Cal flicked idly through the channels on his flat screen television Saturday night, but in truth he was merely passing the time before Winnie arrived on his doorstep.
He had teased the woman about the pleasureless rut she was in, but the truth was he might as well have been talking about himself.
No one could deny Cal’s dutifulness. He was a responsible employee, a good citizen of Bloomsburo, and an attentive and present son, brother and uncle. He kept his house clean, his yard tidy, he paid his bills and taxes on time, and maintained a fit, healthy body with his running and lifting regime.
For all his love of order and control, Cal had begun to realize that he’d created a life for himself that left little-to-no room for surprise or spontaneity. Sure, he spent plenty of nights shooting pool with friends at the bar.
And yes, he sometimes took pleasure in fairly anonymous hook-ups, but he couldn’t remember the last time he had so directly invited pleasure into his own life as he did when he made his proposal to Winnie.
And she’d said yes. That was the most amazing part. He took a risk and she more than willingly complied.
He knew he couldn’t commit to a relationship. He couldn’t date her, get her hopes up for anything long term, no matter how much a woman like Winnie had to offer. But he’d managed to arrange for a situation that was the best of both worlds—the sweet, physical exploration of a gorgeous woman without any concern about what he couldn’t, wouldn’t offer her in the long term.
He hadn’t been able to stop thinking of the woman’s hands on him. The way she grasped at his throat, his hair. The feel of her curvaceous ass, finally in his hands where it belonged.
Shit, he was getting hard already and as much as he relished the thought of continuing getting to know Winnie’s body, he didn’t want to shock the woman the moment she stepped foot in his house. He had to get himself under control, at least for a little while longer.
They’d agreed to take it slow, even if certain parts of him might prefer a different pace. Despite his best efforts to calm his hunger, though, when the soft knock finally rapped on his door, his heart and his dick both perked to attention.
Opening the door, he smiled upon seeing Winnie’s face before him. Eager. Nervous. Bursting with the same pent-up sexual energy that flowed through his veins.
He widened the door for her to step through, but before he could say a word, she broke the ice.
“I’ve identified a flaw in your plan,” she said, her gaze flickering to his lips, then his pecks, then back to his face. God, he loved it when she sized him up like that. Women tended to be so timid with him, so intimidated by his looks. There was something damn refreshing about a woman who knew that she had full access to any and every part of him she wanted. That was the kind of thing a man could get used to.
“What’s the flaw?” he asked, his body inching closer to hers. It was involuntary, this pull he felt toward her.
“The not-kissing,” she said, as she took a step closer to him, nuzzling closer toward his neck.
“Huh?” he managed, his brain not fully functioning now that Winnie’s heat was within his reach.
“You promised me pleasure, but the not-kissing that we do most of the hours of most of the days?” Winnie said, stretching up on her tippy toes to kiss the hot length of his neck, “That feels much more like pain than pleasure.”
“Mmm,” he confirmed, content to let this gorgeous woman feast on his neck. His chin. His lips. Any piece of him she desired. She wasn’t wrong. The need he’d felt for her the past few days had been all-consuming and bordered on discomfort.
“Anticipating pleasure is nice though, right?” he finally managed between kisses. “It’s like the up, up, up of that first hill on a roller coaster. Anticipation heightens the thrill of the pleasure when it finally arrives.”
Her mouth met his fully, planting a warm kiss with her soft lips.
God, those lips. Full and plush. He knew they’d feel amazing anywhere, but one body part in particular craved their caress to the point of pain.
She opened wider for him, filling his mouth with her taste, her warmth that hardened him like steel. His hands involuntary landed on her hips, pulling her tightly against the growing need that tormented his body.
“Mmm,” she hummed, her lips vibrating to his. “I guess that’s true. Maybe, in a torturous kind of way.”
He grinned. She pushed herself off him and her genuine smile shone so sweetly from her face that it made his heart squeeze.
