Sugar Rush (25 page)

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Authors: Donna Kauffman

Tags: #Fiction, #Romance, #Contemporary

BOOK: Sugar Rush
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“I’m just saying, the pressure to give in will be coming at us from all directions, not just from the two of us. But, no matter what, the outcome won’t change. You’ll go. I’ll stay. So ... I know this probably isn’t fair, but I need to know I can count on you to be here for me, so we can get the shows taped. But I also need to trust that you won’t do any more of ... this.” She covered his hand, which was brushing against her cheek, and slowly lowered it.
“You know I’m here for you,” he said.
“And ... the rest? Can I count on you there, too?”
“If it’s just up to me, then you have my word.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means I won’t push you, or nudge you, or do anything to overtly tempt you. But if you’re the one to do the pushing, for whatever reason, whatever the provocation, then ... all bets are off.”
“But—”
“Because I can’t resist you any more than you say you can resist me. Fair’s fair, luv.”
“You do agree with me, though, that we shouldn’t? That its pointless to torture ourselves like that?”
He lifted his hands up beside his head, palms forward, as if in surrender. “I’ll respect your request, Leilani. Unless you say otherwise, it’s hands off. And lips. And mouth. And tongue.”
She swallowed, hard. He’d never been so ... explicit.
A slow grin slid across his face, lighting his eyes with a very different, decidedly wicked glow. For the first time, she could honestly believe he’d come from the rough part of town. There was something elemental in the way he was looking at her, like a man willing to brawl, to fight with his bare hands, if that’s what it took to get what he wanted. It made her skin prickle with awareness ... and her muscles shudder with need.
And her heart ache with want.
“But you should know, Lei, that kissing you, feeling you kissing me back ... didn’t feel much like torture.” He stepped in, and lowered his mouth until his lips were almost, but not quite touching hers. A mere breath of air separated their bodies.
Her breath caught in her throat as his warm, spicy-sweet breath fanned her lips ... lips he’d so recently taken with his own. She quivered when he framed his hands, palms in, then moved them slowly down the outline of her body without ever once touching her. She was trembling by the time he finished.
“And this,” he whispered gruffly, “is never going to go away, whether we will it to or not.”
Chapter 13
“I
don’t know what you said to her during the break, but my God, Baxter, the afternoon tape is ...” Rosemary trailed off, reached forward to the editing panel and punched a button to pause the replay, rewound it, then hit PLAY again. “Damn,” she murmured, then fanned herself as she watched the segment play out. For the third time.
Baxter stood behind the seated Rosemary, silent as he watched the replay.
Damn, indeed
. Bloody damning hell, actually.
He and Lani were doing and saying all the right things, the same things they’d been saying for the camera all morning long. But there was a kind of ... unspoken energy between them now. Smoldering energy. The kind where, any second, you expected one of them to just say the hell with it, clear the counter off with one arm, and get on with an entirely different sort of cooking. The kind usually reserved for pay cable.
Baxter understood it. Hell, he’d lived it for the last torturous ten and a half hours—which, he supposed, was his just desserts, given he’d provoked the whole mood in the first place.
Understanding the source, and cursing himself for pushing them there, didn’t change the fact that he couldn’t stop looking at Lani like she was dessert on a stick. His own personal, delectably private parfait, simply waiting to be devoured, one sinful layer at a time.
He swallowed a groan, and shifted again as he stood, thankful for the long apron still tied around his waist. He glanced down at the movie poster art that had been skillfully airbrushed onto his custom apron, thanks to Lani’s interesting assistant, Dre. He had thought the eclectic collection clever and a fitting contribution to the tone the show was trying to strike, being set in a cupcakery, and featuring its whimsical owner.
Whimsical she might be
, Baxter thought,
but when it comes to smoldering sensuality, even Marilyn Monroe in her movie star prime doesn’t hold a candle to little Miss Snow White.
He’d been attracted to her drive, her focus, her steady demeanor and steadier hand. She’d been steel wrapped in sunshine, a dependable beacon of light he could rely on and trust in his always loud, rushed, chaotic world.
Now he looked at her, with the warm, buttery, bakery sweet scents filling the air, accented with rich, dark, chocolate undertones. . . and all he could think about was adding the taste of her to the mix. He wanted to have her, inhale her, lick, taste, suckle, savor and devour every last inch of her. Like a man craving his next fix and willing to crawl over hot coals to get it.
Oh ... she could make him crawl. At that moment, she could make him howl at the moon.
