, just setting your sights and full speed ahead, damn the torpedoes.”
“I think you have that last part backward,” he said with a bit of a smile.
“I just—and this doesn’t change anything—but it’s only fair you know that it’s not just you making the ... adjustment.”
“Adjustment,” he repeated. He did not make it a question, but his expression was one of confusion.
“To not being able to act any further. On your ... attraction.”
His smile winked briefly back to life. “You’re saying you have to make the same ... adjustment?”
“Nothing changes, remember?”
“Right, right. So ... when did you first realize you needed to make this ... adjustment?”
She held his gaze, and thought hard on how to respond. She could just tell him it was since he’d arrived on the island and made his intentions clear. She’d responded to that last kiss he’d laid on her, he knew that. They both knew that. She should just tell him that. At least he wouldn’t think he’d been completely crazy to want what he wanted. She opened her mouth, and what came out was, “Do you remember when you told me you took the offer to do your own television show as a way to put some distance between you and your feelings for me?”
“Yes. That’s the truth, Leilani. It’s been a wild ride, and has changed things for me in ways I never would have expected, most of them good. I don’t regret the decision, but it wasn’t a move I made to reach for something; it was a move away from what I couldn’t reach for.”
“Well,” she said, determined to hold his gaze, “deciding to stay in Sugarberry was a move away for me, too.”
His smile slipped. “What?”
Her smile wobbled a little. “You weren’t the only one in the Gateau kitchen who had to work on keeping things professional.”
He took her shoulders again. “Why didn’t you—”
She covered his hands and pulled them away, but he just took her hands in his and held on. “You didn’t do anything because you were my boss. And I didn’t do anything ... because you were my boss.”
“I didn’t know, Lei. How did I not know?”
“How did I not know? Maybe we both knew, on some level, at least subconsciously, we were tuned in. The other reason I didn’t do anything was because I honestly didn’t think the feelings would be reciprocated. At all. I felt foolish, like a schoolgirl with some kind of crush on her teacher. It was so silly. Then there was all the supposition that we were involved, and all those nasty ugly things the staff were saying about me. It was so ironic that I was so hurt and disgusted they didn’t have any respect for me, for my talents. And yet, the whole time I knew, given a chance, or any encouragement, maybe I would have been that girl, maybe—”
“No,” Baxter stated, almost defiantly. He pulled their joined hands up between them and tugged her a bit closer, his gaze so intent on hers, she couldn’t look anywhere else. “You earned your spot through skill and hard work, and would have no matter what. I do know that about you. They were jealous. Of your talent, of our rapport, I don’t know, I don’t care. But no one—no one—can say you weren’t worthy of and capable of handling every bit of the responsibility I handed to you.”
“I know that. I do. And yet, I wonder now, if I’d have been able to resist ... or even stay on, working for you, with you, had I—had we—”
“Doesn’t matter. You didn’t. We didn’t.”
“Right. I know.” She finally broke the hold his gaze had on her, though her hands were still clasped tightly within his own.
“Why are you telling me this?” he asked. “Why now?”
“You’re trying so hard to make this experience easier on me, stepping in with Rosemary, the crew—”
“You’re new. It’s not easy. Everyone knows that, no one expects—”
“Oh, I’m sure they’d expect me not to be such a total dork. But I appreciate what you’re doing. Calling lunch when it was getting to be too much for me.”
He tried a smile, urging her to do the same. “We do eat, you know.”
“On your set, when it’s just you, would you have taken a break right then,” she challenged him, “or finished getting that recipe done on camera?”
“It doesn’t matter,” Baxter told her. “It all gets done. We eat at some point. Who cares when?”
“I’m just saying, I see how hard you’re trying, and I know it’s because you feel badly for forcing this on me. I wanted you to know that I’m not ungrateful, for one. As I said on the beach, I do realize this is going to make a difference for my shop. That it’s a good thing. It is. I wanted to tell you that, so you wouldn’t feel you’d just come barging into my world. It didn’t seem fair to leave you thinking you’d forced yourself on me, too, and so I just—it was only right for me to—” She stopped when he grinned. “What? Why are you looking at me like that?”
“The lady doth protest, quite a lot, in fact, and talks a wee bit faster when realizing she’s cornered herself.”
“I’m not cornered. I’m setting us both free. Don’t you get it?”
He tugged her closer, until her elbows bumped his torso and he could let her hands go, but keep them trapped between them while he reached for her face. “I don’t want to be free of you. Don’t you get it? You’re telling me you feel something, too. Do you want to be free of me, Lei? Honestly? Do you?”
Before she could answer him—and heaven help her, what she might have said—he bent his head down and kissed her.
It wasn’t awkward like the first time, or staking a claim like the second one. It was just a kiss. His kiss. He wasn’t in a hurry, or surprised, or acting out of frustration. He was just ... kissing her. Easily, earnestly, and quite thoroughly.
She could tell herself had her hands not been trapped against his chest, she’d have pushed him away. She’d have made it clear, once and for all, they simply couldn’t indulge themselves. It was senseless torture.
