Chapter Twelve
A few days later, Val was working on her third batch of fifty croissants for the day. Or at least she was trying to. Kyle had decided to accompany her to work before training, and he was being exceedingly distracting. Both in how hot he looked in low slung track pants and his constant, indiscriminate groping of her.
Anyone would think he hadn’t been inside her for days, that he hadn’t woken her at midnight—only five hours ago—with his deliciously hard cock.
“You’re good at that,” he murmured, his front to her back, his mouth near her ear, his tongue drawing wet circles as she rolled the dough
And he was good at that. In fact, Kyle was exceptionally good at a lot of things that involved his tongue.
“Lots of practice. I reckon I could roll dough in my sleep.”
His low chuckle puffed warm air down her neck. “I can think of better things to be doing in your sleep.”
Val smiled. “I like rolling dough. It’s mesmerising.” And she forced herself to concentrate on the soothing action, not where Kyle’s hand was currently heading. “When I’m pissed off, I can roll it into submission.” She’d worked out a lot of her anger over her father on dough these last two years. “When I’m meditative, I can knead it ’til it’s all shiny and glossy.
“What about when you’re horny?” he whispered, and his fingers slid under the waistband of her trousers.
Val grabbed his wrist to stop him going any farther. “Oh no you don’t. I’m far too busy for this, and I don’t need the health department coming in with their blue light, muttering about the exchange of bodily fluids in a food prep area.”
“Relax.” His low, hot whisper just about melted every bone in her body. “Who said anything about exchanging body fluids?” He smelled good, his wicked voodoo essence seducing her to let go his wrist, which he took shameless advantage of, his fingers ploughing straight and true to the heart of her.
Val closed her eyes and sucked in a breath. “Kyle.” God, this man was irresistible.
“You can roll dough in your sleep, huh?” She could just hear the hint of amusement through the fog of lust. “How about while you’re coming your brains out?”
His thumb slid over her clit, and Val moaned. “Kyle.”
“You roll.” His kissed down her neck as his thumb set up a steady rhythm. “Don’t mind me.”
Val forced her eyes open. Forced herself to concentrate on the rolling pin in her hand and the dough waiting to be flattened a little more, but her nipples were two tight points in her bra, and hot daggers of pleasure shot down the fronts of her thighs, sank into her buttocks, and circled the base of her spine.
“You’re not rolling.”
Val abandoned the heavy rolling pin to grip the edge of the bench as her knees threatened to give out. “Shut up.” She was panting now, out of her mind with wanting him. “And don’t stop.”
His knowing chuckle in her ear should have pissed her off, but it didn’t. She was totally enthralled with this man, her pulse and breathing totally in sync with the rhythm of his hand. He could play her body like an instrument, and she didn’t care. Even in such a short space of time he knew exactly what she liked.
Exactly where and how she liked to be touched.
“Val?”
Sandy’s voice ripped her out of the sexual haze as effectively as an ice-bucket challenge. She was still seeing stars as she dragged Kyle’s hands out of her pants before her blissed-out body could protest.
It caught up pretty damn quick, though.
Kyle growled into her neck at the interruption. “Christ. She has terrible timing.”
Ignoring him, Val dragged in a steadying breath. “Yes?” She hoped her voice didn’t sound as husky to everyone else as it did to her ears.
“Some guy out here to see you.”
Val frowned, her sluggish brain still trying to drag itself clear of the quagmire of lust. The only guy she knew who called at the bakery to see her at five in the morning was the one who just had his hand down her pants.
She heard a muffled, “No need to disturb her if she’s working,” and her legs almost gave out for a second time. She turned to Kyle with wide eyes.
Her father?
“Griff?” he whispered.
Her pulse, which had barely settled from her close encounter with an orgasm, kicked up again. “Coming,” she called, her legs having already carried her halfway to the swing doors.
She pushed through them, and there was her father, standing in front of the cash register, looking gruff and discomforted as per usual, taking up all the space in the bakery.
“Dad?”
“Valerie.”
They didn’t say anything for long moments, just stared at each other. Sandy discreetly melted away to serve the usual lineup of customers. Her father seemed awkward, at a loss for words, and she didn’t blame him. He’d paid for this shop but had never been inside it. And now here he was.
She’d imagined this day for a long time but had never—never—thought it would actually happen.
“You on your way to training?” Sticky Fingers was not on her father’s route to Henley. He would have had to pass the stadium to get to Manly.
“Yes.” He shuffled his feet a little.
A little part of Val’s heart dared to hope. It was ridiculous to let it, but her father had driven an hour out of his way to visit her bakery before training.
Surely that meant something?
“Can I get you something to eat?”