“Excuse me,” he said, clearing the sudden grit from his throat. “I need to step outside a moment. I’ll be right back.”
“Go home.” Rosemary absently waved him off as she continued to work through the tape. “We’re good.” She was smiling, he noted, which was rare indeed, but the fierce quality to it had him hastening his steps to the back door. Quite frightening, actually. Rosemary. Happy. A new concept, for certain.
He couldn’t think about that right now. He had to get some air, clear his head ... and find a way to calm his body right the bloody hell down.
Of course, as soon as he stepped off the final metal step to the crushed shell lot, it occurred to him there wasn’t really anywhere for him to go. If he skirted out the back alley, he’d be in the town square proper or on one of the main side streets leading from it. Experience had told him even at that late hour, he wouldn’t get far before being stopped by a happy, well-meaning local, eager to chat him up a bit. He’d normally be fine with that, but at the moment, he needed to be alone with his thoughts. And his raging hard-on.
He changed direction, thinking he’d hide out in the prep kitchen for a bit, which should be empty. There was a light on inside, but that didn’t surprise him. With all the buzzing in and out that had been going on, whoever had left last probably hadn’t known they were last out. He gave a quick glance around, but the rest of the crew had apparently retired to their rooms in town, most having been booked into the handful of bed and breakfasts that operated on the island. With the summer season recently over, the owners were happy for the business. There had been talk of getting him a tour bus type deal, where he could make his home away from home at each location, but that had struck him as being rather a bit too rock starish. He’d just bunk locally like the rest.
But, only three nights in, his presence was already proving to be a bit more of a distraction than any of them had anticipated. The citizens of Sugarberry meant well, but their idea of extending hospitality didn’t seem to have any defined boundaries. He didn’t mind the cards left at the desk, or the fresh flowers or baskets of fruit delivered to his room. Or the freshly baked pies, cookies, or casseroles, either. They were all very sweet and he was quite flattered. He did draw the line, however, at being served breakfast. In bed. Unannounced. Though he was sure Alva’s friend Dee Dee had meant well.
Come the next town, he’d have a tour bus. And be grateful for it.
Next town
, he thought, as he shrugged out of the apron, hopped the trailer stairs and ducked quickly inside before anyone spied him and thwarted his getaway. He didn’t want to think about the next town. About leaving Sugarberry. Or, more to the point, leaving Leilani in Sugarberry.
He slapped the door shut behind him, only to hear a short squeal of surprise.
“Holy crap, you scared the daylights out of me!”
Baxter spun around ... and found the subject of his thoughts parked at a worktable at the far end of the trailer, with a half-paper-peeled cupcake in her hands.
“I’d think you’d be sick to death of those right at the moment.” He nodded at the gingerbread cupcake while trying to slow his own adrenaline-accelerated heartbeat. This morning alone they’d had to do at least a dozen takes with her tasting a bite of cupcake and exclaiming for the cameras about all of its delectably delicious qualities. And that had been one of four different varieties they’d filmed for the first episode.
“I’m a pastry chef. There is no such thing as being sick of cake. Why do you think I became one?” She was clearly aiming for amused, but her tone was weary, and she wasn’t looking at him. Her attention was focused exclusively on the cupcake, which she went back to freeing from its paper cup. Once that was discarded, she slowly licked the frosting off the top, closing her eyes as she did so, and keeping them closed as she devoured the cake in three deeply appreciative bites, if her groan of satisfaction was anything to go by. There was nothing sensual about her actions. It had been more like an act of desperation, by a person seeking some kind of ... salvation.
“Are you all right?” He frowned in concern. When they’d called it a wrap for the day—or night, as the case had been—he’d gone directly into the production trailer with Rosemary to look at the tape footage, and Leilani had been excused to go home. The afternoon and evening had gone well—amazingly well, by production standards, anyway—but the day in its entirety had still run quite long. They’d broken for dinner late, with one last segment still left to be taped. They’d ended the shoot right around midnight and it was going on one in the morning. “I thought you went home an hour ago. Why are you still here?”
She licked the mascarpone frosting from the corner of her mouth, then finally opened her eyes and looked at him. “Because there are people in my house. Baking. I don’t want to bake anything else today. Eating things that have already been baked? That I can do. But baking new things?” She shuddered. “No. Can’t make me.”
“Surely Charlotte would understand that you need to sleep.”
“It’s not just Charlotte.”
Baxter’s eyebrows lifted a bit. “It’s not? Has someone else come down from New York to provide moral support?”
She shook her head. “Long story. I have somehow managed to form a ... well, a club. Of sorts.”