But she couldn’t. And so, she didn’t. She let him kiss her, let all the sensations he brought with his kiss course through her freshly relaxed body. His mouth was warm, strong, and he tasted sweet and spicy, partly from the ginger-laced cupcakes they’d been baking and testing, and partly because she knew that’s just how he tasted. Under his continued exploration, she relaxed further, opened her mouth to him, took him in ... and sighed as he filled her so perfectly. She groaned softly, or maybe it was him, as he took the kiss deeper, and it slowly turned more ardent. She realized she’d dug her nails into his shirt, pressing her knuckles into him as she clutched the linen in her fists in her urgent need to get closer to him.
“Wow,” she gasped against the skin of his jaw as he left her mouth to kiss the corners of her lips, then her cheek, her temple, and dropped his head down to nuzzle at the tender side of her neck. It was the sweetest seduction and a primal rush, all at the same time. She rose up on her toes, wanting more heat, more contact, more ... Baxter.
“How can this not be the right thing, Leilani,” he whispered gruffly against the sensitive skin below her ear. “Tell me, and I’ll step away. I won’t—we won’t do this again. But it’s bloody brilliant, it’s perfect, you’re—”
“Oh. My.”
They sprang away from each other as if they’d just put their bare hands on a sizzling hot cake pan.
Leilani covered her mouth with her hand, as if she could hide the evidence of what they’d been doing, of what she was feeling, of ... She turned to find Alva standing just inside the swinging kitchen door, carrying two large paper plates loaded down with Laura Jo’s golden fried chicken, steaming mashed po
tatoes and gravy, corn on the cob, and oversized buttermilk biscuits. It smelled heavenly and, to add to the turmoil in Lani’s head, her stomach chose that minute to growl. She dropped her hand from her mouth to her stomach. “Ah ... Alva, hello.”
“I thought the two of you might be hungry.” Alva smiled as if she hadn’t just walked in on the two of them about a half second away from tearing their clothes off. She slid the plates onto the nearest clean work surface. “I see I was right,” she added with a little wink. “Rosemary asked me to bring out the trays of cupcakes from the recipe test last night, for the crew. I can’t believe they have any room left ... my goodness, the spread Laura Jo put out there. They fell on it like a pack of starved hound dogs.” Alva looked between the two of them, who just stood there, blinking back at her. “The ginger-marscapone cupcakes ?”
“Right.” Lani finally snapped out of her Baxter-induced stupor. “They’re in the display cases up front. We ran out of room back here this morning, so Dre put them there.”
“Do you need any assistance?” Baxter asked, finally finding his own voice.
It sounded more than a little rough to Lani’s ears, setting off her overly sensitized little pleasure receptors all over again.
“It’s just one big tray. I think I can take care of it,” Alva responded, moving back toward the swinging door that led to the front of the shop. “Bon appétit.” She shifted her gaze between the two of them, not even glancing at the plates of food. With a last gleaming twinkle, she ducked out.
Lani could feel the steam rising from the plates of food; the mingled scents were making her mouth water. Or maybe that was Baxter. Between the taste of him, the smell of the food, the remembered feel of his hands on her she was on sensory overload. And she was suddenly ravenous. “We should eat.” She stared at the food, but didn’t move. “That’s what we need to do. Eat, recharge, refocus.”
“Right.” Just ... right.” Baxter still sounded distracted. He wasn’t looking at the food. Or the door where Alva had exited. He was looking at her. “Leilani—”
She jerked her gaze to his. “Don’t. Don’t tell me we should just go for it anyway, or take what we can get. If I thought that was something I was capable of, I’d have already—”
“Actually, I was going to suggest you might want to follow Alva out there, and ...” He waved his hand in a vague circular motion.
“Stop her from talking?” Lani snorted. “Really?”
“Right. You have a point.”
“She’s either already sharing her eyewitness account with all and sundry one picnic table at a time, or we’re going to be the new lead item in her first column. Or both.”
The desire for her was still there, in his eyes, and she wondered what it was he saw in her own. But there was regret in his, too. “I am sorry this is going to cause you additional grief.”
“I think that ship has sailed already. The speculation has already been rife, and I’m fairly certain our favorite little octogenarian out there is a goodly part of the gust of wind that’s filling those sails.” Lani smiled resignedly. “It’s going to be whatever it’s going to be. I knew there would be no stopping that, and for all my concerns about it, to be honest, it hasn’t really been all that bad. Most of the folks here seem tickled by the idea. It’s all been rather harmless and kind of charming, actually. It’s nothing like it was back in New York, probably because the people here have no stake in whether we are or aren’t. They’re just naturally nosy.” Her smile softened. “I’d like to think they just want what’s best, and if the story is juicy, all the better.” She wiggled her eyebrows. “Well, Chef, I think we just gave them the juice they were hoping for.”