Those sorts of observations—about how nice she was? How sweet? About what a good person she was? Those he had to push aside. This had to be a physical thing.
“So is this officially a booty call? I’ve never had one of those,” she asked, her hands trailing down to the bottom of his T-shirt, slipping underneath and gripping the sides of his bare waist.
Jesus, he could take the woman right there on his doorstep. He could have her clothes off in seconds, bend her over the bench near the door and take her so hard she couldn’t form a sentence. He shook the thought from his mind.
“No, it’s not a booty call,” he said, and it was true. He had a different plan for the evening, despite the pleas from his groin. “Though your booty will be involved.”
“I wasn’t sure what to wear for such an event.” Winnie smiled, gesturing toward her ensemble—a tight pair of tie dye leggings showed off the ample curves of her hips and ass, and a flowy, black sleeveless tunic hung from the tempting shelf of her full breasts.
She was damn delectable.
“Well, I think a trench coat and heels with nothing else underneath would be have been ideal, but this will have to do,” he said with a wink, which earned him a laugh.
“I’ll make a note for next time.”
Next time. Now there was a hell of a thought -- that this woman, arriving at his doorstep so hungry for him, could be a regular occurrence.
“You’re perfect, as is,” he said, and he meant it, even if her rolling eyes suggested she didn’t believe him.
“It smells amazing in here, by the way,” she offered.
The observation shook Cal momentarily from his lust.
“Oh, that was my dinner. Sausage Choucroute.”
“I don’t know what that even means, but it sounds French and sexy as hell.”
“I thought about inviting you over to join me, but that would feel too much like a date.”
“Understandable. I appreciate your adherence to the ground rules. Anyway, I had some SpaghettiOs while I edited a few stories.”
He frowned.
“Don’t look at me like that,” she scolded. “I’ve kept myself alive this long.”
“I’m not sure that ‘kept alive’ should be the minimum you’re striving for in life.”
She refused the bait and changed the subject.
“So if not for dinner, and not technically for a booty call, what am I here for?”
“Dessert.”
“Oh, I like the sound of that,” she said, reaching her hands around his waist and grabbing the contours of his ass.
Cal couldn’t help but laugh at the feisty little manhandler. He grasped her wrists with his hands, pulling them up over her head and pinning her against the back of his front door.
She writhed a bit, resenting her sudden inability to feel him up.
“Not that kind of dessert, Briggs,” he said, both hating and loving his role as the disciplinarian. He relished the woman’s enthusiasm for his body. He craved it. But he also knew they had to pace themselves, at least at first. “We’re talking about a different kind of pleasure. Dessert, with a lesson.”
Contented that she wouldn’t maul him, he released his hold on her and held her hand, pulling her into the kitchen. It surprised him how intimate it felt to have her small hand tucked in his as he guided her through his home. He couldn’t even remember the last time he’d held a woman’s hand. Those were the smaller, more intimate connections you went without when you opted for casual hook ups over monogamous dating.
Perhaps more significantly, he knew he’d never had a woman over to his house to cook with him.
They turned into the kitchen. The space wasn’t overly large, but it was modern, with steel appliances, marble countertops, and top-of-the-line cookware hanging from a mount in the ceiling above a kitchen island with stools on one side. The counters were filled with late-fall produce in every color of the rainbow—eggplants and onions and squash and a half-dozen different types of apples. He watched as Winnie ran her fingers over their shiny curves. The woman could even make that look seductive.
“You could host a cooking show in here,” she marveled. “It’s picture perfect.”
“It’s functional. That’s what matters.”
“And freakishly clean. Like all the rest of your house seems to be.”
He shrugged.
“Which only confirms the fact that we can never date.”
He didn’t know why the comment made him internally wince.
“Oh, I’m sure I could straighten you up in no time,” he said, involuntarily leaning in to nuzzle Winnie’s neck. Her ear. Those warm, intimate spots that he wanted to know so much better.
