by Abby Knox
Mal taps her finger to her scrumptious bottom lip and thinks. While she does this, I can only fantasize about touching my own finger to that lip, that pillowy piece of heaven. Tasting that sugar. Running my fingertips over those angled cheekbones, furrowed brow, kissing the tip of her prominent nose, her strong chin. Gods in heaven, does she even know how striking she is?
“I’ve already made a few basic cakes today. Let’s move on to cookies and breads. There are a bunch of different cookie doughs chilling in the fridge I can roll out. Why don’t you get started on a sweet bread, those are easy enough.”
Mal rattles off a long list of ingredients and I have to snap my concentration away from the part of her shoulder that peeks out from her scoop-neck shirt, the beginning of the protuberance of collarbone. My desire to give it a gentle nibble fights against my desire to help her do what needs to be done.
I’ll tell you what needs to be done. She needs to be done, and you need to be the one to do her. Thoroughly and completely.
I can see now this is going to be a bad combination for getting any work done. The fire she stokes in my belly just being in her house, close to her, seeing her in that starchy apron. How does she make a starchy apron look sexy? Because she’s a goddess, that’s how.
I nod. “Yes, ma’am.”
My words come out rougher than intended, and she can be in no doubt of what’s going on in my head.
I slide off to the pantry with her rolling kitchen cart to retrieve the list of ingredients while she rolls out her cookie dough. The heat does not dissipate when she’s not under my gaze. If anything it prods some preternatural instinct. I’m sexually frustrated but also protective. I can’t even take my eyes off her for a few minutes without feeling the empty ache in my belly.
I stare blankly at the wall of canisters in her pantry. There’s plain white sugar, light brown sugar, dark brown sugar, raw sugar and a dozen other kinds I never knew existed. “What kind of sugar was it again, sugar?”
Her reply comes after a pause. “Uhm, regular white sugar and light brown. Honey.” The shy smile in her voice is undeniable.
My mind imagines that, within that pause, Mal allowed herself to accept me flirting with her. Maybe it’s easier for her to flirt back while not in the same room as me.
A sly grin spreads across my face as I get back to gathering supplies. She called me honey.
I’ll take it and I’ll float on that all week if I have to.
The honey between her legs will be that much sweeter the longer we wait.
Chapter Seven
Mal
I’m not prepared to be faced with the vision of Quinn wearing an apron and strutting back into my kitchen, my spare rolling pin resting on his beefy shoulder.
It doesn’t matter that he does not need a rolling pin to bake bread. He looks half cocky, half eager to please. It’s adorable.
The rolling cart he’s pulling is more or less full of everything I asked him to fetch. “Thank you,” I say. I lose myself in his long, tall frame, his tousled salt and pepper hair. His curled bicep reminds me of that hug we shared last night, and I would love nothing more than to relax into his embrace, fit my head against his warm chest. Guide him to the bedroom and let him have his way.
The thought of all the things those big, rough hands—not to mention his sexy lips—could do to me threatens to zap my work ethic.
I square my shoulders and clear my throat, thinking this will somehow make me appear strong, invincible to his charms. “Thank you,” I say, putting out my hand to take the rolling pin. He hands it over and our fingers touch.
Tamping down the electricity we’ve just exchanged, I set the rolling pin aside and begin scooping out ingredients and chucking them into bowls.
Quinn’s eyes are still on me; I can feel them.
“Don’t you need to measure things?”
I smile but keep my eyes trained on what I’m doing. “I’m at the point now where I can eyeball basic measurements. And I know most of my recipes by heart, I do them so much.”
“You’re amazingly talented, you know,” he says.
This makes me chuckle. “I’ve worked very hard. It’s a skill. Anyone can do what I do. You just have to work at it.”
He huffs. “Some people have a gift for it. You’re one of them.”
I shrug, adding the dry ingredients to the wet and turning on the commercial-sized mixer. “What about you?”
