AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Perfect.”
He sends off a text just before he unlocks the truck and opens the passenger door to help me inside. It’s a perfect Arizona day, cloudless and blue. The slight breeze ruffles my hair and my skirt. I’m drinking in the blessed sunlight. My earlier peek at Seattle’s forecast showed days of gloom and rain ahead.
The ten-minute drive to the bakery is full of classic grunge tunes and awareness-heavy silence. Hayden steers a vehicle like he leads his life—competently, confidently, and without much apology. It’s one of the things that most attracts me to him. He doesn’t spend a lot of time second-guessing himself. If he gets something wrong, he just fixes it.
Is that what he’s trying to do with me?
When he opens my door and holds out his palm, I realize we’ve arrived.
I attempt to brace myself before I put my hand in his, but it’s useless. Hayden’s impact on my restraint is nuclear. Trying not to be affected by him is like trying not to notice a mountain directly in my path.
Impossible.
When our fingers touch, I shudder. It’s pathetic. And his little grin tells me he knows I’m not immune.
I slam the car door and head for the bakery. “Don’t gloat.”
“Not wasting time with that. Are you even going to try convincing me that he satisfies you in bed or are you just going to cede that point to me?”
“What we do in bed is none of your business.”
From behind, he grabs my shoulders and presses my back against his chest, hard from years of physical labor. There’s absolutely no missing the singe of his firm fingers on my skin or the press of his steely erection against my ass.
It’s all I can do not to melt against him.
“Stop it.” I mean the protest to come out forcefully. It’s totally breathy instead.
God, it’s been four awful years since he turned me down. Why can’t I get over this man?
“Give me a chance to make you feel so much better,” he whispers into my ear.
I don’t dare. “We’re here to focus on cakes. If you have sex on the brain, you’re going to be sorely disappointed.”
“When you’re around, I always have sex on the brain.” He opens the door to the shop for me, revealing a long glass case full of sugary temptations under a fascinating floral ceiling painted in a wash of white, grays, and pale pink. “But I’ll be a good boy while we’re here.”
His words do crazy things to my equilibrium. For years, I’ve fantasized about being naked with Hayden, about his large, capable hands gripping my hips as he pushes his way inside me and makes me his for the first time.
With his hot palm settling on the small of my back as he ushers me into the cool, white interior and sets my good sense ablaze isn’t a good time to think about that.
I should resist baiting him. I should…and yet I send a quelling glare his way. “Zip it. I already know you’re all talk.”
Hayden laughs, something low and throaty and totally self-satisfied. “Oh, sweet pea, I’ll be happy to show you how wrong you are. All you have to do is ditch the deadbeat, and I’ll be all over you all the time. And I won’t just fuck you until you have an orgasm. That’s too easy. I’ll fuck you until I’ve imprinted myself on your soul.”
He’s already managed that without ever touching me.
But I’m saved from replying when a competent thirtysomething blonde wearing a French twist and a smile appears from the back of the bakery to stand under a modern chandelier. “Can I help you?”
“I’m Perrie Atkins.”
She smiles and shakes my hand. “My last-minute bride. Welcome. I’m Misty, the owner.” Then she turns her attention to Hayden and sticks out her arm in a professional greeting. “And you must be the impatient fiancé. What was your name?”
“Hayden.” He doesn’t correct her presumption that he’s my groom.
“Actually—”
“We’re really eager to taste cakes today and check one more thing off our list.” He wraps his arm around me and pulls me against him. “Aren’t we, sweet pea?”
I’m not sure what the devil he’s up to, pretending I’ll be marrying him this weekend. But instead of making a scene about something that doesn’t matter, I shrug him off. “I really don’t have a flavor in mind, like I said on the phone. So I’m eager to try some samples and make decisions today.”
