Tart (The Fluffy Cupcake Book 2)

by Katie Mettner

  “Different. There’s a loaded word.”

  “But it’s not a bad one,” he promised. “You should wear it proudly. The fact that my exhausted, end of the year teacher’s soul sensed you were different instantly should fill you with the knowledge that you are amazing. It takes someone special to stand out to me at the end of May. You were a bright spot in the storm, and rays spread from your being.”

  My hand smoothed its way across his soft beard. “I’ll wear it proudly then,” I promised. He jumped out of his innertube and tossed it on the sand, leaning over my chair and capturing my lips for a longer taste. I moaned, being careful not to rock the chair too much, so I didn’t fall into the water. He was everything I’d come to understand over the last few days. “I want to feel close to you, Bishop,” I sighed when his lips released mine for much-needed oxygen.

  He pulled me from the chair and tossed it behind him, directing my legs around his waist as he sat down on the sandy bottom of the lake. “Let me hold you,” he whispered, and I draped myself across his chest and over his shoulder, my lips kissing his neck gently

  “I love how your beard tickles my lips when I kiss you,” I sighed.

  “How does it feel when I kiss your other lips?” he asked, his voice decidedly lower than usual.

  I thrust against his belly and moaned softly. “Unlike anything I’ve ever experienced before,” I whispered. “I love when it rasps against the inside of my thighs and raises goosebumps across my skin.”

  “Mmm,” he hummed, his lips kissing their way down the back of my neck. “God, I love how innocent yet naughty you are, my beautiful tart. I want to have my head buried between your legs right now. In fact,” he whispered, scooting me back until I was lying half in and half out of the water. “Stay right there, time for a new lesson.”

  He lowered himself under the water, moved my bikinis aside, and put that beard between my legs again. I grabbed for his hair, but the water made it float away just out of reach. He anchored me to the sand with two fingers inside me while his tongue stroked me. The sensation of being underwater while he did it just amplified the desire coursing through me. I moaned softly, knowing we were alone, but still afraid of being too loud. He lifted his head for air and was grinning as water trailed down his face in rivulets.

  “I think the teacher is going to detention this time,” I said, shaking my head on the sand. “He’s very, very bad.” The last word was said on a squeak as his fingers buried themselves a bit deeper to tease me. “Downright evil,” I sighed.

  He took another breath of air and disappeared under the dark water again, and then his tongue flicked in and out rhythmically. My hips thrust into the air, and my whole soul yearned for his throbbing manhood to fill me right there. I was so near release when he lifted his head, his gaze locking with mine. “Don’t stop,” I begged, pressing my pelvis into his hand. “I’m so close to coming.”

  He leaned over me and thrust his fingers in and out gently, his lips almost on mine. “I know. I want to see it happen. I want to watch your face as you soar up into that night sky and ride the moon,” he whispered. I noticed his other hand was stroking his hardness, the rhythm matching what his fingers were doing inside me. He wanted us both to come at the same time while staying apart, I realized.

  “God, what is happening to me?” I cried out, my hips bucking in the air as I watched him pleasure himself, his lips still near mine.

  “You’re learning to love yourself, sweetart,” he promised, moving his fingers a fraction of an inch deeper until I cried out, the waves sweeping over his fingers the way the water lapped over his legs.

  “Oh, God, Bishop,” I sang until his lips captured mine, and he kissed me hard and deep, his hand brushing across my belly as he built up his release.

  His moan was resounding inside my head as he tongue-fucked me so hard I was sure he was going to lose it down my throat. I pulled him to me and captured his dick between us, then entwined our hands. With our hands held above my head, he thrust against my stomach while his moans filled my head. “Amber,” he cried, pushing forward one last time, and then his warmth covered me. I felt every last spasm until he shivered against me, and his swim trunks floated past my head to the sandy beach. “I’m never fucking giving you up,” he hissed, grasping my hair in his hands and kissing my lips until I couldn’t breathe and didn’t care.