“What about me?”
I turn to face him. “Well, you’re a teacher. You obviously believe people can be taught to understand art and how to write.”
He nods. “Yeah.”
“So is art, music, or writing a talent or a skill?”
“Both.”
“But if some of it is talent, then why bother teaching it?”
“Because it’s part of a well-rounded education, whether or not you have the talent. And learning it might bring out someone’s natural talent.”
I cross my arms and eye Quinn skeptically. “And I would argue that talent is not a measurable, reliable thing. But hard work and skill is.”
Quinn laughs. “Okay, this is getting too philosophical. How about we test your theory?”
I walk over to the freezer and take out some from-scratch pastry dough and pie crusts to thaw on the kitchen island. “What are you suggesting?”
Quinn towers over me, following me around the kitchen. His hands are in his pockets, trying to look non-threatening, but still, his height, his mass is close enough to transfer his heat and his whole energy into my skin. “Well, it looks to me like you’re doing everything here. Give me a recipe to do and I’ll do it, from beginning to end, and I’ll prove to you that I have no talent for baking even though I am intelligent enough to understand recipes and can follow directions.”
I swivel to face him, nervously wiping my hands on my apron. “Oh, but can you follow directions?”
“Sugar, if you tell me what you want me to do with these hands, I am but your loyal subject.” He holds up his hands, showing me the backs and then the fronts of his long, rough fingers. The way he’s holding them in the air in front of me, if my mind were in the gutter, I might imagine them cupping my face…or my breasts…or one of them touching the bare skin of my tummy, sliding down into my panties, those fingers slipping into my heat, nudging all the secret places that have ached for so long. My cheeks blaze and my mouth waters. Would it feel good this time, to hold someone between my legs, letting that someone know my body…be inside me? My body screams yes. This someone? Yes.
“Mal. Are you okay?”
I snap out of it. “Hmm? Oh. Sure. Testing your theory. Right. I could give you directions, but how would I know you wouldn’t flub the execution just to prove your point?”
Quinn’s winning smile, the smile that has surely gotten him out of one scrape or another in the past, and has no doubt given him advantages with countless hookups, further chips away at my resolve. “Scout’s honor.” And he does the scouting salute to great effect.
I watch the two-finger salute with wide eyes.
“Oh. Okay. Then here.” I swallow and turn away to my old reliable recipe binder, plopping it open on the kitchen table. “You can do this banana bread recipe. It’s very simple.” I slide the card out of its plastic sheet and set him off to work so I can get back to mine.
We work around each other quietly for the next hour, Deftly moving past each other, we weave our way around the kitchen. We do this while managing to not get in each other’s way. Being with Quinn in my workspace is not as much of an imposition as I’d thought. He’s a pleasure.
He even hums while he works. Most astonishingly, I do not hate this.
My double ovens allow us to both bake our goods separately. As we clean up, I ask him to tell me more about his childhood. Quinn tells me how his dad ran off when he was a baby, and how his mother died when he was 16. How he ran away from his aunt and uncle’s house at 17 and worked odd jobs here and there. Picked up guitar and harmon
ica, read everything he could get his hands on.
When everything is clean, he stretches his large frame and leans back against my kitchen island. He looks so good right now; like he’s always been a fixture in my life. I don’t know what comes over me but I take a step toward him and pick up one of his hands and hold it in mine. “I wondered how your hands got so rough from wandering through the desert, reading books all your life. Guitar strings?”
He nods, his eyes widening at my forwardness. “Among other things.”
I turn his hand over and examine his palm. Running my fingertips over the deep lines, I feel his body shudder.
We don’t have much time now before the cookies are done. And soon after, the bread.
But all I want is one small taste.
He seems to know what I want, and before I know what’s happening, the pad of his thumb is swiping across my bottom lip.
“So plump and warm. Do you know what the sight of those lips does to me, friend?”
