Flirting With Temptation (29 page)

He climbed onto the bed, moving beside her, then running a palm down her stomach to where she burned the most. His finger passed over her clitoris, massaged it gently while her hips curved upward toward that blissful pressure. She was so close, and he’d barely touched her.

“I don’t want to wait, Jeff. It’s been a long time, and I want you so bad it hurts.” She wasn’t hiding anything from him now, wasn’t about to act as though she didn’t need everything he would give her, not only because she hadn’t had a man in a year, but because she hadn’t had him.

He leaned over her and kissed her, while his thumb moved over her clitoris, and his fingers dipped into her center. “It has been a long time,” he said, “which is why I don’t want to go too fast, Babette. I don’t want to hurt you. Let me get you ready for me.”

She knew what he was talking about. Jeff was no little man, but she
was
ready, had never been more ready. “Please, Jeff.”

“As soon as you come, the first time,” he said easily, his thumb and fingers moving rhythmically as he worked toward making that happen.

It didn’t take long. Babette felt that building sensation, the press of a beckoning release, stirring deep within her, then he increased the friction, circling his thumb madly, while his fingers pushed inside.

“That’s it, honey, you’re almost there,” he said against her ear, and Babette’s stomach dipped in, her breath caught in her throat, and a hard, overwhelming climax claimed her completely, taking control, causing her to scream. And when she screamed, she screamed his name.

Her post-orgasm bliss was heightened even more when moonlight glinted off the foil packet in Jeff’s hand. It’d been a long time since she’d had him inside her, but finally, finally, her dream was becoming reality. Without wasting time, he opened the packet and slid the condom down his length, then he moved above her, eased the head of his penis to her opening, still convulsing from the power of her orgasm, and guided the tip inside.

She pushed her hips forward, eager to have him where she wanted him. “Don’t make me wait anymore. It’s been too long. I’ve wanted you, for so long.”

He kissed her, his mouth caressing hers while his hard length pressed inside, deeper and deeper, slowly pushing all the way in, while Babette felt her inner muscles stretching around him. His sweet kisses continued, his tongue exploring her mouth, brushing against her teeth, stroking her tongue, while his penis stroked her center, and while another spiraling sensation stirred within her.

He pushed in, then withdrew, pushed in, withdrew, and each time, Babette would swear that he was as far as he could go, all the way to the hilt, but then he’d give her more, and he captured her gasps of surprise and delight with his mouth.

The rhythm became faster, the sounds of their lovemaking combining with the sounds of the waves crashing against the shore. He broke the kiss and rose above her, bracing his hands on the headboard while his hips continued steadily thrusting, the tempo increasing, while Babette’s imminent climax was also building, increasing, preparing to soar.

“Look at us,” he said. “Look at us, Babette.”

She followed his gaze to their joining, at his impressive length, retreating from her, long and hard and slick, then she watched him slowly push back in, all the way in, until there was nothing between them at all. They were together, completely. They were one.

Three more thrusts, and she couldn’t control her response to watching them make love. This climax was even harder, even more powerful, causing her to tremble with the sheer force of it taking control. Her head thrashed on the pillow, and her mouth said what her soul was singing.

“I love you, Jeff. I always—always—have.”

He thrust deep, his passionate growl of release dominating the night, while Babette took it all in, the man she loved losing control with her, because of her, for her.

Chapter 18

B
abette was sleeping better than she’d slept in years. It was so much easier to sleep soundly when snuggled up next to a man. No, scratch that; it was so much easier to sleep soundly when snuggled up next to Jeff. She smiled, snuggled closer, and attempted to drown out the obnoxious ringing that interfered with the peaceful sounds of the waves crashing on the shore and the man snoring beside her.

Then reality crept in, and she realized it wasn’t a ring; it was a ding. And the ding sounding from her kitchen meant she needed to get up. “Oh, I nearly forgot,” she said, climbing from the bed. She moved to the closet and switched on the light, found her robe and quickly tied it around her. Then she explained, “I’ve got to turn that out.”

He made some very male grunting sound as he rolled over, leaned up on one arm and squinted at her. “Turn what out?”

“The bread dough. Don’t you smell it?”