  “THIS HAS BEEN THE GREATEST day in recent history, save for our wedding day, of course,” I said as he strolled back into the living room after his shower. His hair was still damp, and he wore a t-shirt and boxers that left nothing to my imagination.

  Dammit.

  “Of course,” he said, winking as he sat next to me on the couch.

  “Dinner was wonderful. Someone must have had connections to get something like that done in this town.”

  After our beach-capade, he carried me up the hill to surprise me with a beautiful dinner by firelight. We sat at a table dressed in a white tablecloth, electric candles, and wine glasses. We dined on burgers and cheese curds from The Modern Goat, my absolute favorite dinner, while sipping wine.

  “It was ridiculously romantic, too,” I added, taking his hand.

  “I thought it was going to be a lot harder to find a closet romantic than it was. It turns out she was just down the street.”

  I shook my head at him with laughter on my lips. “Hay-Hay has become one since she met Brady. She never used to be. She was always very determined to never trust a man or fall in love.”

  “Wow, I think I’ve heard that story before,” he said, bopping my nose with his finger.

  “For different reasons, though,” I said defensively. “Look what happened with the last guy I dated.”

  “You need to put the last guy you dated out of your mind. He’s not even worth the words you just said about him. That’s over. You’ve got me now, right?”

  If only it were that easy, I thought as he stood up. If only I didn’t have to think about Rex whenever I looked at my leg.

  “At least for a little while,” I agreed.

  “You control the timeline of this relationship, sweetart.” He walked back into the room with a bottle and two glasses. “I thought we should toast to each other since we didn’t on our wedding night.” He sat and lowered the glasses to the table while he worked on the cork in the bottle of champagne.

  “We didn’t, did we? We did other stuff instead.”

  He snortled, and the cork popped at just that second. His quick thinking with a glass kept the carpet from drinking the champagne, too.

  He handed me a glass and held it up. “Here’s to us and new adventures.”

  I clinked glasses with him and drained mine in almost one swallow. He refilled it, and I leaned back on the couch where he pulled my legs up to rest over his. “Tell me what the real reason is that you want to start working over here.” The sentence was said while sipping at his glass nonchalantly and his hand rubbing up and down my calf.

  I almost choked on the swallow of champagne in my mouth. “There’s no real reason,” I said after swallowing. “It just makes sense.”

  “Really? Because the discussion we had the day after our wedding involved a lot of you insisting that we had to work separately and have time away from each other or you’d go crazy.”

  I shrugged and drank more from the glass, which he promptly refilled. “I changed my mind. I decided it’s silly to walk over there every day when I don’t have to.”

  His brow went down, and he eyed me with determination. “I don’t believe you. You’ve been distracted since yesterday when you came running in here yelling my name. It has nothing to do with the trial either, so don’t try to sell me that one. Something is going on.”

  I sighed, the champagne making me dizzy with bubbles. “If I tell you that I want to work here because I miss you, will you stop asking questions?”

  Where I expected a grin, I got eyes that melted right in front of me. Bishop took my hand and held it to his chest. “You just ans
wered every question I have, sweetart,” he whispered.

  We sat in silence, drinking our champagne and listening to the sounds of the crickets in the night as they sang us a love song. “It’s so peaceful here,” I sighed, scooting down to get more comfortable on the couch. “And this champagne is making me drunk in an instant.”

  He laughed and nodded, staring at his glass. “Me too, but it’s good champagne. A gift from the school district for our nuptials.”

  “That was nice of them,” I said, taking another large gulp. “We shouldn’t let it go to waste.”

  “That would be a travesty,” he agreed, finishing his glass and refilling both of ours. “How about another toast?”

  I held my glass up to match his. “To the happiest four days of my life,” he said, clinking glasses again.

  He drank his down, but I held mine in the air without moving. “The happiest four days of your life?”

  He lowered his flute and smiled at me with that smile he wears when he’s unsure of himself. “At least in the last decade. Spending time with you is like my sunshine now. I didn’t know how much of my life was spent under gray rainclouds before. I was living, but I wasn’t happy. Since you came into my life, I’m finding happiness in things I would never have before.”

  “What kind of things?” I asked, drinking the bubbles down.

