Page 11 of Sugar Dusted Dad Bod

If Jasper would only kiss me… if he’d only lift me up and hold me against his chest… if he’d only press me against the refrigerator and shove a leg between my thighs…

I’d welcome anything from this man.Anything.And yet he insists on being a perfect gentleman, keeping a careful distance as we move around his kitchen. It’s maddening.

“It’s really coming down out there,” Jasper says tonight, frowning at the kitchen window. Out there, snowflakes whirl past the glass, the clouds of them so thick that they block out the night sky. “Maybe I should walk you home early, Cady.”

Oh, yeah: this is a new form of torture, too. Jasper has always walked me home after my late shifts, for as long as I’ve worked here, but since The Mistletoe Incident, we walk the whole way to my apartment in taut silence. There’s only the crunch of our boots through the snow.

Then we climb eight flights of stairs and hover outside my front door, both out of breath but waiting for the other to say something. Heat climbs up my throat, and my lower belly twists, and I practically levitate with how badly I want Jasper to touch me already.

But he never does, and so I crack and let myself in for the night. Each time, as Jasper waves goodnight through the closing door, he looks both disappointed and relieved.

“It’s not that bad,” I say, looking out the window too, but I can’t hide the doubt in my voice. “We need to get these orders done.”

Tonight is Christmas Eve, and then the holiday rush is officially over. We’re so freaking close, and it’s just as well, because Jasper is visibly exhausted. There are new silver strands in his beard.

If this man were mine to fuss over, I’d make sure he was drinking lots of water and eating his five a day. I’d chase him to bed early each night, and then I’d kiss my way down his big bodyandreallyput myself to work, sending him off to sleep with a smile.

Instead, all I can do is drag him to the break room between orders and fix him a strong coffee to keep him going through the shift. Jasper scrubs both hands down his face and groans into his palms, but he collapses into one of the metal chairs and calls me an angel when I set his coffee down on the table. So… there’s that.

“Cady,” Jasper says when I come back with my own coffee too. If I was smart, this would be a decaf burning my palms, but clearly I’m a dumbass. Besides, I need to stay fresh so we can get through these last few orders. “It’s still coming down hard out there.”

My boss frowns out of the break room window, his thick, dark eyebrows pinched together. He’s right: a baby blizzard rages outside, but somehow I can’t bring myself to fret over it.

I’m here with Jasper O’Reilly. Nothing will ever hurt me while he’s near.

But the light flickers overhead—then plunges us into darkness.

“Motherfucker,” Jasper says with feeling.

Our abandoned coffees cool on the break room table as we stumble around the dark bakery for the next ten minutes, cursing quietly and bashing our shins on the counter edges, fumbling for emergency flashlights and testing the breaker. No luck. And when Jasper tugs the front door open, we see why: there’s a howling wind, a snowdrift up to my thighs, and a whole city block with no lights.

“Shit,” Jasper says. “Shit.I should’ve walked you home when I had the chance. I think we’re stuck here, Cady. For a few hours at least, and maybe overnight.”

Sheltering behind my boss’s broad shoulder, I can’t hide my delighted grin. “Oh, that’s awful.”

* * *

Back in the break room, we gather round the small table and dig into a hot pecan pie—the last successful bake from the now-dead ovens. There’s no way to get these final orders out to folks, not with the city buried in snow like this, so we may as well give up and enjoy the last hour of Christmas Eve.

“I’m sorry about this,” Jasper says for the dozenth time, swigging from his lukewarm coffee and setting it down with a thud. I roll my eyes, digging for another forkful of pecan pie.

“Oh, do you control the weather? That’s impressive. You should’ve said.”

“Cady. Come on.”

“What’s that?” I nudge Jasper’s foot under the table with my own. “I’m sorry, I have a rare medical condition. I can’t actually hear apologies when it isn’t the person’s fault.”

Jasper snorts and stares out of the window again.

We’ve lit candles and spaced them around the small break room. It smells comforting in here, like the inhale you take right before blowing out a birthday cake, and thanks to a whole day of baking in industrial-sized ovens, this building is toasty-warm.

Even the radio is battery operated, meaning we still have our soundtrack of Christmas carols. Being snowed into the bakery with Jasper like this is a freaking dream come true—if he’d only lighten up and stop blaming himself.

Distraction time.

“What do you normally do on Christmas Day?” I ask.

Jasper shrugs one massive shoulder. “Order pizza, lay horizontal on my couch, and watch whatever sports channel I click past first.” He’s still frowning out of the window. “Not veryinteresting, but after a whole December of double shifts, I’m beat.” He turns to me, and those piercing blue eyes send a shiver down my spine. “How about you?”

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