“No, I don’t think you could,” she said, leaning back. “And the very first time you came home to find my toothpaste in with the silverware or my underwear in with the DVDs, I think you’d head for the hills.”
“I don’t know,” he said, grabbing at the woman’s full bottom, which was quickly growing to be his very favorite part of her body. “I kind of like the idea of finding your panties stashed around my house.”
She laughed beneath his touch.
“I have to admit I’ve put some thought into imagining what kind of panties you wear. Lace? Polka dot? Hello Kitty?”
Her cheeks flushed a deep crimson as she laughed.
“All of the above. That part of my wardrobe is as eclectic as the rest.”
He could only imagine. And literally, he was doing just that before her next comment refocused his attention.
“I’ll have you know that I’ve put some thought into what’s in your pants as well.”
He felt his cock twitch, reminding him just how hard he had to focus to keep his body in control around this woman. And when she let comments like that slip from her full lips, it was damn near impossible.
“I think you’re going to have to do some research to find out that answer.”
She surprised him by reaching around him and squeezing the sides of his ass, first just to get a feel for the shape of him, but then more gently, feeling for the outline of his underwear.
“Mmm, so you’re a brief man,” she murmured, nipping at his bicep while her hands squeezed and explored. “Very nice.”
“Except when I sleep,” he clarified. “Then I’m a nothing man.”
Winnie swallowed.
“Well, it’s a shame I’ll never get to see that in action.”
He tilted his head in confusion.
“No sleepovers. We agreed.”
“Mmm,” he said, his mind lingering for a moment on the thought of his body sleeping next to hers, his mouth breathing deeply as it rested near the warm cushion of her breasts. Both of them content and barely conscious from screwing the hell out of each other.
“That’s true. But you never said no naps. Maybe I’ll have to crash one of your weekend rituals.”
“Now that doesn’t sound very restful.”
“Not at first, anyway. But once I was through with you, I bet we would sleep like babies.”
She pulled his strong frame fully against her while she backed up against the refrigerator.
“You’re making it very hard for me to prepare for your cooking lesson, Briggs.”
“I can feel that,” she said, rubbing her core against the evidence.
“Patience,” he said, nominally to her, but damn if he didn’t need the reminder just as much. He hadn’t anticipated Winnie coming on to him this strong. Now that the floodgates were open, the woman seemed surprisingly eager to explore what was zinging between them.
She pouted, but finally removed her hands from his pants in an attempt to behave.
“I think you’ll like this lesson.”
“I told you I can’t cook. This is futile. I don’t want to burn down your gorgeous kitchen.”
“If you can read, you can cook. I’ll be supervising you every step of the way.”
Winnie sighed, looking adorable in her helplessness. “So what’s the lesson?”
“Chocolate layer cake with buttercream frosting. Sound good?”
He watched her face light up.
“Sounds heavenly. Chocolate is probably my biggest non-Cal Spencer pleasure.”
“Well, it should be a nice evening then, huh?”
“Mmm,” she confirmed, pressing a kiss to the side of his neck, and then fully onto his lips. He returned the gesture, deepening the kiss. Feeling the warm connection of their caressing tongues. Feeling his cock harden against the cradle of her sex where it pressed.
“Patience,” he repeated, prying himself from her tempting lips. How strange that the gesture could feel so natural and yet so unexpected. Cooking with Winnie could become habit forming.
“So where do we start?”
“Here.”
He held up a large index card with the recipe and instructions, which he knew by heart, written in dark ink with his own masculine scrawl. He watched Winnie smile as she brushed her fingers ever so gently over his handwriting on the page with a smile. The gesture felt unnervingly tender, causing another uncomfortable ache in the vicinity of his heart.
Over the next half hour, Cal explained every step of the cake making process. Ever the investigator, Winnie asked question after question, and Cal enjoyed answering each one with confidence, from the purpose of a flour sifter, to the reasoning behind letting the eggs warm to room temperature, to the advantage of greasing and flouring the layer cake pans.