  “All those little everyday things like sitting by a campfire with a beer and laughing with someone who understands you. It’s sitting down at the breakfast table and sharing your bagel and newspaper with someone who has way too much energy at seven a.m.”

  I laughed then and rested my head back on the arm of the couch. “Sorry if that annoys you. Usually, by seven a.m., I’ve got half my day in.”

  He shook his head, and his face turned serious. “That’s the thing. It doesn’t annoy me. Not even a little bit. It’s one of the things I love about you.”

  “One of the things you love about me,” I said, sitting up. I was dizzy drunk and grabbed at Bishop to keep from toppling off the couch. “You can’t love me, Bishop. That’s a bad idea.”

  “Well, I can love you. It’s not even hard. It’s as natural as getting up in the morning if you want me to be honest.”

  “I mean, I mean,” I was stuttering around looking for words when he took the glass from me and set it down on the coffee table. “I mean that you could do so much better, Bishop. Like, so much better. Not to sound like Darla McFinkle, but you could have any woman you want!”

  “Stop. I don’t want to hear you say that again. I warned you before. Don’t make me spank you.” His brow lowered, and I swallowed, a little bit afraid but also curious. Would he really spank me if I didn’t hush up? “I don’t know how Darla comes into play with that sentence, but if what you say is true, then the woman I want is you.”

  I hung my head until my chin hit my chest. “You know what I mean!” I exclaimed, pushing at him. It was like trying to move a brick wall. Impossible.

  “First, tell me how Darla comes into the equation.”

  I waved my hand around in the air. “She always told Haylee that Brady could do so much better than her. She’d tell Brady the same thing. That was how Haylee got her kicked out as the beauty queen.”

  “She deserves to rot in prison. Haylee is a beautiful, bright, wickedly funny woman, and if I’m honest, and Brady knows it, too, she could do so much better than him. The thing is, she doesn’t want to. She loves him. That guy. The one who would step in front of a bullet if it meant she lived. All of that atmospheric noise about doing better or marrying up is nonsense. We all have things that make us less than someone else when you compare apples to apples. I can lift weights, but I can’t lift weights the way some guys can. I was a decent father, but I wasn’t hands-on all the time like some fathers are. If we spend our days telling ourselves that we aren’t good enough, eventually, it will be impossible to believe that we deserve to be happy.”

  “Except when everyone else is telling you that, too,” I muttered, taking his glass from his fingers and drinking it back. “We should go to bed. You said you had more in store for us tomorrow.”

  He grasped my chin and turned it to face him. “Who else is telling you that you don’t deserve to be happy or loved by a man who worships you the same way Brady worships Haylee. I know for sure it’s not Haylee.”

  I lowered a brow and tried to concentrate on what he was saying. “Do you always use that teacher voice on people when you want them to answer a question? It’s a tad bit annoying, not gonna lie.”

  His other brow went down, and he cleared his throat. “You can’t distract me with teacher talk.”

  “Hmm, too bad. I’d admit I was hot for teacher if I could.”

  “Tart,” he warned, his tongue coming out to lick his lips. I wanted to moan, but I could see he wasn’t going to let this go, and that was a serious turn-off.

  “My mom, okay? She always tells me to settle for whatever guy is willing to take me on.”

  “Take you on. Were those her actual words?”

  I half-nodded and half-shrugged. “I mean, she’s not that wrong. I’ll be a handful for anyone, both physically and emotionally. There have been plenty of men who have run the opposite direction as fast as the women did when they found out you were a single father.”

  “I’m sorry,” he whispered, his finger caressing my cheek. “She never should have said that once, much less multiple times. You don’t need to settle, sweetart. You are a goddess who deserves to be worshiped, don’t ever forget that. The right guy will do exactly that.”

  “I used to rage against the idea that I’m a handful, Bishop. Then it dawned on me that I am one. My disabilities, emotional and physical, will cause situations to arise that are unpredictable. Not even my parents want to deal with them anymore.”

  “And that means you suffer in silence.”

