Page 17 of Beautiful Mess

“Then what are you making?”

“Cupcakes, like Blakely said.” Tossing me a quick glance over her shoulder, she adds, “Really oughta get that hearing checked, old man.”

There she is.

Resting my hip on the edge of the counter, I fold my arms over my chest while I observe her finding her way around my kitchen. Once she has all the ingredients laid out before her, she grabs her phone out of her back pocket, messing with it for a moment before music begins playing. My lip curves into a grin when Don Henley’sAll She Wants To Do Is Dancefills the air around us.

“Still into the 80s and 90s music, I see,” I murmur, remembering the way she played music in my truck that night.

A genuine smile tugs at her lips as she nods and glances over at me. “It’s not all I listen to, but itisthe only music I play while I’m baking. It’s what my mom would play when I’d?—”

“Bake with her on the weekends,” I finish for her.

Her head snaps in my direction, eyes focused on mine, a wrinkle in her brow. “How’d you know that?”

“You told me…that night I drove you home.”

Her throat works as she swallows, an unreadable expression on her face. “Right, yeah.” She nods before diving into preparing the cupcakes.

“When did you know you wanted to be a baker?” It’s one question among many I’ve wanted to ask for quite some time, but it’s never come up. The idea of sitting around the firepit in my backyard, tossing back a few cold ones, while I discover the answers to all the questions I want to know should take me aback, but it doesn’t. The truth is, despite her hatred of me, I find everything about Grace Astor fascinating.

“Since I was a kid, really,” she answers, wiping her hands on a tea towel before resting her hip on the edge of the counter as she looks over at me. “It started on the weekends with my mom, when my little kid dream of owning a bakery blossomed. But it wasn’t until I was in college that I knew I wanted to be serious about it. There’s this French pastry baker, his name is Louis Auclair, that I would watch on the Food Network almost daily in my dorm room. He’s incredibly talented and somebody I really admire. He’s self-taught, and his family came from nothing. The empire he’s built and the community he’s created is inspiring.”

“Do you still watch him?”

Shaking her head, she murmurs, “No, he’s not on TV much anymore. A few years back, he started doing these special, super hard to get into, classes for bakers. You get to be taught by Louis Auclair himself for the day. Can you imagine the wealth of knowledge you could learn from just one of those classes?”

“Have you ever taken one?”

“God no,” she snorts. “I would love to, but for one, they’re insanely expensive, and while the bakery does quite well, I cannot justify spending that type of money on a single class. And for two, they’re only offered a few times a year in New York and Paris. They’re hard to get into.” She shrugs before getting back to the cake mix. “Maybe one day.”

I allow myself another minute or two to watch her before I decide it would be far less weird if I made myself busy. Lasagna is in the oven and should be ready soon, so I get to work preparing a small salad before slicing up some fruit for the kids. If Grace’s kids are anything like Willow, they’ll plow through the fruit easily when we sit down for dinner. As I’m spinning the lettuce, I let my gaze drift over to the woman to my left who I can’t seem to keep my eyes away from. I’m drawn to her, to her energy. To the way her hips sway from side to side to the Tim McGraw song now playing, humming along to the tune. Her attention is focused on the task in front of her, like the rest of the world fades away when the music is on and she’s doing what she loves.

“Didn’t your mama ever teach you it’s not polite to stare?” Grace asks teasingly without sparing me a glance, a small smirk tugged on her lips.

Clearing my throat, my cheeks heat from being caught. “Not used to somebody in my kitchen, that’s all,” I lie.

“Mmhmm, sure,” she hums before bending down to grab the cupcake tin out from under the oven. “With all the women you take to bed, I find it hard to believe none of them cook for you after.” Turning her head, my throat tightens as I watch her gaze drag down the front of me before coming back up. “You look like themake-me-a-sandwichtype of man.”

A chuckle rumbles in my chest as I pause what I’m doing to stuff my hands into my pockets. “And what the hell is a ‘make-me-a-sandwich’ type of man?”

Grace huffs out a laugh while she pours the batter into the cupcake tin. “The type of man to schmooze a beautiful woman at the bar, buying her drinks and talking a big game about how much he’s going to rock her world, only to bring her back to one of their houses and proceed to give her the most mediocre dick she’s ever experienced, then have the audacity to ask if she came.” With a smug grin on her face, she peers over at me and adds, “And spoiler alert, she’s lying almost every single time,” before returning her attention to the batter. “And when y’all are finished, you tell her to be agood little girl,or something equally patronizing, and go make you a sandwich because, you know, it’ssotiring pumping your pathetic dick into nice pussy for three minutes at full speed.”

She finishes filling the tins, setting the bowl back down on the counter. I don’t have any time to respond to her absurd assumption of me because I’m too enthralled with her presence in this space. Heat races down my spine, settling deep in my balls as I watch her swipe her index finger along the edge of the bowl, gathering the leftover cake batter. Then she brings the coated finger up to her parted lips and sucks it into her mouth, licking it clean.

It’s enough to have my cock swelling behind my jeans. The last thing I need is for her to glance over at me and realize I’m sporting a chub. But I can’t look away. I’m enraptured. How sexy it would look having her on her knees in front of me, peering up at me from beneath her dark lashes as she wrapped her pink, glossy lips around my cock and sucked me the way she did her finger. The way her hair is tied down in two braids on either side of her head, and how hot it would be to bend her over the counter right here and show her how fucking wrong she is about me as I make her come harder than she ever has while I wrap the braids around my fists and tug on them, making her scream for me.

I wonder if her mouth is sassy in the bedroom too.

Would she fight me for control or give it up easily?

My cock twitches as I imagine how her moans would sound to my ears. Would she be breathy and needy? Or maybe she’s a screamer? I imagine the way she’d look when I flip her over and fuck her face to face as she came all over my cock. The way her eyebrows would pinch together, her jaw would go slack, as she watched me with hooded eyes and flushed cheeks. The way I know her perky little tits would bounce with each thrust.Fuck,I bet they’re nice.

When she swipes up another glob of batter onto her finger, something carnal comes over me, and I close the distance between us in two long strides, wrapping a hand around her wrist before she has a chance to bring the digit up to her mouth again. A gasp falls from Grace’s lips as her eyes snap up to mine. I take another small step toward her, bringing our bodies flush as I meet her wild gaze and say, my voice full of gravel, “Let’s get one thing straight, Sin. If I had you in my bed, I wouldn’t have to ask if you came.” When I pause, she swallows hard, staring up at me unblinking, the air around us sizzling. “I’d already know you did when you flood my face and scream out for me. The difference between fucking boys and fucking men is, men are confident, and attentive. We don’t need to ask because it’s obvious when we make you come. And we do…every single time. More than once.”

Tightening my grip on her wrist, I bring her hand up to my mouth, her gaze quickly dropping down to watch as I lean in and close my lips around her batter-coated finger. Heat floods her eyes, and her lips stay parted in surprise as I swirl my tongue around, sucking it until it’s nice and clean. I don’t drop her wrist for a moment, electricity crackling between the two of us as I look into her eyes. A long moment of silence drones on, but it’s not awkward. My body is on fire, and I can’t remember the last time I’ve been this turned on, and I know she is too. Even if she’d never admit it. The look in her bright green eyes and the shallow rise and fall of her chest give her away.

Behind me, the timer goes off, startling her and ending the moment. Taking a step back, I clear my throat and adjust my erection. “Dinner’s ready.” Grabbing the potholders out of the drawer, I pull open the oven door like I didn’t just have her finger in my mouth.

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