Everything feels like it’s underwater and in slow motion. I blink slowly at him and breathe in deeply of his musky scent, seriously considering wrapping my lips around his thumb. What does it taste like right now, I wonder. Salty? Sweaty? My mind goes to a dirtier place, thinking of other things I’ve never done and never had any desire to do. But now…I just wonder what other parts of him would taste like, feel like, deep in my mouth. In my throat.
My lips part of their own volition and with a ragged breath, I place a chaste kiss against the callused skin on the tip of his thumb.
Quinn’s body appears to go rigid, his eyes tracking me like prey. His jaw tightens, accentuating all the angles of his face. Does he love this or hate this? Does he want me to continue or stop teasing him? Let’s find out.
I cease my chaste kissing and let my mouth fall open. With something that sounds somewhere between a sigh and a groan, Quinn slips his thumb into my mouth and I wet it with my tongue and grasp it with my lips. “Mal.”
I don’t reply, only moisten his thumb, swiping my tongue all over it. My eyes still locked on his, with my mind I dare him to look away.
The T-shirt material stretches at the increased pace of the rise and fall of his chest in response to my teasing tongue and lips.
“Sugar,” he grits out, driving me on. I take all of his thumb into my mouth, all the way down to the knuckle, still casting my eyes up at him while I do it. I’m fully mimicking the dirty thing I want to do to his body. In and out his thumb goes, heat blooming in my pussy and my nipples hard as pebbles, screaming to be teased by that wet thumb.
“Oh, you know exactly what that mouth is doing to me now, girl,” he rumbles. “You’re making me so hard I could knock down a wall with it.”
The thought that it’s me, that I’m the one causing these reactions in him, is overwhelming my brain. So much so that a moan escapes me on the upstroke.
Something about my sounds affects him, makes him crazy, I daresay. Quinn pulls his thumb out of my mouth with a loud curse.
His kiss claims me, owns me, leaves its mark on me forever.
Just at the same moment that the oven timer beeps.
“The cookies,” he whispers.
But before he can pull away, my fingers grasp at the front of his T-shirt and pull him to me.
“Fuck the cookies. My body’s on fire.”
Chapter Eight
Quinn
I tug down Mal’s thin V-neck T-shirt to reveal a pink lacy bra the same tone as her skin. It reminds me of strawberry ice cream. The softness. I need to taste it so bad my mouth waters for it.
I run my hand over the cup of her lacy bra, feeling the tightness of her nipple under my palm. I squeeze gently, producing a moan from her. It’s quiet but so full of need. Soon I’m gently kneading both breasts while we kiss. Her fingers seem padlocked to my belt loops.
Her body is rigid as she breathes, “Take me to bed, Quinn.”
But she’s too tense. Not yet.
“You may think you want this, but your body’s not ready, sugar.”
Another minute passes amidst our desperate caresses and kisses, and the oven timer goes off again.
“The cookies,” I remind her.
“They can wait. I judge by aroma and not the timer, anyway. Please.”
Well, I can’t leave a woman to beg. The scent of banana bread and warm cookies swirls around us and snares me along with her pleading.
“That lace of your bra itching to come off?” I ask. She whimpers against my lips, her delicate fingers trailing up my sides and back down again. I taste the skin of her neck and inhale her sweet scent, working my lips down to her ample chest. Without using my hands, I nudge the flimsy lace out of the way with my teeth, careful not to tear it. One soft breast spills out to show me her rosy nipple, tight and begging to be teased. I bare her other breast in the same way. Her chest heaves, her well-kissed mouth murmuring my name. Her nipples call to my mouth like a beacon and I savor each one like the fine morsels they are. As I shower her taut peaks and soft breasts with the attention they crave, I can tell from the sound of Mal’s moans that she’s biting down on her lip. Trying to stifle herself. Get control of herself.
In response I bathe one nipple completely with my tongue, let it go, and then blow on it. Her gasps and clutching fingers tell me she likes that. “Let go, sugar. It’s okay.”
