Page 14 of Blood Sugar

Four hours of sleep had done nothing for my agitation. After locking up the bakery, I paced my apartment and debated calling Amelie to chew her out, but that wouldn’t do any good, and I didn’t want her stressed out at her new job.

In the end, I’d faceplanted on the sofa and slept for a few hours with a meditation video playing on my phone. When my alarm went off, I jerked awake so hard I fell onto the rug. It wasn’t my best moment.

My opossum familiar, Ralph, had squealed at me, his silver fur puffed up to make him look bigger. It took extra fruit in his breakfast for him to forgive me for scaring him.

Now, I needed to run the bakery all day, and then face Sadie for the night shift for day two of her training. I imagined her curled up in her apartment, probably with a ruffled comforter tucked around her. I bet she had one of those dressing tables with the oversized light bulbs all around the mirror, like a vintage movie star.

She dressed like she was from the 1950s, and I loved it. It probably meant she was from that era, making her about eighty years old. But that fact meant nothing after I’d grabbed her ass and hauled her lush body against mine. She was so far out of my league, it wasn’t even funny.

Fuck! I should be worrying about the bakery and the upcoming Pumpkin Festival!

Instead, I was replaying the way she moaned as I ground against her heat, as her venom coursed through my blood. Maybe I needed some sort of cleansing spell to clear my mind. That was outside of my expertise, but I could call Amelie’s coven. Sighing, I added it to my mental to-do list.

An hour later, I opened up the bakery and began boxing up orders for the customers I knew would be coming by during the day. Every time the bell chimed, my stupid heart leaped, hoping it was Sadie. It was light outside, hex it all! She was a vampire; she wouldn’t be anywhere outside until after sunset.

Maybe I should install UV filters on the windows of the bakery in case she ever gets caught here after sunrise—and probably my apartment upstairs too, just to be safe.

In between customers, I rolled out cinnamon buns and nestled them onto the baking sheets to rise so we could bake them later when Sadie was here. Once that task was done, I started writing out my plan for teaching Sadie to be a baker. If we were doing this, we would do it correctly.

My heart was racing by the time purple streaked across the sky. One hour to go.

Closing up the bakery, I slipped upstairs and made myself a little dinner. My stomach was churning, so I only ate half of it, and tossed the rest in the fridge. Did Sadie still like to eat human food? Many vampires lost interest and the need to eat food as they aged, but I had no idea at what age that happened. She’d certainly liked the frosting last night. Picturing her tongue curling around her fingers as she cleaned the frosting off had me getting hard. She’d better not do that again or I’d be hiding behind the counter all night.

Fifteen minutes to go.

I paced the bakery, debating about getting some of our baking started. I needed to teach her the basics, and also prepare all of tomorrow’s pastries.

Finally, the bell chimed as Sadie arrived. The urge to bound into the front room like a fucking golden retriever hit me, but I stiffened, refusing to move until the impulse passed. With a calm exhale and a polite smile, I went to greet my new trainee baker.

I was cool, collected, professional.

Fuck.

She was wearing a red button-down blouse, the kind that formed a heart over her cleavage, perfectly framing the swells of her perfect, small tits.

Shit. I was so screwed.

Don’t get hard. Think about burnt cinnamon buns. Moldy pumpkins. Feral black cats. Anything but those soft, luscious breasts.

All the blood in my brain rushed south, and I fumbled for an apron, shoving it at her so she covered up those gorgeous tits.

My eyes stayed on the mostly-empty bakery case, counting the crumbs I still needed to wipe up until Sadie spoke.

“Hey, Rowen? Can you tie the back of this for me?”

Hecate’s taint.

Sadie had the apron tied at the waist, but the neck tie was undone. One small hand held her hair up in a messy bun as she turned her back to me.

My hand flexed, aching to reach for her. Swallowing, I forced myself to gently take the strings and tie them into a bow at the nape of her neck. As I drew back, the pads of my fingers grazed her silky skin.

Sadie shivered at my touch, and I had to close my eyes for a moment while I gathered my composure. When I opened them, she had turned, and she looked up at me through those thick lashes. How was I going to get through hours of this tonight—and the next day, and the next?

“So what are we doing tonight?” she asked sweetly.

My voice was hoarse, and clearing my throat didn’t help. “We start with the basics.”

“Alrighty,” she said, smiling.