by Abby Knox
“It’s okay, just be with Ash and then get some rest. You’ve been traveling all day.”
“What all do you have left to do?”
She sighed and looked around at the rows of buttered and floured cake pans. “Well, I’m going to bake the cakes and start on sculpting all the teeny tiny flowers. Tomorrow night I start on the chocolate and sugar-work. The frosting was all made ahead and frozen weeks ago.”
“That is too much for you. Where’s your sous chef?”
“Dude, she ran the café for me tonight, I can’t keep a pregnant lady here after hours.”
“You’re doing too much. Let me send over some of my staff; they’d love to learn from the master of cakes.”
“I’m used to multitasking, unlike a certain gorgeous blond rock star chef I used to know.”
He laughed. “I can multitask.”
“Vann, about the only multitasking you can handle is kissing me while squeezing my tits at the same time.”
He barked a laugh. “Because I’m ADD and you’re the only woman who has ever given me the ability to concentrate. Let me help you.”
“It’s okay, I got this.”
“I’ll check on you in a few.”
At about three a.m., there was a tap on the back door of the café. In wafted her Viking god, carrying a bag of tacos. She didn’t know which to attack first. She did not have to decide, because Vann scooped her up in the way that only Vann could. They kissed deeply for a long time, and she tried to hold back the tears. She was still a little drunk, and still a little sad she had not seen him at the party, and still very sad for the time they had spent apart.
She was also so tired she could barely speak. “Come on, sit down and eat some tacos.”
Happy and exhausted, she ate tacos sitting on his lap on her office sofa while listening to him tell her stories from the trip home from Seoul. She finished two tacos before she could not lift another and rested her head on Vann’s shoulder, just to close her eyes for a moment.
Chapter Eighteen
Vann
His girl. She was finally back in his arms and sleeping just like she should be. Like she should have been these past several weeks. Vann watched her sleep on her apartment futon and was kicking himself. Why had he not asked her to come with him? That was a mistake he would not allow to happen again.
When Vann had noticed that GiGi had fallen fast asleep on his shoulder, he decided she had had enough. He had carried her and ridden with her in the back of an Uber, brought her upstairs to her apartment, helped her shower, then wrapped her up in a blanket on the bed. He turned off both of their phones, nestled up behind to spoon her, and they both slept the rest of the early morning hours.
He decided right then and there that she was never going to put herself through this ever again. Not when he could do something about it. She would argue, but that was that. He was going to help her hire more people, and she was going to go with him on his next shoot, wherever that may be.
When he woke up, he decided to let her sleep. Vann snuck out of bed and finally took a look around her home in the daylight. It was like a hurricane had hit. Piles of unfolded clean clothes everywhere. Dishes in the sink. Dust bunnies about to stage a revolution. Shit, this woman needed help in more ways than one. So Vann spent the next couple of hours tidying up. And then he raided her meager pantry and whipped up breakfast. Peanut butter toast and scrambled eggs and coffee. For a chef, her kitchen was not well stocked.
He waited for her to wake up but enjoyed watching her sleep. He brushed her hair away from her face. She sighed in her sleep and snuggled deeper into the pillow. This gave him a wicked idea.
“Oh, Vann…” she said with a sigh as she began to wake up at the sensation of him removing her panties.
He parted her thighs and inhaled her sweet spice. “Good morning, love.”
“Hmmm…I’m so sleepy…”
“Good,” he said. “Go back to sleep and I’ll stop.”
“No,” she said. “I’ll go back to sleep and you can keep doing that. Oh, God. What time is it? I have to go to work.”
“No, you don’t. I called my assistant, you’ve got extra help for the rehearsal dinner. All you have to do today is play hide the sausage with your man.”
He tongued apart her labia and found her taut little clit. She sighed. “I could kill you for taking that all upon yourself, but I don’t have words right now. Just keep massaging me like that until I fall back asleep.”
Vann replied as he kissed, licked, and sucked, “I’m gonna have you screaming my name in about a minute.”
He devoured her slowly. She was just as nice and warm as he had imagined she would be upon waking from a deep sleep. She ran her hands through his hair as he worked her core into a needful rhythm, and soon she was arching her body toward him.
“Oh my God. I missed this so much.”
“Same,” he murmured.
“You feel amazing, Vann.”
“You taste fucking delicious, GiGi. I missed being between your legs so badly.”
He continued working her over with his mouth, gripping her thighs like he had been missing a part of his own body. She had completely wrecked him. There was no going back to his old life. She was his, and wherever she went, he would be with her. Hell, he would give up television and sell his restaurant chain if it meant he could spend more time with GiGi.
As she climaxed, she reached for him, and he gladly fell into her arms, sharing the taste of her as he sank his shaft inside of her.
“Babe, maybe it’s been too long, but you feel different. You’re not wearing a condom, are you?” she said, panting with him as his thrusts picked up speed.
He smiled and kissed her again. “There’s a reason for that. And that particular reason is why you’ll probably end up pregnant very soon. I want to start our life together as soon as possible, and I never want to be apart like that again. But say the word and I’ll pull out before I come.”
