Locked on her face, his smoldering gaze sent crackles along her skin.
Heat bloomed and she took a hurried sip of water, in danger of spontaneously combusting at any minute. “Is that why you started writing then?
I mean the monster stuff, not the drinking.”
“I started writing to get them out of my head, yeah, but more just poured back in.” Pushing his plate away, he propped both elbows on the table and leaned in. She mimicked his stance until their faces were only inches apart. Bright white teeth flashed against the darkness of his split lip. “After Gina moved out, I suddenly had too much time on my hands. Idle hands are the devil’s playground, you know, so I decided to write down all the stories I told her over the years. It just kept growing and before I knew it, I had a
manuscript…and it sat in a drawer for six months.”
“And what, New York invaded your bedroom
and read it under the bed?”
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He shrugged with a sheepish grin. “No. I
busted my ankle at work and ended up on my ass for eight weeks. A friend read it and asked me what I was going to do with it. I didn’t have an answer. All that night I thought about it and decided, what the hell, the worst thing that could happen is it would give some agent a good laugh at the idiot redneck. But the joke was on me and I got an offer before my ankle healed.”
“Male friend or female friend?”
“He married my sister.” He winked at her.
Livvy sipped her water. “You said Gina moved out? When did she live with you?”
Defense flashed in his eyes. On the heels of the defense was something flickering, something fearful. Without thought, she reached for his hand and found it fisted on the table. She covered it with hers and waited.
“After I got out…I petitioned for custody of Gina. She belonged with me, not strangers. It took a while but it was finally granted. The court system was always hovering nearby, waiting for me to screw up. I wasn’t about to let that happen.
I always heard the monsters but I was too busy keeping a roof over her head, making sure she had what she needed, to do much storytelling. I did some but it was more of a hobby. When she got married, I was lost. I just started pouring out words then.”
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Livvy rubbed his fist until it relaxed. Slowly, he turned his palm to cup hers and focused his eyes on her water glass.
“Liv, last night… You’re the only person I’ve ever told any of that. It’s not something I’m proud of, by any means.”
“I know.”
Her breathy whisper made the candle flutter and his eyes leaped to the flame before settling on her face. The tense lines around his mouth softened. “But you didn’t damn me. Thank you.”
“Thank you for telling me, for trusting me.”
His lips grazing her knuckles sent spirals of want licking up her bones. She doubted even the most rigid morality code would protest a kiss on the hand but his kisses, the way his tongue followed his lips with tiny little licks, the way his mouth never really left her skin, was one of the most erotic things she had ever felt. She swallowed in sudden hunger that had nothing to do with food.
She slipped her fingers from his and sent him a wistful smile. “I have to get back to work.”
“I wish someone else could do that damn
cake,” he muttered. “At least let me keep you company while you do the Betty Crocker thing.
You shouldn’t be alone there after dark anyway.”
A softness rose in her chest. “You’re sweet, Murphy.”
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“I’m many things but sweet isn’t one of them.”
He leaned back, studying her with speculative eyes. “You’ve never called me John. Why?”
She tilted her head and laughed. “Don’t you remember Andrea’s linking our names? The
Grease
thing? I decided in that instance I wasn’t going to play into that game. Now I can’t help it, I think of you as Murphy. Does it bother you?”
“No, it’s fine. Do you want to know what I thought of the minute I saw you?” The devilish note in his voice tickled up her spine and she shivered. She knew exactly what he had thought or at least had a good idea. She wanted to hear him say it. She needed to hear him say it.
“Tell me.”
“I thought you were made for pure sin.”
“Sin, huh? That sounds…tempting.”
His look scorched her with a pure sexual heat.
The unbridled longing on his face warmed her blood and she slid her foot out of her shoe and found his leg. Her toes creeping under his pant leg elicited a deep noisy breath.
“Livvy, be careful. I’m not drunk tonight and I’m tired of cold showers.”
“Me, too.”
Chapter Six
“I love Pam,” Livvy whispered into the oversized walk-in cooler.
“What?”
“She did the fondant and all the scroll work.