He inhaled, and apparently noticed that the entire apartment was filled with the sweet tang of yeast. “I do now.” Then he laughed. “You’re making your own bread now too?”

“Don’t sound so shocked. I’m learning something new every day with my cooking lessons. So far, I can make four meals and two breakfasts.”

She entered the kitchen and turned the bread dough onto the cookie sheet she’d already sprinkled with flour. Then she saw him sleepily crossing the living room wearing nothing but a pair of boxers. She laughed. “It’s midnight. I can remember a time when your nights were just getting started at midnight.”

“And then I grew up.”

She laughed again, clapped her hands and then waved them over the big cream-colored blob. “Look at it! It looks just like when Hannah did it.”

“You have a bread machine?”

“It was in the condo when I got here. And this is sweet dough, perfect for making cinnamon rolls. I used Hannah’s secret recipe, and according to her, it’s foolproof.”

“Cinnamon rolls.”

“The best cinnamon rolls, according to everyone at Sunny Beaches.”

“Planning on eating them all by yourself?” he asked casually, and she looked up into those perfect eyes and saw that there was the slightest hint of curiosity to his look.

“I’d planned on taking whatever I didn’t eat over to Sunny Beaches, but—”

“But?”

“If you’d like to stay and have some with me in the morning, I’d like that too. I mean, tonight, us. Was that just one time, or did you—would you want more?” She’d kind of assumed they’d be together again, then she realized that she may have made a hasty assumption. Just because the thought of not having him inside her again made her miserable didn’t mean he felt the same way.

“I want more.”

There you go. Now, naturally, her mind was asking,
“More what?”
More sex, and only sex? Or more . . . everything. And did he realize that she was ready to commit now? Or had she blown the whole I-can-commit-to-something when she slept with the guy that she was supposed to be fixing up with someone else? And shouldn’t the fact that she was in love with him, so he was different from any other Love Doctor assignment, enter into the equation?

“I suppose we’re going to do something else to this before we move on to
more
, right?” he asked, indicating the bread dough, all fat with plump yeast bubbles popping out of the sides.

“You’re going to help?”

“Why not? I like cinnamon rolls too. Maybe I’ll learn to make them for myself. I actually think my condo has one of these machines, but I’ve never taken the initiative to learn to use it.”

While she and Jeff had done lots of things together throughout their unusual relationship, cooking wasn’t on the list, and the fact that he was interested in doing something so domestic with her pleased her more than she could imagine. She smiled. “It’s really easy to use. You take the ingredients on the recipe, put them in the machine and select the dough setting. When it’s risen long enough, the machine beeps. Then you turn out the dough on the floured cookie sheet.” She shrugged. “You’re supposed to use a cutting board, but I couldn’t find one in here, and the cookie sheet worked okay last time, when Rose and Hannah taught me. Actually, I could’ve probably left it in the machine until the next step, but this is the way Rose and Hannah did it.”

“I’d follow what they did.”

“Yeah, that’s what I figured too.”

“So now what do we do?” He moved closer, and the warmth of him nearly made her decide to forgo the cinnamon rolls, take him on to the bedroom for the “more” he’d mentioned and then head out for doughnuts in the morning. But he really did look excited, or interested, about working with the dough, and admittedly, cooking in the kitchen with Jeff excited her too.

“We follow the recipe,” she said, pointing to the open book on the counter. “What does it say?”

He ran his finger down the page, got to the portion after the primary recipe for the dough and read, “Pour five tablespoons melted butter in the bottom of pan, then sprinkle with a half cup of brown sugar.” He looked up. “Have you got melted butter?”

“There’s butter in the fridge,” she said. “I’ll measure the brown sugar.”

He found a stick of butter and cut it at the five tablespoon mark. Then he put it in a bowl, covered it with a paper towel, and popped it in the microwave, as though he’d been doing this his whole life.

Babette stared at him. “You cook?”

“I can melt butter.”

She grinned, watched him grab a dish towel and use it to remove the heated bowl from the microwave.

“Where’s the pan?”

Babette pulled the pan that Rose and Hannah had told her worked best for cinnamon rolls out of the cabinet and placed it in front of him, then he poured the butter in. She followed suit, sprinkling brown sugar on top of the butter.