He waited for the shouting. He knew what he’d done. But he’d also smelled her ripeness all over her. The beast in her wanted this as much as he did. He would deserve every bite, every claw mark, even getting kicked out of bed, for this kind of rude surprise. He’d taken a huge chance. He braced himself.
The surprise on her sweet face turned to a smile, and she put her hand on his cheek. “No. Stay.”
Vann was so happy to hear this his whole body was ready to crawl inside this woman. His thrusting grew in depth and fierceness and intense happiness, so much so that he had worked GiGi back up into another frenzy. Her legs clamped around him, begging him to go deeper. He threw one of her legs over his shoulder and penetrated as deep as he possibly could until her eyes closed in ecstasy, and her body bucked against him. There was a loud crack, like wood against wood, and a thud. They came in unison, each of them releasing a primal cry that shook the windows.
Neither of them noticed that they had broken her futon until after they had thoroughly ruined each other two more times that day.
GiGi
“Oh shit,” she said when eventually Vann had gotten up to fetch them some water. “We missed Auntie Betsy’s brunch this morning!”
Vann scoffed as he clattered around the kitchen. “Who schedules the wedding party for some stupid shit like that on the morning after the bachelor and bachelorette parties?”
GiGi shrugged. “Auntie Betsy, that’s who. I am a little bummed I’m going to miss out on the homemade beignets, though.”
Vann was digging through the kitchen drawers for utensils and pulling things from the fridge. He said, “Beignets are beignets. Overrated.”
GiGi’s eyes nearly popped out of her head as she pulled the blankets up over her breasts as if to shield herself from the scandalous statement. “How can you say that? Beignets are a gift from heaven, and Aunt Betsy got the recipe straight from God herself.”
He laughed. Praise Baby Jesus, she had missed hearing him laugh.
“What are you doing in there, anyway
? I’m dying of thirst over here,” she said, craning her neck to see what he was up to.
When Vann returned to the busted futon, he was carrying a tray in his hands and had a devilish grin on his face.
“What is that?”
He set the tray down in front of her. “Something a bit better than beignets.”
“That’s the wedding cake! What did you do? You can’t just—“
But he shushed her with his lips. “It’s the scraps. I found them in your fridge at the restaurant. And a bowl of your leftover buttercream.”
“Oh, sorry. I should know better than to assume you’d cut into the wedding cake,” she said sheepishly. “This should be good, I hope.”
He was curious. “Haven’t you tried it?”
She shook her head. “No, oddly enough, I haven’t.”
He picked up a chunk of lemon raspberry cake and fed it to her. “Now,” he said, “nobody should serve anything they didn’t taste themselves.”
It was good. Better than good. She closed her eyes. It was the best cake she’d ever tasted.
When she opened her eyes, Vann’s hand was wrapped around a piping bag full of icing.
“I’m not much for cake. But I love frosting. And if my nose is correct, you’ve made white chocolate buttercream. Don’t tell me, let me guess. Here, get rid of that blanket.”
He yanked the blankets away, exposing her breasts. GiGi felt the heat building again. They had fucked three times today already, and she was ready to go again. Whatever it would take to keep him here.
He twisted the piping bag and with the metal tip dripped some of the icing onto her nipple. GiGi gasped in surprise and moaned when her lover latched on to suck off the sugary stuff.
“You’re crazy, and I love it,” she sighed.
“Lie back,” he instructed.
“No argument here,” she purred. Vann proceeded to twist and grip the bag again. She felt the cool icing tickling her ribcage, and she smiled as he used his teeth and tongue to clean her off. “Hey, I want some of that.”
Vann set the bag down and teased his fingertips over her lips. One by one she took his fingers into her mouth and licked off the icing. “It’s good,” she said. “I’m gonna have to throw these sheets away after the butter stains, but this is hot.”
“I’ve been thinking about nothing else since the moment you said you were making the cake. I’ve been waiting almost four months to eat icing off of your gorgeous tits. But I’m glad I had to wait because I have one more thing…”
He sat up and picked up the piping bag one more time. This time he twisted it tightly and gripped it in both hands to trace something along her thigh with precision.
“What are you doing, decorating me? I thought you didn’t like cake decorating,” she teased.
He laughed. “Just hang on, and may I remind you that you are far more delicious a canvas to work on than cake?”
“Charmer.”
He finished and said, “Done.”
She sat up and looked down at her leg. All up her thigh were three piped cursive words, framed in beaded icing border fancy enough for a wedding cake. It read, “Marry me, Peaches?”
A better, more apropos proposal she could not have invented herself. Beyond that, a better mate for life she could not have designed. Finally, after a lifetime of waiting, she was saying yes to something that made her happy and was just for her.
Chapter Nineteen
Vann
After leaving the rehearsal dinner early to check on preparations for the next day, Vann kissed GiGi goodnight as she walked him out of the café.
“Don’t work too late tonight. You need your rest for the wedding tomorrow.”
“I won’t,” she said.
