Page 26 of Cupcake
Ten
The air vents of thewalk-in cooler blew a whisper of cold air across my neck. I might have noticed the shiver of charged electricity run down my spine if it weren’t for the aggravation filling my soul. “Where are my eggs?”
Nothing annoyed me more than being told my station was ready for the day only to find a key ingredient missing. I was going to hunt him down, and—the eggs are still on the shelf!
“Gah! It must be Monday,” I griped to the empty, cold space. I grabbed the tray and backed up to the door, nudging the handle with my generous bottom. It didn’t budge. I pushed on it again, expecting the latch to click over, but it wasn’t opening. “Great! Now I’m locked in the cooler!”
I absolutely did not need this today. I had a ton of orders to finish before we opened, and it was already five a.m. It didn’t help that I had the slightest hangover from my excessive and embarrassing drinking escapades. I wanted to groan every time I thought about spending hours with Brady last night with my filter disabled. Drunk Haylee said things sober Haylee would never have said. Brady knew it, too. He took advantage of the situation. At least when it came to getting me to talk about the things I otherwise wouldn’t talk about. Not going to lie, sober Haylee hates him a little bit because of it. Okay, she doesn’t, but sober Hayleeisembarrassed and wishes she could do last night over.
I balanced the tray on one arm while I flicked the emergency button on with my free hand. That would shut down the cold air and alert those in the kitchen that I needed help. In the meantime, I had to cool my heels in here, quite literally.
“Did someone say locked in the cooler?”
Surprised by the intrusion, I spun around, jostling the eggs when the end of the tray clipped a shelf. Several smashed against my white uniform, leaving streaks of disgusting yellow goo dripping down my chest.
“Seriously, Brady!” I exclaimed, setting the remaining eggs down and searching for a towel.
He flicked his down off his shoulder and started swiping at my coat. “Sorry, I thought you knew I was in here.”
I angrily snatched the towel away. I didn’t like his hand so close to my chest or the way he caressed my breasts with every brush of the microfiber towel. Well, that wasn’t entirely true. I liked it, but I would never let on. I thought about the conversation we’d had last night and decided I didn’t need to egg him on. See what I did there? I snorted at my joke until his statement brought me back to the present.
“Why would I know that? You’re always off doing something other than your job,” I grumped. “I had no eggs at my workstation!” My hands flailed around while bits of eggshell floated through the air like confetti.
Brady shook his head with a sexy smile on his face. “You wear egg yolks surprisingly well, cupcake, but then again, you wear everything well.”
He was not taking me seriously, and it was starting to piss me off. “The eggs, Brady. Why are they in here and not out there?” I asked, the volume of my voice increasing with each word.
When he grasped my wrist and lowered my arm, I couldn’t help but notice his hand was still incredibly warm, even after standing in the cooler. I was starting to shiver, but if he kept touching me, I’d be hot and bothered in no time.
“The eggs are still in here because the recipe requires cold eggs. I couldn’t put them out until you were ready for them. I guess you didn’t read my note.”
I tossed my hand up, the one he wasn’t holding onto—still. “I didn’t see a note! I have a ton of work to do, and now I’m stuck in here with you!”
His lid came down in a wink of sexiness that had me swallowing hard. “Anyone ever tell you that you’re sexy as hell when you’re all riled up.”
“You’re skating on razor-thin ice of sexual harassment, Brady,” I said from between clenched teeth. Something in his smoldering expression of explosive maleness told me he didn’t care.
He took a step closer to me until his white coat was sharing the splattering of yolks with mine. He pressed his hot, hard chest into mine and backed me up against the rack in the cooler. The contrast of temperatures was startling. The cold against my back grounded me while the heat of him against my breasts made them tingle with desire and anticipation. I hated and loved every single second of it.
“Really? Razor-thin?” he asked. I barely nodded and tried to swallow over the lump in my throat. “All I can say is, after seven years, it’s sure as hell time to fall in.”
His warm lips landed on mine, and in surprise, I grabbed the front of his coat and held on for dear life. His lips teased mine into not listening to me when I told them to stop kissing him. They kissed him back with everything they had, and the audible moan from my throat said I didn’t even care. It said I liked the way the hard lines of his muscles pressed against me. It said I liked the way his hands kneaded my shoulders until his hand came up to grasp the back of my neck tenderly.
Unable to resist the temptation any longer, my traitorous hand slipped up to tangle in the soft hair at the nape of his neck. The silky-soft smoothness on my hand was a sharp contrast to his hard body and the way his lips were firmly planted on mine.
He angled his head in to get closer, to take the kiss deeper, his hand now pressed against my cheek to move my head to his desires. When the tip of his tongue ran along the ridge between my lips, another moan of desire ripped from my throat, right before my mouth fell open to allow his tongue entrance. Oh God, he was silky smooth everywhere.
He stroked my tongue with his in a way that said, ending up in his bed would never be a bad thing. When that magic tongue started its trek across the roof of my mouth, I nearly came right there surrounded by broken eggs and piles of cupcakes. Why did he have to be such a good kisser? This kiss was just going to make it harder to resist him. Everything was going to be awkward after—his tongue went back to mine to tangle with it roughly. It was almost as if he knew where my mind went, and he was going to drag it back one long stroke at a time. His hips bucked against mine, the hardness evident in his thin bakery pants proof of how affected he was by the kiss, too. He was most definitely enjoying this unexpected tangle of tongues.
Was it unexpected, though? He’d been trying to get in my pants for years, though I never believed it to be anything but a challenge he couldn’t resist. A conquest he wanted to prove he could make. Now, I wasn’t so sure.
His soft moan filled my head and drove every thought out of it, but how much I liked kissing him. It drove away every thought but how orgasmic it would be to make love to him with long, slow strokes until he came with my name on his lips. At the thought, my hips pressed into his, and my hand tightened against the back of his neck. I was desperate for air, but at the same time, I was desperate for the taste of him.