I’m about to explore the underside of her breast, where the underwire has left its harsh red indentation, when the timer goes off once again.
“Shut up,” she whispers in frustration.
I laugh against the skin of her breasts. I just can’t get enough of them. Her fingers weave through my hair, sending sparks of pleasure down my body as I suckle.
I’ll have to make this quick. “I don't want your first dicking in 15 years to be on the kitchen floor.”
“Quinn, please,” she whispers, her fingers tightening their grip in my hair. It’s only slightly painful but more of an incredible turn-on. “I’m almost there. I feel something happening.”
Better make this quick before we burn the entire kitchen down. I can only think of one surefire way to satisfy this woman in a hurry. And then, later, when we’re finished baking, we can take our time, if she still wants me.
“In that case, may I use my mouth to make you come?”
Mal’s eyes go wide and her mouth squeaks, “Hell yes. Put me on the counter, now.”
Instead I move her toward the kitchen table while I hitch up her skirt and make quick work of her panties. I let her watch me stuff them in my pocket before swiftly setting her down and diving my face in between her legs.
The heat. The wetness. My God. And it’s all for me. She overwhelms my senses. I thought there was no way her skin could feel any softer or more yielding or taste any better. But everything between her legs is pure unadulterated Mal, times a thousand.
The oven timer beeps again and I’m sure it can’t be good to leave anything in the oven much longer.
I avidly dive into her with my tongue, from her tight little cunt all the way up until I find her button.
I ignore the throbbing of my shaft but adjust it with my hand before reaching up and holding her split open. Her tight little berry is red and aching; I can see that. I drink in every drop of honey. I gently nudge and suck her clit into my mouth. She yelps and bucks against me. I work her over good, taking what I want but giving her more. In and out, I slide my tongue into her. I devour every bit of her pussy so thoroughly until the next time the oven beeps at us, she shatters and screams out her release.
She blurts out a cuss word that I never thought I would hear uttered from that sexy mouth.
Her pussy convulses against my tongue in time with her cries.
I stroke her thighs and kiss her softness while she rides out her aftershocks.
I help her adjust her clothing and set her down carefully on a kitchen chair.
She breathlessly whispers something about the cookies.
“I got you, sugar. I got
your cookies. Don’t you worry.”
The cookies are indeed a little brown, but still edible.
I do all the things she tells me to do with them before and leave them to cool on the racks, and then start to roll out the next batch of dough.
I glance over at her and her eyes are closed.
I feel awful for letting her fall asleep with her head resting on her forearms on the table.
So I do what any self-respecting male would do; I lay her down on her bed, despite her protests.
“I got this. I can follow a recipe. Like you said. Now go ahead and take a nap and let me get some work done.”
Chapter Nine
Mal
When I wake up, it’s two hours later, the shadows are long, and the whole house smells like heaven. Again.
Rolling over, I smile as I realize I hear Shelby’s voice chattering away in the kitchen.
I get my bearings and realize why that is.
Shelby’s home. And it’s Tuesday evening. And if she’s talking to somebody, that must mean…
Oh. Shit.
Well. Maybe she doesn’t know. Maybe she hasn’t figured it out yet.
Maybe…
Who am I kidding? There’s no way to explain this away.
I throw some lipstick on and brush my hair, but there’s no way I can hide the flush in my cheeks. The swollen, stubble-brushed lips and chin.
Besides, I don’t think I can hide my feelings when I look at Quinn, not even in front of my daughter.
“Shelby-cakes!” I shout her nickname as I scurry into the kitchen because I cannot help but get excited whenever I see my baby girl.
I love this little chick more than life itself. Her honey hair is the same color as mine, as are her big bright eyes. She inherited the beautiful angles of her father’s face, the cheekbones, jawline, determined brow. Her eyes light up when she sees me, a huge blessing that I don’t take for granted from a 15-year-old.