It had been a while since Vann had set foot in his own titular restaurant, but as expected, everything was under control. Vann had one less thing to stress about on the day of the wedding. Not that he had anything to stress about ever, as he hadn’t picked up a knife himself since he’d cooked for GiGi on their first date. He gave last-minute instructions to the staff and left. This whole event would be a piece of cake. After all, he had the resources to hire enough people that he barely had to do anything but give his head chef the menu.
It was only 10 p.m., so Vann went for a walk. It was a beautiful night. The humidity was mercifully mild, and he didn’t feel like he was walking through a swamp with every step.
In this familiar neighborhood where he had started his first restaurant, nobody stopped to ask him for an autograph. It was refreshing.
Vann decided to make the walk extra-long tonight and go check on GiGi. Even though he’d begged her not to, he knew she would be freaking out right now over the cake.
Walking back toward her café, he was having this feeling of total contentment that he had never felt before in his hometown. He owed everything to this city, and yet he could not deny himself the opportunity to leave and see the world. But being home for the wedding was changing something in him. Or maybe GiGi was changing something in him. He liked being close to his pack, and not just at the full moon, where he was safe to undergo the shape-shift. He felt like perhaps he could settle down here and make a life with GiGi. If that’s what she wanted.
As he rounded the corner, he could sense something wasn’t right. He felt it in the air as he approached her café.
GiGi
Her fingers were cramped as she sculpted her ninetieth ivy leaf out of royal icing. She still had to do sugar butterflies on top of the buildings—her last-minute idea that would put the whole thing over the top.
Yesterday, GiGi had determined that if she managed her time she should be done with this by 11 p.m. tonight, giving her plenty of time to sleep and be fresh as a daisy in the morning.
The rehearsal dinner had run long, the speeches went long, and she finally had to excuse herself at 10 p.m. with apologies to go back to the kitchen to take care of the cake. As she sculpted away, she thought bitterly how nice it would be to have a huge staff at her disposal to meet her deadlines. Why had she insisted on keeping Vann and his staff away from the cake? She had glanced over at Vann during the rehearsal dinner, and he looked gloriously relaxed. He was drinking his favorite cocktails and howling with laughter with all his buddies, his tie loosened and his top buttons undone, exposing his sun-kissed tan, which he no doubt got somewhere on a beach last week.
She knew she couldn’t be mad at him. He had done nothing wrong. But her reptile brain kept making comparisons. That’s just what it did. Her competitive, perfectionist nature would not allow her mind to simply be in the zone.
Pretty soon she decided to take a break to look everything over. She had the whole base assembled and iced, and it perfectly resembled Bourbon Street, down to street signs made of candy and translucent windows made of gelatin that would be lit up from the inside. The only thing left was making the little chocolate people and the bride and groom on top of the wedding float.
GiGi went into the pantry to get the chocolate molds she needed. That was odd, she thought. The molds were not where they were supposed to be. The molds she had specially commissioned for this project. The molds that had set her back a pretty penny. And yet they were not there. She swore she had left them on the shelf right there in the pantry, but there was no sign of them. She opened cabinets and pulled out drawers. Oh shit. This is bad.
She rested her hands on the butcher block counter and tried to breathe. Think, GiGi. Where did you leave them? This was unacceptable. Looking around like this was wasting time. She was not going to get any sleep now. Should she keep looking or come up with a plan B? Gum paste? Awful. Rice Krispie treats molded into little people? No.
And then, the panic settled in her chest. This was not good. She tried to breathe, but her chest was starting to feel tight. She needed to go outside to get some air and just think. The smell of sugar and butter was overwhelming. GiGi bolted out the back door and into the alleyway and braced herself against the brick wall and started to cry.
This was it. She failed. There would be no perfect cake. It would just be an okay cake. The tears came and came and came. And then, the next thing she knew, warm hands were gripping her. A blanket went around her. She was sitting down on her couch in her office, someone was next to her, helping her remember how to breathe in and out to calm herself down.
Most likely it was Vann, but she couldn’t be sure, she was so exhausted. When her breathing returned to normal, she felt him next to her. He was kissing her forehead and telling her to lie down.
“No, it’s not done. The chocolate molds. Somebody stole them. I can’t make little parade people, it’s too much.”
“I’ll take care of it.”
“You don’t know how to temper chocolate. It has to be shiny. Not just regular shiny but wedding shiny. It’s a whole other level of shiny. Do you know what wedding shiny is?”
“I did go to culinary school, my love. I do remember things.”
“Also, I have to attach all those tiny little flowers and leaves and make the butterflies…and oh shit, I was going to do the piping around the base to look like little Mardi Gras beads.”
But all Vann said was, “Shhhh,” and laid her down on the couch. He tucked his jacket under her head for a pillow.
“GiGi, I want you to do exactly as I say. You are a fucking rock star, but even rock stars need to sleep. Close your eyes.”
As soon as she did, she was out.
When she woke up, she had a crick in her neck that told her she had slept way too long. She sat up and checked her phone. The time was nine a.m. The cake was due for delivery in 30 minutes.
Shit! It wasn’t done. The cake was really fucking far from done. She had failed. She bolted out of her office and went into the kitchen. But it was empty. In fact, the room was spotless. Not just that, but the stainless steel was gleaming. Someone had cleaned up in here and moved the cake!