Page 170 of Knot Baked Out For This
Oh. Oh fuck.
"PERFECT!" Reverie screams. "Sensual bakery goddess energy! Give me more!"
"I'm going to die," I announce. "Right here. Of mortification."
"Not yet," Luca says, and something in his voice makes me turn. He's got the whipped cream can—when did he get that?—and a look that promises trouble.
"Luca, no."
"Trust me."
"Last time you said that, I ended up burning roses at dawn."
"And how did that work out?"
Magnificently. But that's not the point.
He steps closer, and I'm frozen, watching him like prey watches a predator. He touches my cheek gently, then applies the smallest dot of whipped cream.
"What—"
Rowan leans in from behind, licks it off, and my brain completely shuts down.
"Her scent just spiked!" Levi announces helpfully. "She smells like horny vanilla!"
"LEVI!"
"What? It's true! Tell her, Luca!"
"It's true," Luca confirms, clicking the camera remote he somehow acquired. "Very horny vanilla."
"I hate all of you."
"No you don't," Rowan murmurs against my ear. "You love us."
"Temporarily hate."
"Fair."
The "professional" photoshoot devolves from there. Levi starts a whipped cream war that has Mrs. Patterson tutting from the craft booth. Luca takes approximately seven hundred photos of me laughing as Rowan and Levi wrestle over the last pie. Reverie directs us through increasingly ridiculous poses—"Now pretend you're surprised by pumpkins! Now show autumn your sensual side! Now look longingly at the corn maze!"
"How does one look longingly at corn?" I ask.
"With passion!" she insists.
"It's corn!"
"Passionate corn!"
By the time we're done, I'm covered in whipped cream and hay, my carefully styled hair is a disaster, and I haven't stopped laughing in twenty minutes.
"Perfect," Reverie declares, reviewing shots on her camera. "The agency is going to die. You look so happy and natural and—oh, this one where Rowan's got you dipped like you're tangoing? FRAME IT."
"Let me see—NO. Delete that immediately!"
"Never! It's going in the wedding slideshow!"
"What wedding?!"
