I don’t know what it is, but Maggie is acting differently tonight. I mean, she’s usually the person throwing the party, getting people to hang out, outgoing with everyone.

So, when I take her outside and see her face brightened with a secretive smile, I get turned on. She looks sexy when she’s biting her bottom lip, not meeting my eyes. It’s almost like she’s coming on to me.

Maybe we’ve both just had a lot to drink. Maybe she isn’t looking at me that way at all. But damn, the idea of being with her suddenly becomes real as we walk down the crowded street of the town--it’s all been blocked off for cars for the month’s festival.

People are everywhere, and the women who’d I’d usually stop and say hello to aren’t on my radar. “Charlie,” Becky, a woman I know from school, whines. “Come have a drink with us.” She’s with a big group of friends, and I run my hand over my beard, knowing I’ve slept with half of them.

I just wave and say I have somewhere to be. This pull toward the bakery is strong as hell, and for some reason, I just keep thinking about Maggie, her toast to taking a chance when we clinked our glasses together.

I want an excuse to be closer to her and my hand rests on her shoulder. I tell her it’s because I don’t want to lose her in the crowd, but I know the truth. She is turning me on. I can’t help but watch her trim little ass as she walks a foot in front of me. Why have I never noticed the way her waist narrows above her curvy hips before?

When we stop at Two Sisters, she turns to face me, under the awning. She looks up into my eyes, appearing so small, so vulnerable suddenly. Not the face of the jubilant Maggie I usually see.

No, right now her eyes are filled with a longing I don’t understand but want to.

“We’re here,” she says as if she’s been waiting for this moment her entire life.

“You made me wait long enough,” I say, hoping I said the right thing and fuck, I don’t know what is happening because I’m never self-conscious, especially around her--a woman I’ve known since she was a little girl, fussing over her kitty cat and making mud pies.

And right now, I don’t want to get this wrong. I’m buzzed and so is she, but we were both walking in a straight line to the bakery, and neither of us is slurring our words.

Besides... Fuck, I’m assuming all sorts of things about the girl next door. Things that have me getting hard as hell as I stand out here.

“I won’t make you wait anymore.” Then she whips around and unlocks the door to her bakery. I know this shop well, I come here for morning coffee and afternoon sweets most days. But I’ve never been here at night, alone with Maggie.

The shop feels different now. The lights are off, the door is locked behind us. And she isn’t wearing an apron that I’m realizing now covers her curves.

“It’s strange, isn’t it? being here alone?” she says as if reading my mind.

“Are you uncomfortable with me here?” I ask, following her to the back room.

She looks over her shoulder at me, her features hidden in the dark, and I feel a need, a longing even, to bring her to the light. To undress her and taste her and be with her until the sun comes up.

“I’m not uncomfortable. Besides, I love that you like my cupcakes.”

There she goes again, biting her bottom lip.

Damn, my cock is suddenly growing as fast as my appetite.

“I don’t just like your cupcakes,” I tell her pulling up right behind her.

“No?” she asks in barely a whisper. I swear she pushes her ass ever so slightly against my groin. I want to grab her pretty hips and pull her to me... but damn, I could be reading this all wrong. Hell, she’s my best friend’s sister.

But then, before I can overthink this another damn minute, she moves away, toward a fridge and pulls it open. Actually, it’s a standing freezer, and she sticks her head right in it.

“What in the hell are you doing, Mags?”

“Just cooling off,” she groans dramatically. “You’re just a lot of man, you know?” She says this with her head still buried and her ass sticking out.

I smirk. Okay, sounds like she is interested in me.

“When you say a lot of man, what exactly do you mean?” I cross my arms, leaning against a high prep table watching her little butt wiggle as she tempts frostbite.

She pulls herself from the freezer and shuts the door, leaning against it, then crossing her arms to match mine. Hair falls in her face and she pushes out her lower lip, blowing the strands away. A gesture I’ve seen her make a thousand times, but until right now I never thought of it as sexy.

Now, I see it as downright filthy. I know something else she could blow on.

“I mean, look at you, Charlie.” She throws her arms in the air, waving me down, head to toe. “You know what kind of man you are.”

I run a hand over my beard. “The kind of man you’d like to get to know better?”

Her cheeks redden as heat rises to her face. I had no idea I could have this sort of effect on her.

“You have no idea,” she says under her breath. She turns again, reaching for a covered cake plate. She lifts the lid and offers me a cupcake.

“Thank you,” I say swallowing my desire for a minute. She takes one too and slowly peels the paper from the treat. I want to peel her clothes off her just as slowly. One article at a time.

Damn, that Jager must have been fucking strong. I’ve never thought about Maggie like this before.

“Are you just gonna watch me eat it?” she asks with a smirk.

“Just how drunk are you, Mags?” I ask setting down my cupcake so I can focus on the sweet thing in front of me.

“Not very. Tipsy. But not impaired.” She runs a finger over the frosting and pulls it to her mouth, sucking the sugary layer off. My balls are tight as fuck watching her. “I know what I’m doing if that’s what you’re asking.”

“Do you, though, Maggie?” I step toward her, and pick her up, sitting her down on the high table. I take the cupcake from her hand and take a bite. “That’s fucking delicious,” I tell her.

She grins mischievously and I hope she knows what she’s gotten herself into. “There’s more where that came from,” she teases.

I take another bite of her confection before setting it down.

“Good,” I say. “Because I have a sweet tooth.” I reach for the hem of her sweater, suddenly needing to strip her of everything.

“I know,” she says. “I know what you like.”

“Oh, yeah?” I raise a brow, pulling off her sweater and taking in her tits, round and full, her lacy bra more decoration than support. Her breasts are perky and I don’t think she needs a bra at all. Her skin looks so soft and delicious and I want to run my tongue over all of her.

Before I can taste her, though, she tells me what it is she thinks I like.

“You like... well, any woman with a pulse, pretty much.”

Her words are harsh, but I can tell that’s not how she meant them. I look into her eyes and see something soft; the same way she looked outside the bakery. Vulnerable.

“You’ve watched me around other women?”

She picks up the cupcake again and takes a bite, licking her lips. Her breasts tease me, but her soulful gaze is getting all my attention. “Everyone in this town has seen you, Charlie. It’s your MO.”

“And what do you think of that?”

“I don’t know if what I think matters, Charlie.”

The blush rises to her face again, and she lowers her chin, then raises her eyes. She looks so perfect in this moment. Pure, innocent, and so filthy-sweet it makes me ache for her. Maybe if I had a woman like her I wouldn’t need casual sex. A woman like her would be more than enough. I haven’t even kissed her, but suddenly a lifetime of memories washes over me.

She isn’t like other women. She’s singular.

“What you think does matter, Maggie. Tell me. Should I stop sleeping around?”

She laughs. Shaking her head as if the idea is ludicrous. Then she says something more honest than I expected to hear, “Just don’t change your mode of operation until after you’ve had your way with me, Charlie. That would be...”

“It would be what, Mags?” I press, knowing now, without a shadow of a doubt that she wants this as badly as I do.

“It would be a waste of a perfectly good dessert.” She smiles then, reaching behind herself and unclasping her bra.

Damn, she is right about that. There is no way I’m giving up my man cake ways before I have had a bite of her something sweet.