“What’s next?” she asked, because he was hogging the cookbook. He really seemed to be enjoying this.

“With a rolling pin, roll dough into an eight by fourteen inch rectangle.” He looked at her skeptically. “Do you even have a rolling pin?”

Babette opened a drawer near her hip and withdrew the wooden rolling pin that Rose had found earlier in the week. “I learned how to make them already, remember? I just don’t know the recipe by heart.”

“Right,” he said, and gave her the crooked little grin that told her what he was thinking—that she was cute, and that he wanted to have “more” with her.

Worked for Babette.

She poured a little flour on the counter, spread it out with her palm, then ran her floured palm up and down the rolling pin the way Hannah had shown her. “Okay, put the dough there.” She nodded toward the floured counter.

“In the middle of it?” he asked, lifting the cookie sheet with the dough on it.

“Yeah.”

He tilted the sheet and the big mound of dough plopped in the middle of the flour. Babette surveyed it; it seemed bigger than it had the other day when she made the cinnamon rolls with Rose and Hannah, but maybe she hadn’t been paying attention that closely. Or maybe they had halved the recipe so they wouldn’t make too many. Hannah had measured everything, so Babette wasn’t sure whether they’d used the same measurements that she’d used on this batch. That could have happened. In any case, there was more dough here than Babette expected, so she sprinkled more flour on the counter and then picked up the rolling pin and began trying to convert a big, bubbly glob of bread dough into a neat rectangle.

After several minutes filled with a lot of grunting and huffing and puffing—it was harder than it looked when Hannah did it—she had a rectangle. It wasn’t a neat rectangle, but it was a rectangle nonetheless. One side looked a little thicker than the other, but she couldn’t seem to tame it, so she let it be. She’d always liked fat cinnamon rolls anyway; these would just be a little fatter on one side.

Jeff had stayed with her through the rolling, and had even sprinkled additional flour on the pin whenever the dough started to stick.

“Got the rectangle,” she said. “Now we have to mix up the filling. I can’t remember what all goes in it.”

He looked back to the book. “A tablespoon of melted butter, a tablespoon of sugar, one and a half teaspoons of ground cinnamon and a tablespoon of brown sugar.” He paused. “You mix it in a bowl, then put it on top of the dough. Want me to do that part, since your hands are floured?”

“Sure,” she said, then watched admiringly as he melted more butter, then found the remaining ingredients, measured them precisely, and mixed it all up. Next thing she knew, Jeff was spooning the mixture over the top of the dough.

When the dough was covered and his bowl was empty, he looked at her and winked. “Every kind of cinnamon roll I’ve ever had was a round swirly thing. This looks kind of flat.”

“Smartass.” She nudged him out of the way and took control of the sugar-coated dough. “Watch this.” Then she gently tugged one of the longer sides of the rectangle and started rolling it toward the other side, folding in the sugary filling as she went.

Jeff nodded approvingly as she completed the roll, then wet her fingers and pinched the seam to seal it. “So do you need a knife to cut it into individual cinnamon rolls now?” he asked, opening the drawers in the kitchen, then withdrawing a sharp knife.

Babette was extremely pleased that she was about to teach him something she deemed rather cool. “Nope, I need dental floss. Will you go get some out of the bathroom?”

He tilted his head and cocked a sandy brow. “Dental floss?”

“You’ll see.”

He left the kitchen while she made certain that the seams were sealed on the big roll. And it was a very big roll. Rose and Hannah must have definitely halved the recipe, because Babette’s cinnamon rolls were going to be much bigger than the ones they’d made the other day. She smiled. Wouldn’t Granny Gert be proud? And Clarise would absolutely freak.

Babette couldn’t wait to tell them.

“Here it is,” Jeff said, entering the kitchen. “But I can’t imagine what you’re going to do with it.”

Following the example Hannah had shown her in her lessons, Babette took a nice sized piece of floss and eased it under the long roll to the point where she wanted to make the first cut. Then she pulled up both ends, crisscrossed them at the top and then gently pulled them in the opposite direction to cut the dough and make the first cinnamon roll.