“Oh…” He glanced at the glass display cabinets like he was seeing them for the first time. “Yes. Please. What would you recommend?”
“The croissants are my most popular item.”
He nodded and flashed her a ghost of a smile. “Eve tells me they’re to die for.”
Val blinked. “I’ll put in a couple for her, too, shall I?”
She didn’t wait for his response, her brain too busy grappling with his appearance and what the fuck it meant. She was no closer to an answer by the time she loaded a half-dozen croissants into a Sticky Fingers paper bag and handed it over to her father.
She was just glad he was here. She wanted to ask him to come again, but she daren’t do or suggest anything that might scare the horses. She had a feeling this was a watershed moment in their relationship, that things were shifting between them, and she didn’t want to jinx it by pushing too far, too fast.
He took the bag with his big hands, hands that she could vaguely remember dwarfing hers as a little girl, and fished in his back pocket. She knew it was for his wallet and shook her head vehemently. If he paid for these, it would kill her. “On the house,” she said with a big, bright smile.
He glanced at her startled. “Oh but—”
“Dad.” She shook her head again. He’d bought the bloody bakery for god’s sake. “Please let me.”
Let me do this for you. Let me have this moment. Let me reach out to you and not have you rebuff me, just this once.
He regarded her for long moments, awkwardly, silently, and she held her breath, waiting for him to reject her wishes, but he pulled his hand out of his pocket and nodded in acknowledgement.
“Thank you.” And then, to cover his embarrassment he said, “You’ll be at the home game next week?”
Val breathed out on a long, shaky breath. “Yes.”
“Good.” He nodded.
Good? Normally he scowled the second he spotted her at a game, his disapproval of her being there cutting deep despite her bravado.
“You’ll be in the box?”
She nodded this time because she didn’t have the words and wasn’t even sure she’d trust her voice not to wobble even if she had. This was the longest her father had spoken to her voluntarily in a long time.
“Well…” He glanced around, stiff and obviously ill-at-ease. “I hope to catch up with you there.”
He did? Val nodded again. Her words still MIA.
“Right, then.” Another awkward shuffle and nod from her father, and he turned on his heel and walked out of the shop, the ding of the bell heralding his departure.
Val wandered back into the kitchen in a daze. Kyle had shifted closer to the sink, she assumed, to be out of direct line of sight of her father. He’d shared with her his fear that the coach had some kind of freaky x-ray vision.
“What the hell was that?” he asked, striding straight to her, his hands sliding onto her arms.
“I don’t know, exactly…” But suddenly she was grinning like a loon. She didn’t care. Her father had reached out to her after twenty-two years of ignoring her, of pushing her away.
It was the kind of thing her mother had been telling her would happen one day, but Val had long ago given up on it as a reality. She felt absurdly like crying.
She wouldn’t, because her heart was just too damn happy at the moment, but it was a fine line.
“He bought croissants,” she said, feeling stupid for saying something so idiotic, but…he’d come to her bakery. She smiled, almost bursting with happiness, seeing it mirrored in the tawny depths of his eyes.
“Well, you won’t be able to keep him away now.”
Val smiled and hugged him tight. She knew she shouldn’t get her hopes up, but it was already too late.
Two weeks later, Val was decorating cupcakes in Kyle’s kitchen. She’d made them earlier, but the icing part was the bit she enjoyed the most. Although doing anything in this kitchen was a delight. It wasn’t her industrial kitchen at the bakery, but it was still a dream to work in with its top-quality fittings. It was definitely a far cry from her crappy little kitchen in her flat with a gas oven that burnt everything at the back and dodgy electrics that tripped the circuits every time she used more than two appliances at once.
Which was why she’d made the cupcakes here for Kyle’s little two-year-old second cousin’s birthday party. That, and the fact it was Sunday and she’d woken in his bed yet again. Her flatmate was complaining she didn’t know what Val looked like anymore, but Hannah was pretty loved-up herself at the moment, so Val doubted she was really being missed.
The party was at three, and Kyle would be home from training soon, by which time the cakes should be done and she’d be able to clean up, take a shower, and be ready to go.
She stood back to admire the thick swirls of rainbow icing she’d been piping on top of the cupcakes. She still had a dozen to go, and the unicorn horns still had to be stuck in the centre of each one. Val had made them yesterday at work out of tiny strips of plaited dough, which she’d baked hard then painted in an edible gold spray.
Cupcakes were Val’s favourite thing to decorate—there was so much that could be done with them. She didn’t do any for the bakery because they were too time-consuming, but she jumped at any opportunity to experiment. And apparently Bailee, the birthday girl, was crazy about unicorns.
And what the birthday girl wanted, the birthday girl was going to get. Val smiled to herself, her heart full.