All I have left is the detailing.” She whirled and smiled. “I can’t afford to hire another pastry chef.
Pam doesn’t have any formal training but she’s a baker’s dream. She has quirky talents, like she can smooth fondant like a pro but simple roses are beyond her. She refuses to do them. Forget dragées—she calls them Satan’s balls—and
Cornelli Lace makes her scream. But she can do a Lambeth design better than I can.”
John quirked an eyebrow. “I see your mouth moving and know you’re talking, but I have no clue what language you’re speaking.”
“Sugar talk.” She laughed.
John helped her move the small but heavy
tiered cake to a stainless worktable. The normally bustling space was quiet, and their voices echoed in the cool room. Forgoing her standard work coat or even an apron, Livvy grabbed the clipboard with the cake details off the pegboard and started 142
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gathering materials. With proficient movements, she was soon cranking out roses.
After every few petals, she glanced at John.
This store was her baby and she was proud of it.
She wanted him to be impressed. Satisfaction filled her as he glanced around at the pristine work area with its dual stainless tables running the length of the room. Long hard years of work had earned her the right to straighten her spine in ownership.
She’d found the means to make sure she never fell into the trap her mother had, looking the other way as her husband took lover after lover. The early lesson had hit home for Livvy.
Never be so
weak that you swallow betrayal as your lot in life.
No one could describe Livvy as weak.
She frowned at the rose forming in her hand.
Now if she could only get a little stronger. The April balloon payment on her business mortgage had wiped out most of her savings but that was what she’d been saving for. She made it, in full and on time. But making the new higher post-balloon monthly mortgage payments was straining her thin budget. She needed a money booster now that could produce a steady flow.
“Why Sugar Shack?” John ripped her from her less-than-sweet thoughts. “I’d think you’d be the more upscale type name.”
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Livvy smiled. “This place used to be a candy store, but it’d been closed a while when I bought it. I was cutting corners every place I could, trying to save money. I had my brothers, my cousins and friends all pitching in to help clean and paint and whatever. Anyway, several nights my brothers were supposed to be working here late but nothing ever got done. So, I stopped by unannounced, flipped on the florescent lights and found both of them buck naked in different alcoves with their prospective girlfriends.”
“Ouch.” John winced. “Talk about mood
killer.”
Livvy snorted. “Even though I put a stop to that, they started calling this place the Sugar Shack and the name just stuck.”
“I like it, though. It’s kind of sexy and playful.”
“If you want sexy and playful…” Livvy let the flirty statement hang until John arched a questioning brow. “Go read the top rack of the display case out in the main storefront. The entire top tier is from the Adult Cravings line.”
“Adult cravings,” John repeated, crossing his arms. Carnal lust deepened his eyes to night-sea blue. “What kind of cravings do you have, Liv?”
“Do you mean me or the store?”
The air crackled with innuendo. “Either.”
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“Well, I told you about the Chocolate Orgasms.
We also make Buttercrotch Crunch, Lemon Lick-her bars, Pink Layer Soufflés, Double Chocolate-Chip Studmuffins, Cinnamon Red Hot Lovers, Peanut Butter Nookies, Sugared Sixty-Nines, and my favorite, Triple Cheesecake Climax.”
“Triple climax, huh? Now there’s an
interesting personal challenge.” A wealth of flirtation hid behind his smile. One petal drooped.
“You’re distracting me, Murphy.”
“Sorry.” His tone implied he wasn’t at all.
“The sooner I finish this, the sooner we can leave.”
“And do what?” he challenged.
Livvy took her time and completed the bloom before looking at him. “That depends on what I’m craving tonight.”
He drew a deep breath, lust flaring like a match before he walked away. “Work faster, Liv.”
John strolled, hands in his pockets, staring at the strange oversized machines that created delicate pastries. The large ovens were taller than he was and placed at the far end of the room, away from the decorating area. The opposite wall was the back entry to the display shelves which dominated the store front. He shivered when he opened the refrigerated side door, the cold pooling around him in a pale swirl.
