Glazed

by Ranae Rose

  He was still gaping at the photo when the obvious next question dawned on him. “Did you make copies, then?”

  She shook her head violently, sending locks of dark hair cascading over her shoulders. “No, of course not.” She looked away from him again. “But I did text the picture to my best friend that night.”

  His mind was filled suddenly with images of his butt zooming around town via cyberspace, ricocheting off satellites and into the hands of Blue Mills’ female population. “You texted it?”

  “I thought it was amusing, at the time,” she said in an apologetic tone. “Until now I had no idea she’d sent it to anyone else. I’m so sorry.”

  He straightened, snatching the photo from the tabletop and wadding it back up before he shoved it back into the safety of his pocket. “No, it’s my fault for running around like that.”

  The waiter appeared, lowering their meals onto the table. When he left, Kelly shot a glance across her plate of pasta at Derek. “I really am sorry. But at least it’s a flattering picture.”

  ****

  “So this is where the magic happens,” Kelly said, following Derek through the Blue Mills Donut House’s back door.

  He laughed. “I wouldn’t exactly call it magic. I can’t believe you wanted to come with me.”

  She shrugged. “I’ve been wanting to see the inside of this place.” Derek had taken her to his condo after their dinner at Sorrento the night before, and she’d spent the night. When he’d risen before dawn to leave for the donut shop, she’d declined his generous offer to stay behind and continue sleeping, as tempting as it had been after such a tiring night. In the past, vague dieting aspirations had caused her to avoid the Blue Mills Donut House and its sweet temptations. This was the first peek she’d ever had at the inside of the store.

  “I’m glad you came,” he said, bending to kiss her.

  She watched as he donned an apron and busied himself in front of a large industrial mixer, tossing in carefully measured quantities of raw ingredients. “Do you always open by yourself?”

  “I usually get here about half an hour before my employees.”

  “How many do you have?”

  “Just three. Jason – he’s my assistant manager I told you about – is my only full-time employee. The other two put in about twenty-five hours a week.”

  The mechanical mixer roared to life as she lost herself in a brief fantasy of hiring employees for her future café. Now that she’d been approved for a business loan, her plans seemed more real than ever. When would Joan call her with news on the offer she’d made on the building? Today? The thought made her stomach flutter and her heart skip a beat. She hoped the seller wouldn’t reject her offer, as paying the asking price would leave her a little short on money for the equipment she’d need. Joan had seemed sure the seller would go lower, eager as they were to sell. Of course, that didn’t stop Kelly from worrying.

  “What’s in here?” she asked when the mixer hummed to a halt, eager to find some way to distract herself from wondering endlessly over when her phone would ring with news.

  “That’s just the fridge,” he said, casting a cursory glance at the shining steel door. He stepped up beside her and pulled it open, releasing a puff of chilly air. She offered to help him when he stepped inside and began pulling items from their shelves, and he handed her a large carton of cream.

  Soon, he was frying a batch of donuts and whipping up a glaze. “Strawberry?” she asked, leaning over the bowl to survey its pink contents.

  He grinned at her. “Your favorite, right?”

  “I thought it was your favorite,” she replied, recalling the way he’d kissed a smudge of it off her mouth after they’d barely met, and then later compared the color of her nipples to the rosy frosting.

  “It is, but only when it’s served right.” He dipped a spoon into the bowl and withdrew it, letting it drip. As she watched he ran a finger over its edge, thoroughly coating the tip in frosting. Before she knew it he was tracing the edge of her lip with it, and then kissing it away.

  “Isn’t this violating some sort of health code?” she gasped when he’d kissed her clean.

  “How about we keep this batch for our own personal use?” he said, waving toward the bowl with the spoon.

  “All that? How would we use it?”

  He slid a hand under her re-worn black dress in answer, raising it past her hips, midriff and breasts, which were cradled by the black-lace bra she’d worn to his condo the night before. Her nipples tightened when he tucked his fingertips inside the edge of one cup, pulling the thin material down to free one. The glaze was as cool as most of its ingredients, which had come directly from the refrigerator. Her nipple hardened into a tiny bud beneath it, gleaming a vivid pink. She gasped when he lowered his mouth onto it, and her whole breast tingled as he sucked it away.

  “I could do this for hours,” he said, eyeing the bowl full of glaze.

  Suddenly, using all of it didn’t seem so farfetched. “Do it then,” she gasped.

  He coated a fingertip generously with the strawberry glaze and spread it slowly around the edge of her areola, apparently taking almost as much pleasure in the application as he had in the removal. By the time he bent to lick it away her nipple was aching for the touch of his mouth and her pussy was dampening.

  A shiver of anticipation raced up her spine when he knelt and tucked his fingers into her panties, pulling the dark lace down. The cool icing met her hot flesh as he massaged it over her clit. When his warm breath hit her skin, her legs quivered. He put his hands on her hips and steadied her as he pressed his tongue between her thighs, slowly licking away the glaze. She trembled, glad he was supporting her. Her clit throbbed against his tongue, and when he gently sucked the last of the sweet pink cream off of it she moaned. When he echoed her, she knew she was about to come.