  “More like I just shut myself off, so I don’t get hurt again. If I don’t go out with anyone, then I don’t get hurt,” I explained, motioning at my leg.

  “First of all, you are a handful. A handful for me when I cup your cheek, your breast, your hip, and that fucking beautiful apex that makes me so hard I want to come right now just thinking about it. You are not a handful in any other way. Despite your physical and emotional challenges, you are more successful than half this damn town. Do you even see that?” he asked, so worked up now he was tossing his hands around. “Do you even see all the things you’ve done since that accident nearly killed you seventeen years ago? Do you see that without you, Haylee and Brady don’t have a bakery to sell their goods? How have you done that all these years, Amber?”

  “I guess grit and determination,” I said, sitting up on the couch and staring at my wedding band. I wasn’t comfortable having this conversation, but it was easy to see he wasn’t going to let it go.

  “Grit and determination built one hell of a life for you, haven’t they?” he asked, and I nodded, half shrugging a shoulder until he held it down. “Then why do you undercut everything you’ve done by coming up with all these excuses why you can’t claim your success?”

  “Psychological conditioning, I guess?”

  He sighed and shook his head. “You’ve been told so many times that because you still live in your parents’ basement or because your leg doesn’t work the same way someone else’s does, that your success isn’t equal to everyone else’s, right?”

  “Among other things,” I agreed. “I’m just tired, Bishop.”

  That statement was heavy. It was heavier than merely the current conversation we were having. That statement carried the weight of the world on it.

  He stood and scooped me up again, shutting down the lights in the living room on his way to his bedroom. He laid me out on his king-sized bed and shut the lights off, leaving only the small lamp on in the corner. “I know you’re tired, Amber. You have earned the right to be tired.”

  “Why am I in your bed?” I asked, my champagne-filled mind fuzzy and slow.

 
; “You’re in my bed so I can hold your burdens tonight, and you can sleep. I know you’ll still be tired in the morning, but for a little while, you’ll get to rest.”

  I grasped his hand and held it to my chest, tears fighting for real estate in my eyes. “No one has ever understood me before. Not the way you seem to. It scares me.”

  He stroked my forehead with his free hand as though I was a child that he had to soothe to sleep. “Why does it scare you?”

  “Simple mathematics, Teacher Halla. When we go from two to one again, I’m back to having no one who understands me. I don’t want to come to rely on you knowing that eventually, you will find someone else to hold who isn’t tired.”

  “My sweetart, we are all tired in some way or another. Some of us carry heavier burdens than others, but the bigger picture is this. When you find the right person to carry yours, it’s not hard to carry theirs in return.”

  “You just dumbed down what being in a relationship is for my drunken mind, didn’t you?”

  He laughed and kissed my temple, letting his lips linger for a moment and inhaling the scent of my shampoo. “No, I just dumbed down what love is, Amber. Love is carrying each other’s burdens, even if sometimes it’s not an even split of the weight. Sometimes, you’ll carry more of it than they will and vice versa, but in the end, being able to shift the load between you is what love is all about.”

  “Shift the load,” I said, nodding my head as my eyelids drooped. “Love is carrying each other when the load is too heavy.”

  “Exactly,” he whispered in my hear. “Right now, I’m carrying the load, so sleep, my beautiful wife. I’ve got this.”

  Thirteen

  God, she was unbelievable in so many different ways. What she’d gone through, what she’d done since, and doing it all with so little support. Finding out that Amber’s parents weren’t as supportive as I would have thought took me by surprise, until I started to think about it. As a parent, I can’t imagine the guilt that would riddle me if Athena had been almost killed because of a decision I’d made. It wasn’t their fault, but I knew they had to carry horrifying guilt regardless. They were probably too hard on her, but I could see both sides. If they coddled Amber too much, she might never find the determination she needed to make a life for herself. If they pushed her to keep moving forward, at least they felt like she’d eventually be okay. While a lot of what they’ve done I disagree with, I can see that they were probably equally traumatized by the events of that night. Parents aren’t perfect, even if we wish we were. We’re still humans, but now we have emotions that live outside our bodies.