Eventually, with only a few spills and a few egg shell extractions, the two-layer cake pans full of shiny chocolate batter made their way into Cal’s oven to bake. In the meantime, they started the learning process over again, this time with all of Winnie’s questions related to frosting. Along the way, Cal learned something too: watching Winnie Briggs lick chocolate buttercream off her fingers was now officially one of his favorite pastimes.
The time with Winnie in his kitchen flew by. Cooking, drinking the red wine he opened, chatting idly about their days, about the town, their favorite movies.
Sheer pleasure.
And the night was still young.
Before he knew it, the timer beeped, the cakes were out and cool, and Winnie held the icing spatula in her hand, gingerly spreading the soft buttercream around the cake. He guided her hand at times, showing her how to flick her wrist ever so gently in order to create waves and peaks in the frosting, and by the time she had finished, the cake, sitting on a simple glass cake stand in the middle of Cal’s kitchen table, looked stunning and delicious.
“You did it,” Cal said, drying his hands. He’d washed the last of the dishes while Winnie finished decorating the cake.
Her mouth hung open, seemingly stunned at what her hands had created.
“I’ve never made anything so beautiful,” she whispered in awe.
“I told you that you could cook,” he said.
“I cannot believe I just did that. Thank you so much!” She bounced over and threw her arms around him in a tight squeeze. The affection in the gesture unsteadied him.
“And now’s the best part,” he said.
“What do you mean?”
He looked at her to see if she was messing with him, given how obvious the answer was.
“We eat it.”
Her face fell.
“Oh, no,” she said, putting her body protectively between Cal and the cake. “We can’t eat it. It’s too perfect. I’ll never make anything so perfect again.”
“We can make another one. This doesn’t have to be the end. Maybe the next one will be even better than this one.”
“Impossible. The first is always the best.”
He grinned. There wasn’t a first with Winnie yet that had left him filled with anything but pure satisfaction.
“What if we—” he started, but she interrupted.
“Wait, just let me get my phone. I have to take some pictures of it.” Winnie scurried out of the kitchen, back to the bench by his door where she’d left her purse.
It only occurred to him then just how in-the-moment he’d been, cooking with Winnie. For almost two hours, they talked, laughed, tasted, worked side by side, and not once did he think of a single care outside of his kitchen. Not even one of his knee-jerk, workaholic impulses to check his email or texts. He chose not to dwell on the significance of the way the woman could hold his full, undivided attention.
She slid back onto the wood floor of his kitchen in her polka dot socks, her donut-printed phone in hand.
“Can I adjust the lighting?” she asked. “I want to capture our cake at its most magnificent.”
Cal laughed then nodded, pointing to the switch on the back side of the room. He tried not to overthink how much he liked the sound of Winnie describing something as theirs.
She slowly turned the knob that controlled the lighting over the dining area until it was just right, then proceeded to take photos of her first cake from a half-dozen angles.
He stood back and enjoyed the bond between Winnie and her creation, while also savoring the image of Winnie, bent over his kitchen table in her attempt to capture the perfect angle for a photo.
Now that was an image that could stick with a man.
“Think you got its best side?”
“They’re all its best side. That’s the problem!” she said, coming back over by his side and flipping through the series of photos she just took.
“I’m sure photographers have the same problem with you.”
“Oh, please,” she scoffed. “I don’t hold a candle to this cake. Though we probably should get one shot of me with it, don’t you think?
“Absolutely.” He watched as she went over to the table and crouched toward her cake, gesturing with her hands toward the chocolatey creation like a game show beauty might showcase a big prize.
Taking a few shots and passing the phone back to Winnie, Cal couldn’t help but observe that the woman outshined the cake by miles, but he didn’t dare tell her that. She might storm right out, and he wasn’t anywhere near done with his lessons in pleasure for the night. In fact, he was damn tired of not tasting her. In two steps, his hands were back home where they belonged—on Winnie Briggs’ luscious body.