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“Help yourself to anything you want,” Livvy called, not moving her eyes from the flower nail in her hand.
Hopping onto the table opposite her, John tasted the Belgian chocolate. The decadent sound from his lips sent shivers through her thighs.
“Damn, Liv, was this from the top rack? It’s like sex on a fork.”
“
That’s
a Chocolate Orgasm.”
John devoured the brownie, licking the plastic fork clean. “I’m hooked. It’s like chocolate crack.
You must be Jenny Craig’s nightmare.”
She burst out laughing and he joined her. The sound created a tender quiver in her heart. The grooves around his lips proved how little he truly laughed in life. Hope bloomed as she realized with her his laughter came easily.
Livvy set the last of thirty-four roses to dry on a parchment-lined former and looked up. John was scribbling on the back of a pricing sheet.
“What are you doing?”
“Nothing, doodling.” He smirked and held up his drawing of a lopsided cake with a clock springing gears and coils into the air. “This is what killing time in a bakery makes me think of.”
Laying the flower nail aside, she crossed to him and took the paper. “Murphy, this is
amazing.”
“Nah, it’s just me goofing off.”
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She stepped away to prevent him taking the paper back.
“Come on, I was fooling around. Throw it
away.”
“No. Can I have this? I mean, I think I can make and sell this cake. It would be a great idea for like a fortieth birthday ‘Beat the Clock’ type thing.”
“Sure, whatever. It’s just scrap work. I usually just pitch stuff like that away.”
Livvy thumbtacked the drawing onto the
corkboard and went back to the worktable. With the roses drying, she started covering the cake with Swiss dots. The work went quickly. Just as she finished the dotting, she found him staring at the splat board beside the deep utility sink.
“Ugly, isn’t it?” She quickly removed the bag tip.
“It looks like a paint ball wall.”
“That’s where we test the air brush, mix colors and clean out the nozzles.”
He tilted his head, took a step back and snorted.
“It’s a dragon.”
Frowning, she circled the long metal table and stared at the multicolored wood board with him.
“You sure you have your contacts in? I don’t see a dragon.”
“It’s there,” he promised, “just waiting to come out.” With a mischievous grin, he grabbed a black Inez Kelley
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marker off the assignment board and uncapped it.
In minutes, he had drawn looping curves around swirls of color.
Livvy stood mesmerized as a dragon came to life on her splat board. High red and yellow arcs of spray became wide-spread wings. The
concentrated blue closest to the sink was a head with broad nostrils shooting flames of orange and red. Its wide-bowled belly held a rainbow of scales. Purple and black overshots became a flanged tail. The feet and sharp toes ended below the color line and Livvy knew exactly where she’d spray the next pigment burst.
“Okay, how did you see that? I stare at that thing every day and never saw anything in there before. Now it seems obvious.”
He replaced the marker on the white board and turned with a shrug. “I don’t know. It was just there. Things talk to me, show themselves. I guess because I listen. My imagination’s one thing no one could ever take from me.” He pulled back, retreated inside himself. “So are you finished?”
Livvy rolled her shoulders to ease a knot of exhaustion and nodded. John moved the now-completed cake back into the cooler while she filled the deep stainless sink. It only took them about half an hour to put the kitchen back in order for her Sunday crew. She flipped off her work lights with a loud sharp click, plunging the once-148
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bright room into shadows. Streaming from the display case, the only illumination was tinged faintly blue.
John’s arms came around her body and he
nuzzled her neck. In the cool room, his body was warm, firm and enveloping. The pose was so reminiscent of their first kiss, her breath caught and her pulse flew into overdrive. “Are you going to bite me again?”
“Maybe.”
“Why don’t you grab some beignets out of the case for our breakfast in the morning?”
“Our? Are you staying with me tonight then?”
Pregnant with meaning, the question hung for a split second before she smiled. She laid her head back on his shoulder. “Yes, I am.”
John didn’t answer, simply released her and hurried to the back hatch of the case. He oozed lusty impatience—absolute sinful, mouthwatering impatience. He was a man on a mission and she was that mission.