Things were looking up. She was with a man—no matter how clandestine—who made her laugh and swoon and liked Chelsea buns and rugby as much as she did. Kyle seemed to have settled into the team the last couple of weeks. He was playing much less seat-of-your-pants rugby and was a much more useful and productive member of the team.
But the best bit? Her father had been twice more to the bakery, and Kyle was introducing her to his family. Val couldn’t remember a time when she’d been this deeply, deeply happy.
A key in the front door alerted her to Kyle’s arrival, and her heart gave its usual mad lurch. She wondered, as she brushed hair off her face with her wrist, if it was ever going to stop—she hoped not. She remembered his impulsive I think I love you and started to think maybe she was a little bit in love, too.
“Hey, baby.”
Val looked over her shoulder at him, her ovaries lurching this time at the sight of his big, brawny body, his hair still damp from the shower as he strode toward her, his eyes blazing carnal intent. “Hey.”
Her pulse thrummed in anticipation as his long, sure strides ate up the distance between them. He reached her quickly, his hands pulling her into him as he bent her back for a deep, hard kiss. He smelled amazing and tasted all minty, and she clung to him, plundering his mouth as thoroughly as he was hers.
“You’ve been having fun, I see,” he said, finally coming up for air, his hands clamped firmly on her ass.
She followed his gaze around the kitchen, which looked like a mini cyclone had been through it but wouldn’t take her long to put to rights. His eyes fell on the cupcakes and he gaped at her.
“They’re amazing. You didn’t have to go to all that trouble. She’s only two.”
Sure, Bailee was only two, but her mother wasn’t. And neither were Kyle’s other family members she’d be meeting, including his parents. She’d practically invited herself along today, because Kyle hadn’t been keen on her going—something about his family being a little overwhelming en masse—so she definitely wanted to make a good first impression.
“Cupcakes are my happy place.”
“I can see that.” He grinned at her. “You have flour on one cheek and…I think that’s icing on the other. Don’t move.” He held her face still and licked at the smear of icing on her left cheek.
Val knew a lot of women would be grossed out by that. She, on the other hand, was just really freaking turned on.
“Yes.” He pulled away after taking a quick detour to her mouth. “Definitely icing.”
It was gratifying to hear the husky burr to his voice and know he was as turned on as she was.
His gaze dropped to the open collar of her shirt. Or rather, his shirt. “Hmm, that thing looks far better on you than it ever has on me.”
She’d pulled it out of his wardrobe this morning because she’d missed his smell and wanted to wrap herself in it while she cooked. It was a white button-up business shirt with scooped up sides that revealed a large portion of thigh and, with the sun streaming in from behind, was practically transparent. She knew he could see her bare nipples through the fabric and that when she leant over a little he could see right down to her navel.
“You should never wear anything else,” he whispered, leaning in to kiss down her neck and lick along her collarbone to the slight swell of a breast.
“Don’t distract me,” she chided, turning in his arms to the unfinished cupcakes because if she didn’t, she’d jump him for sure, and she didn’t want to be late for this important day. “I’ve still got a dozen to go.”
He reached for one, and she slapped his hand. “No you don’t. I’ve kept some aside for you for later.”
“Fine.” His sigh was warm on her neck as he slid his hands around her middle from behind and perched his chin on her shoulder. “I’ll just watch. I like to watch.”
She smiled as she picked up the piping bag she’d brought from the bakery yesterday. “Pervert.”
Val tried to concentrate on the job. On the steady hand required to form the perfect swirl, while his hard cock pressed into the cheeks of her ass. It’d been a lot easier when he wasn’t here, but this felt cosy and wonderfully domestic and damn if that didn’t feel good.
Within minutes she was piping the last cupcake and inserting the first of the gold horns into the middle of the icing.
His lips brushed her neck. “You give good horn.”
Val laughed and wriggled her ass against him. “You give good horn.” Then she held the cake up in front of them to admire her handiwork. It was pretty damn good, even if she did say so herself.
“You make that look easy.” His lips brushed her neck. “But I bet it’s not.”
“It’s just practice. You want to have a go?”
She’d made some extra cupcakes for Kyle she hadn’t intended to decorate, but there was icing left over.
“Okay.”
Val was conscious of him standing beside her, his arm brushing hers, his hip brushing hers as she demonstrated with the star nozzle how to swirl it just right to make the perfect rosette. Lucky she could do this stuff in her sleep, because her body was buzzing with awareness of him.
It was as if every cell she owned was statically charged and chanting his name.
“Now it’s your turn.”
She handed him the piping bag and placed a cupcake in front of him. He stared at it for a minute, then at the piping bag, then at her. “I’ve got a better idea.”