Page 95 of Cream and Punishment
“What if I went with you?” I blurted. “Would you call them back and see if the job is still available?”
Sure, I had a good life here. Plans for a future here, now. Friends I loved and a bakery to buy. But Florida needed bakers, too, right? And my friends would still be my friends even from a distance.
I’d risk it. I’d go with him. But only if I knew there was more tous.Likingsomeone wasn’t enough reason to pack up my whole life and follow them, no matter my track record for moving on a whim.
He cocked his head to the side. “You’d move toFlorida? Even with all the snakes and gators there?”
I grimaced. Right. The local fauna, which I’d conveniently forgotten about while mentally declaring my unyielding fealty to him. “Honestly, Florida sounds like Hell on earth. But if you’re there, it’s worth it. You’re my safety.”
“Like the football position?”
I stared blankly at him. “I need you to understand that I have the absolute bare minimum concept of sports.”
“Right, sorry.” He grinned and motioned for me to go on. “You were saying?”
“You’re my safety,” I repeated, focusing intently on the pillow in my lap. “Or my safe place, I guess. Not because you’re my safeoption, necessarily, but because I feel safe with you. Like I can bare my soul and all my bruises, my sharp edges and soft underbelly to you, and I know I’ll be protected.” I fidgeted with the bow on Giorgio’s corner. “Like I can make mistakes and change and not be afraid of that, because you’ll accept every version of me. Like how I love every version of you.”
His eyes flickered like black flames. “Like how youloveevery version of me?”
Aw,shortbread and melons, I had let that slip, hadn’t I? The L-word had officially entered the chat. After one date with him. Because little things like reason and “easing him into it” didn’t matter whenever I was involved, no, siree.
I groaned and buried my face in Giorgio. It smelled like Max, spicy and masculine with a hint of newness.
“I love you, okay?” I lifted my head and continued, my words tumbling together. “I’ve known it since you pinned me behind the tree in paintball but didn’t want to say anything because,hello, that would freak you out, especially when I thought you hated our kiss and I was the worst kisser ever and you didn’t want me anywhere near you ever again, but then that wasn’t the case at all, yet it was still too soon to tell you—especially when you didn’t know what love was yet and—”
I gasped for air, my lungs filling with his delicious aroma. Thus far, he’d handled the news well, if “well” meant he looked like I’d just told him I could sprout wings and fly across Lake Erie. Shocked, and a little of something else.
I hugged Giorgio tighter. “I know that’s probably freaky to hear, and you don’t have to feel the same way, but I figure, if I’m going to offer to follow you across the country, the sanity ship has already sailed anyway, so you might as well knowwhy, right?”
I fought the urge to disappear into the pillow, to hide until he forgot all about my rapid-fire admission. Instead, I forced myself to wait for him to absorb it all, to give him the chance to decide what he wanted to do about it. I wouldn’t rob him of that choice by running away just to save my delicate heart.
“Dekker,” he murmured, his voice like melted chocolate over crisp rice, “what you described—how I’m your safety—you’re that for me, too. And that’s what I’ve decided love is. It’s safety.”
“And choosing,” I whispered.
“And choosing,” he echoed, tucking a curl behind my ear. “And, wherever we are, I choose you. Iloveyou, Dekker Piper. With my whole—well-meaning but sometimes dumb—heart.”
I laughed, tears gathering along my lashes. “Are you sure we don’t have the same heart? Because that sounds like a freaky accurate description of mine.”
He pulled me into his lap. “You know, sometimes I think we do. And maybe that’s why I’ve always felt a pull toward you, even from the day we met.”
I grinned. “Me, too.”
He caressed my cheek, eyes dark as soot and intense as a volcano. Like he was looking at the most precious treasure in existence. “I can’t promise I won’t have to move later for work, but right now, when I have a say in the matter, I want to stay here. I want to build on the good soil we already have, and I can’t imagine a better place to do that than right where we are.”
“And that’s whatyoureally want?” I asked, my voice breathless as every synapse tuned to his frequency.
His thumb rubbed gentle circles against my jaw. “I wantyou, Chef. Here. Now. And every day after.”
One of the few benefits of feeling things to the extreme was that moments like this, you felt in every pore. Like sunlight became the center of every cell and you contained universes beyond comprehension. And when you loved someone, you loved them with each of those universes.Ineach of those universes. It was too much to handle, but in the best way.
“Now,” Max continued, his eyes flicking to my mouth, “I don’t typically kiss on the first date, but I have beendyingto taste you again, so, with your permi—”
My lips were on his before he finished the last syllable. And, for all the memories of our last kiss, scorching and life-changing as it was, this one blew it out of the water.
He grinned against my mouth before pulling me until I arched into him. He slid his fingers into my hair as far as the curls would allow, and when they stopped him, he gave a gentle tug. An involuntary moan escaped me as I bent to his will.
Every nerve ending lit with holy fire, burning like a jacuzzi on a winter day. Stars collided with our lips, bursting and dancing behind my eyes. Passion like I’d never felt before burst between us with every movement, every push and pull. When I dragged his bottom lip between my teeth, a soft groan escaped him. He tasted like cumin and lime, felt like a sunrise after a cold night, and kissed like there was no tomorrow.