“A ... club?”
“A cupcake therapy club. People show up. We bake. We vent. We eat. It used to just be Charlotte and me, but apparently it’s catching on.”
Baxter walked to the end of the trailer, quietly pulled up a stool, and sat catty-corner to her. “How many people?”
“At the moment, Alva, Dre, Charlotte. And me, of course.”
“Dre works for you.”
“I know.”
“Can’t you send her home?”
“Why bother? I kind of don’t want to. I mean, most of the time, it’s been ... well, good. Really good, actually. We laugh, we talk. We’re all very different, different backgrounds, different generations.” She took a short breath, and straightened a little on her stool, started fiddling with the empty cupcake wrapper. “It’s kind of interesting, really. Dre is twenty, Charlotte and I are thirty and thirty-one, Alva is five decades older. Charlotte was raised in a different culture, and I’m—” She laughed, but it was more tired than happy. “I don’t know what I am. But it’s comforting, in a way.” She shrugged. “I can’t explain it, and I don’t want to really. But tonight ... I don’t want group therapy. I just want to crawl into my bed and not talk or think about anything.”
“It was a really long day. It will get better. I promise.”
She looked at him again. “About ... anything,” she repeated.
He realized she wasn’t talking about the show. Or not just the show. “Oh,” he said more quietly. “Yes. Right.” He wished then he had a paper wrapper of his own to fidget with. Anything to give his hands ... and the direction of his gaze, someplace to focus. Other than on Leilani.
“Why are you still here?” she asked at length.
“I was in production. Watching the tape.”
She nodded, but then looked down again. And very pointedly didn’t ask him what he’d thought. Given what both he and Rosemary had so clearly seen, it wasn’t something he was eager to share, either. For once, he didn’t push.
“Did you need something from the kitchen?” she asked.
“What?” he said, realizing his thoughts were still on the tape replay. Making him shift on his stool again.
She motioned to the kitchen setup. “Did you need something ?”
“Oh. You mean, why am I
here
.”
“Right.”
“I—I’m hiding. I guess.”
Leilani’s expression went from weary to concerned. “From Rosemary? Is the tape that awful? I
knew
it.” She said the last part more under her breath. “
Dammit
.”
“Um, no. Rosemary is quite happy, actually.”
Leilani lifted her head, her one arched brow making it quite clear what she thought about the plausibility of that statement. “Really.” She didn’t make it a question.
“No, I’m being quite sincere. She was smiling when I left.”
Lani made a face at that. “Rosemary can smile?” She rubbed her arms. “I’m afraid. Very afraid.”
Baxter smiled for the first time since entering the trailer. “Not an unwise reaction, really. But that’s not why I’m hiding. Though the lingering images of it might well give me nightmares later.”
He thought he spied the slightest hint of a smile threaten to surface.
“I promise, I won’t out your location. I’d just as soon stay hidden myself.”
“Were you planning to spend the night here?”
“I hadn’t thought it through that far. Actually, I was thinking I’d sneak back into my shop once everyone cleared out.”
“And do ... what?”
“Sleep. My building has a second floor. The person who owned the place before me used the open floor space above as a sort of loft office-slash-bedroom. There’s a full bath up there, and the wiring for a small kitchenette. I gave some real thought to living up there, but I know myself and I already eat, sleep, and breathe my work. If I literally lived where I worked ... well, it wouldn’t be healthy. I need to step away at some point. Actually, it’s when I’m away from the shop that I get most of my new recipe ideas.”
“I’m the same.”
She looked surprised. “I thought you didn’t spend much time at home.”
“I don’t,” he said. “But I don’t spend all of it at the studio, either. And when I’m not there, doing whatever else it is that demands my attention, I find that’s when I get the most inspiration. I think it has to do with being around outside stimuli. Of any kind.”
“I’ll agree with that. To be honest, I’ve spent more time in my cottage on a daily basis since Charlotte got here than I have at any time since I leased the place.”
“Leased?”
She nodded. “I was sinking almost everything I had into my shop. It didn’t make sense to tie myself to a mortgage, too. Plus ... well, there’s Harper House to consider.”
“It will be yours someday?”
“Yes. Hopefully not for a lot of years of somedays, but tying myself into a long term mortgage on the cottage, when I knew at some point I’d have to sell it, wasn’t a potential hassle I wanted to take on.”
He nodded in understanding. “I only bought the brownstone because I needed an investment.” He chuckled at that. “Hard to believe a boy from Spitalfields would ever be worried about having to invest money.”

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