Page 131 of Bake the Town Red

Watching.

Noises carry from inside.

Showtime.

“I’ve had my eye on you for a while, Ben.” Dahlia’s sweet saccharine voice reaches from behind the door separating the back-back room and the baking room.

“You have?” He doesn’t sound incredulous.

He should. Should be thanking his lucky stars a girl like my Dahlia acknowledged his pathetic existence.

Well…

Maybe this particular man shouldn’t.

“Of course.” Dahlia giggles, then sighs dramatically. “Until you showed up with your girlfriend. Broke my heart to learn you were off-limits.”

A surge of jealousy bursts in my stomach. Poisons my blood. It’s worse than any other venom. Thisthinglatches around my sanity and tugs. Hard.

I’m a stupid, territorial idiot for feeling that. I’m aware I am.

Dahlia and I discussed her victim this morning. She explained the situation. Why this man deserves a punishment. When he’d visit her shop without his girlfriend, Ben would talk to other women on the phone. It didn’t take a genius to figure out he was cheating when he said things likeI’d come to visit after the controlling bitch went to bed.

Cheating fucker.

Dahlia doesn’t like him. She doesn’t mean it when she opens the door for him and bats her lashes at this Ben fucker. She didn’t wear a skin-tight black dress over her chastity belt to highlight her sexy-as-sin curves forhim.

It’s a trap. Just a trap.

I’m a jealous sonofabitch regardless.

“Off-limits?” He saunters inside Dahlia’s death trap. “To you, sweet stuff?”

Sweet stuff? The fuck?

The vein in my throat pulses. Both of my hands flatten against the wall. Every muscle in my body poised to strike.

I won’t. Won’t make a sound.

“Are you sure?”

“Never.” The hedge fund manager in his blue expensive suit makes a mistake. He turns his gaze from Dahlia to the room, examining it.

While she locks the door behind them.

His eyes roam over the old paint on the walls. The black tarp he’s stepping on. The table with the three silver bowls that are being heated on the stove and the piping bags.

The entitled piece of shit has a smile cracking on his lips. He gets this isn’t a part of her bakery.

My guess is, he thinks it’s some sort of a sex dungeon. A kink room that he can brag about to his friends later.

He won’t be bragging to anyone anymore. He won’t be doing anything, anymore, period.

My woman has that covered.

“No one owns this cock.” He grabs his junk as if it’s fucking gold, and I seethe. The vulgar piece of shit doesn’t care that he has his back to Dahlia. That she can’t see his vile gesture. He doesn’t need a crowd other than his repulsive self. “God made it perfect. And something this perfect isn’t meant to be kept away. I’m just doing what my creator would’ve wanted. Spreading the love.”

Spread the STDs more like it. I roll my eyes, wondering what douchebag school he picked that up from.

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