Baxter’s smile deepened at that, and she was happy to see the cloud of regret clear away. “You’re right, I suppose, to just ride the wave in. Or wind gust, as it may be.” He reached out and tucked a stray lock of hair behind her ear. She reached up as well, surprised it had come loose, what with all the bobby pins and other torturous devices the show’s hairstylist had poked in there. Her hand brushed his, and she started to pull away, but he curled his fingers around hers and pulled her hand to his chest.
“Now you’re just begging for trouble,” she said, trying to sustain the light humor they seemed to have found in the situation.
“Worried Alva might pop back in, or—”
“I was thinking about Alva, or worse, my father.” She laughed when Baxter blanched. “But, I’d be lying if I didn’t say the or part plays a role, too.” At his look of surprise, she said, “What, you don’t think this—you—tempts me, too?”
He shook his head, not in a way that said he didn’t believe her, but in a way that said he was having a hard time taking it all in. She knew exactly how that felt.
“It’s just ... you’re different,” he said at length. “Now. Or maybe it only seems that way to me, because now I know that you—well, now I know. And, I’ll admit, it’s making my whole conceding the field decision far more of a challenge.”
Hearing him say that made her stomach knot ... and her pulse pound. Danger, danger, her little voice whispered. Like she didn’t already know that.
“Well,” she said, trying to keep her tone steady, on track, “one thing you do know about me is that I can always create that calm space in the center of the storm. I need to do that, so I can stay focused, and productive. Here, today ... that’s been a real challenge for me. The television part of this is a lot more overwhelming than I thought it would be.” She smiled wryly. “In case it’s escaped your notice, I’m definitely not a natural on camera. In fact, the whole thing has me a little freaked out. Since this is going to air on network television, there is added pressure. I know I have to get a grip and not make a fool of myself.”
“You’re doing fine. It’s a big learning curve.”
“Well, I definitely haven’t felt like I’m doing anywhere close to fine. I need to find a way to shut out the distractions and focus. It’s been hard, really hard, actually, trying to balance my decision to push you away, while simultaneously having to work side by side, on camera no less.”
“But?” He smiled when she gave him a disbelieving look. “I heard a distinct but there at the end.”
“But,” she said, with exaggerated emphasis, “at the same time ... you’re the one thing I do know, the one constant I have in this madness. I can’t find my calm center in this particular storm, but you already have. So, it’s like—you’re the one thing I feel I can rely on, and trust to guide me through it all.”
“Good, because I am.”
“Which makes all the rest, ultimately, that much harder. Now we’ve done this. And we got caught, and ... well”—she lifted her shoulders—“I don’t know how I’m going to pull it all together. Alva’s out there having a field day, Rosemary is somewhere pulling her hair out because I’m going to end up costing her a fortune trying to get this show taped, and I have to find a way to put all that aside and somehow make it work.” She looked into Baxter’s beautiful brown eyes, and if a person could physically feel their heart crack, hers definitely developed another fracture or two. It wouldn’t shatter completely until he left. It was just a matter of how tiny the pieces were going to be. “So, the one thing I need, the only thing that’s going to work, is to be able to trust you.”
“Of course you can. Always.”
“What I mean is, I need to know, with absolute certainty, when we’re on set, when I’m really trying to get the five million things I have to be remembering at all times, and to not—repeat not—respond out loud to those little voices in my headset ... I need to know I can count on you to guide me and be here for me. There’s no way I can begin to do that if I think we’re going to be doing any more of—”
“This?” He rubbed the pad of his thumb over her fingers, which he’d curled inside his wide palm.
“Yeah,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper. She needed him to agree to help them both stay on track. When he looked at her the way he was r
ight at that moment, touched her like that ... she didn’t think she had the strength to resist it. To resist him. “I am being as honest as I can be with you.” She held his gaze, and, letting everything else fall away, bared her soul to him. She had no choice. He had to understand this. “If you push ... I don’t know that I can resist. But I do know that I should. We should. It would be easy now—too easy—to just give in. The whole town will be all but shoving us together.”
“I don’t need the town to give me a nudge in that direction.”
“I’m just saying, the pressure to give in will be coming at us from all directions, not just from the two of us. But, no matter what, the outcome won’t change. You’ll go. I’ll stay. So ... I know this probably isn’t fair, but I need to know I can count on you to be here for me, so we can get the shows taped. But I also need to trust that you won’t do any more of ... this.” She covered his hand, which was brushing against her cheek, and slowly lowered it.
“You know I’m here for you,” he said.
“And ... the rest? Can I count on you there, too?”
“If it’s just up to me, then you have my word.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means I won’t push you, or nudge you, or do anything to overtly tempt you. But if you’re the one to do the pushing, for whatever reason, whatever the provocation, then ... all bets are off.”
“But—”
“Because I can’t resist you any more than you say you can resist me. Fair’s fair, luv.”
“You do agree with me, though, that we shouldn’t? That its pointless to torture ourselves like that?”
He lifted his hands up beside his head, palms forward, as if in surrender. “I’ll respect your request, Leilani. Unless you say otherwise, it’s hands off. And lips. And mouth. And tongue.”
She swallowed, hard. He’d never been so ... explicit.
Sugar Rush Page 21