  The silvery sound of a ringing bell interrupted. He jerked, just barely, in surprise. The motion sent a jolt through her core and all the way to the tips of her fingers and toes. He was still holding her by her hips, and even as her heart leapt in alarm, she couldn’t stop her body’s inevitable response. She stifled another moan as he tightened his hold and gave her rigid nub one last, slow tongue-stroke, as if he were reluctant to stop at all. Her entire middle was a knot of mind-blowing sensation, her nipples rigid and tingling above. Waves of pleasure would’ve dropped her to her knees if he hadn’t held onto her. She clung to him as he rose, and after he stood he smoothed her dress over her trembling thighs for her. She sighed against his chest as her climax faded to a sort of dizzy, stunned satisfaction.

  Footsteps sounded from the front of the store.

  “Jason,” Derek breathed, his breath sending a few strands of her hair dancing. “He must’ve used his key to come in the front door.” He frowned, as if this were unusual.

  A shadow darkened the doorway between the front of the restaurant and the kitchen, followed by a tall, slender, dark-haired man of twenty-five or so who Kelly assumed to be Jason. His blue eyes widened spectacularly at the sight of Kelly and Derek, whose hand was still resting on her thigh.

  She forced herself to relinquish her hold on Derek, taking a gamble with her still-weak knees. Fortunately, they didn’t tremble as she stood straight on her own. Of course, there was still the flush she could feel burning in her cheeks, a testament to what had just happened.

  “Jason,” Derek said, seizing the moment before the other man could open his mouth, “this is Kelly. Kelly, this is Jason, my assistant manager I told you about.”

  Jason crossed the kitchen’s tiled floor and extended a hand to Kelly, shaking it in greeting. “Nice to meet you.” His blue eyes lingered for a moment on the hem of her black dress, and she looked down to find it smudged with pink glaze.

  She blushed and forced herself to resume eye contact. “Nice to meet you too.”

  Introductions made, Jason turned to face Derek. “You didn’t come in the front door, did you?”

  “No. I never d
o. Why?”

  Jason reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a folded sheet of paper, handing it to Derek. “This was taped to the front door.”

  Derek unfolded it and groaned.

  Kelly pressed herself against his side, peering down at the creased sheet of paper, and had to restrain a giggle. It was another computer printout featuring his nearly nude midnight run, and someone had hand-written something in bold marker strokes beneath it. “I like mine glazed,” she read.

  Still gleaming damply with water from his shower, his rear end really did appear glazed in the picture. She pointed this out and Derek promptly refolded the paper, tossing it into a nearby trash can.

  “Sorry,” she said, sensing his agitation. “I shouldn’t have made fun, especially when this is all my fault.”

  Jason raised an inquiring eyebrow at that.

  “She was the photographer,” Derek admitted.

  Jason’s eyes went even wider than they had when he’d first entered the kitchen and caught sight of Derek still pushing up the hem of Kelly’s dress.

  “Get started on the crullers, will you?” Derek instructed before Jason could comment.

  Jason nodded and drifted to a nearby counter with the hint of a smirk on his face.

  “Are you upset?” Kelly asked, following Derek to the opposite side of the kitchen.

  “A little,” he said, tossing a generous portion of flour into a clean mixing bowl. “Not at you – you didn’t mean any harm. I just wish people would drop it. I mean, what if a customer had found that flyer before Jason had? Blue Mills is a small town, and I’m afraid this will drive business away.”

  She nodded, feeling guilty. “I see you’ve got a lot on your hands. I’d better get going.” She paused. Was he actually upset with her and trying to spare her feelings by denying it? “I’ll be getting home from work around ten tonight. I know you have to get up early in the morning, but I was wondering if you’d like to stop by for a little while.”

  He turned and surprised her by brushing her lips with his. He still tasted of strawberry glaze. “I’ll be there.”

  Chapter 6

  Kelly decided on the blue dress and shoved the others she’d been considering back into the closet. She’d invited Derek to her apartment tonight for a home-cooked meal. Why did she feel so nervous? Nearly two weeks had passed since they’d met, and they’d made love almost every night since. Was it normal to still get butterflies in her stomach after becoming so intimate? She wriggled into the dress, mentally going over the steps she’d take to prepare the meal she’d planned. Peter had always said her cooking ‘wasn’t that great’. Was that why she was so nervous?

  Or was it real estate woes that had her so strung up? The seller had rejected her original offer on the building, and she’d countered with a slightly higher one. Would they take it? Her stomach tied itself in knots every time she thought about it.

  About an hour later, she pulled a tray of stuffed peppers out of the oven, relieved to find them mercifully devoid of burnt spots. Derek arrived just as she sat them on the stovetop to cool.

  “Smells great in here,” he said, stepping through the door and out of the light drizzle that was falling outside.

  She beamed at him. “That’d be the stuffed peppers.”

  “Love those,” he said, hanging his jacket on a hook by the door. “How was your day?”

  “Alright. Still no word on my second offer. What about you?”

  He grimaced. “Well, I found out that my ass is into social networking.”

  She stared at him, trying to determine what part of his statement, if any, made sense. “What?”

  “My rear end has its own social networking page.”

  “Oh no.” Repressed laughter made her quiver slightly, even as a sense of horrified guilt washed over her. “Can’t you ask the site administrators to take it down or something?”

  “I did. But I’ve got a feeling that by the time they get around to it everyone in Blue Mills will have already seen it, if they haven’t already.” He paused, frowning. “What I want to know is how everyone knows it was me? The picture doesn’t show my face.”

  Kelly shrugged. “Maybe I’m not the only one who saw you that night. Someone else might’ve recognized you. If the story and the photo were both circulating around town, people were bound to put two and two together.” It was true, and the fact that he had what was very possibly the best physique in Blue Mills didn’t hurt, either. It wasn’t every day that you saw someone who looked like Derek – naked or otherwise.

  ****

  Kelly had no idea what time it was when she woke up the next morning. After finishing the stuffed peppers she and Derek had made a late-night run to the closed donut shop, where he’d snagged a bowl of left-over glaze from the fridge. They’d taken it back to his nearby condo and made a night of it. She was still there, alone in his bed. Bright sunlight was filtering through the curtained window, a sure sign he’d already left for work. She’d been so tired she’d slept right through it. Blinking sleep from her eyes, she turned her bleary gaze to the digital clock on the bedside table.

  It was 10:30! She swung her legs over the side of the bed, rising and finding herself completely nude. She never slept in so late. But then, Derek had kept her up half the night, glazing her most sensitive parts with strawberry cream and licking every bit of it away. Of course, she’d returned the favor… Every inch of the skin between her legs tingled as she remembered the sweet taste of his hard, frosted cock.

  She collected her scattered clothes and donned them hastily, feeling slightly out of place in Derek’s empty condo. It seemed unnervingly quiet without him there. Maybe that was just because of how loud they’d been the night before.

  She grabbed her purse and reached inside to retrieve her cell phone, intending to call Derek and ask him whether they had plans for tonight. She had off work today, and she vaguely remembered him saying something about a movie. However, the details had been lost somewhere between the second and third time he’d used his skilled fingers to apply frosting to her body.

  Her phone was dead, its battery apparently having waned to obsolescence overnight. She’d wait until she got home to charge it before calling him, then. Tucking it back into her purse, she exited the condo, locking the door behind herself. Her car, which was finally out of the repair shop, awaited her. She emitted a small sigh of relief – not having to walk everywhere still felt like a luxury.

  Once home, she plugged her phone into its charger and began to strip off last evening’s outfit. She really should start keeping some extra clothes at Derek’s place if she was going to stay there overnight so often – dresses that’d been sexy the night before seemed odd when worn crumpled in the morning.

  Her phone chirped, announcing a waiting voice mail. She dialed and punched in her passcode. It was probably from Derek. Would it be a reminder of their plans for the night, or just a sexy good-morning message? He’d taken to leaving those, and hearing his voice after waking from a fantasy night with him always made her knees weak.

  “Kelly, this is Joan.” So much for a sexy good morning wish. But could it be something even better? She gripped the phone tightly, her heart racing as she silently prayed that this would be it – the call – the one where Joan announced that Kelly was about to be the owner of a brand new building. She had a bottle of champagne waiting, and she was more than ready to break it out, eleven o’clock in the morning or no.

  “I need you to call me immediately. It’s about the property.”

  Kelly’s heart hammered madly against her ribs. Had the seller accepted her offer? Before she could dial, the message ended and a second one began.

  “It’s me, Joan again. I’m afraid I have some bad news.” Kelly’s stomach plummeted, and the phone actually creaked as she grasped it in a death-grip.

  “The seller rejected your second offer.” Kelly took a deep breath, absorbing the news. It was bad, but she could make another. She’d get the place eventually –
that was the important thing.

  Joan’s recorded voice continued, and knocked the breath out of her in a sharp gasp as it delivered another revelation, this one like a physical blow. “Another buyer made an offer too good to turn down, and the seller only gave me an hour to get a hold of you to see if you wanted to make a counteroffer. I tried to buy more time, but they wouldn’t let me, and you didn’t return my call. The building is off the market. Give me a call or stop by my office whenever you’re ready and we can look at some other available properties you might be interested in.”

  Kelly crumpled to the floor, feeling suddenly hollow. Her phone slipped from her hand as the tears began to fall.

  ****

  Derek tried to keep his expression neutral as he regarded the woman that had just sidled up to the counter with suspicion. She looked to be somewhere in her forties and was smiling, her blue eyes boring directly into his. Hopefully, she hadn’t come to request an autograph.