by Zoe York
He descended on her hungrily, her shirt going flying, followed by his, and then he peeled her out of her pants before dropping to his knees. “I’m still hungry.”
She dropped her head back, giving herself over to the sensations. He was so good at this, thorough and enthusiastic. It didn’t take long before she was lifting her hips to meet his tongue. Her body was a taut bow, and as her arousal spiked, and she curled forward, the sight of his head between her thighs, his powerful shoulders the perfect leg rest, was what put her over the edge. Shaking, trembling in every cell, she buried her hands in his hair and ground against him as he swallowed every bit of her climax.
He rested his head on her belly and exhaled. “Yeah. That. I needed that before I could sleep.”
Holy fuck.
She closed her eyes and rubbed her fingers through his hair. When her heartbeat returned to normal, she pulled him up her body, giving him a long, slow kiss of thanks, then spun them around so she could return the favour.
It took them a good long while to get dressed again and stumble out into the kitchen, laughing. Isla washed her hands, then picked up the raspberry icing piping bag, thanked it for its help, and returned it to the fridge.
Adam watched her with a smirk on his face. “So what exactly happened here?”
She winked at him. “I seduced you with a very slick move. I lured you in with some sexy profit margin talk and then hit you with the raspberry buttercream frosting.”
“I didn’t see it coming.”
“That’s what makes it a very slick move.”
He grinned sleepily. “You bamboozled me.”
“That’s what I’ll call it! The cupcake. It’s a Raspberry Bamboozle.” She wrote that down on her clipboard, then gestured to the front. “I’ll just put the leftovers into day-old boxes for tomorrow, then we can get going home.”
“You don’t have any more work you want to do today?”
She shook her head. “I’ll work extra long tomorrow, but my only remaining to-do task today is go home and have a nap with you.”
But when they climbed into his bed, they didn’t go straight to sleep. Adam ran his fingers through her hair, his nails scraping her scalp just enough to make her purr, and turned the conversation back to the bakery. “As much as I really do like being your admin 2IC, have you thought about hiring someone to help? Someone who doesn’t sleep during the day quite so much?”
She giggled. “First of all, you’re irreplaceable for reasons I should hope are obvious by now. But…help? I was hoping to hold off on that until next summer. I’d like to have a full year of data, at least for the slower months, so I’m not making any false promises to anyone about work hours.”
“But will busier periods cover the cost of employing someone in the slower months?”
“Yes. Definitely. By next summer, I should be able to save enough money to know I can make it through next winter, even if business slows down.”
“Then what do you think about taking out a line of credit—” The scalp massage stopped as Adam held up his hands, as she lifted her head and glowered gently at him. “Which I will co-sign. We can use the house as collateral.”
The offer to help financially didn’t lessen her glower in the least. “I can’t ask you to do that.”
“Which is why I’m offering instead. I believe in you, and the bakery, and I don’t think you’ll even dip into the loan. But it would be good to have it just in case.”
“I’ll think about it.” She wouldn’t accept the offer. She couldn’t. But she knew Adam needed her to really consider it, and she’d give him that much before saying no. She’d show him she didn’t need any help, that she could manage all on her own.
“Good.” He tugged her back down onto the pillow. “Now let’s talk about the obvious reasons you like having me around…”
Isla hadn’t forgotten Adam’s birthday, exactly. She’d put it in her phone in the summer, but then he’d spent the fall filling her calendar with reminders to order butter and do inventory and reconcile the books.
So that one blue-coloured calendar entry had slid down the list, until suddenly it was the first week of December, and her husband’s thirtieth birthday was around the freaking corner.
“We have to have a party,” she said as she slid onto his lap at the table.
“We do not,” he replied, handing her a piece of toast. It was a Monday, and they both had the day off. She’d moved her workout with Catie to the afternoon so they could have a lazy morning together.
“It’s a big deal!”
“So was our wedding, and we celebrated that in private.” He waggled his eyebrows at her. “I’m happy to have a private party just with you. Maybe you can bring home some of that bamboozle icing and I’ll lick it off—”
She was not going to be deterred. “Has anyone ever made a big deal about your birthday?”
“Yeah, of course.” His lips pulled together in tight concentration. “At some point. When I was a kid, my mom did, absolutely.”
But his parents were gone before he hit sixteen, eighteen, twenty-one.
“This is a milestone,” she said firmly. “And I want to make a big-ass deal about it, in a way you will be comfortable. Dinner party, backyard shindig, or a meet up at the pub?”
He looked around the faded kitchen. “Not a dinner party. And it’s a bit cold for a…” His lips twitched as he repeated her words. “Backyard shindig.”
“A fire pit would solve that.”
“Let’s go to the Green Hedgehog,” he said. “That’s a great idea.”
She hadn’t been yet, but he’d talked enough about the pub that she knew it was where he used to hang out. Before her, before the all-consuming new job.
She called and left a message at the bar, asking if they had any private rooms available for booking, and if she could bring in her own cake. When she didn’t hear back by later afternoon, after she finished working out at Catie’s house, she drove across the highway and into Lion’s Head.The Green Hedgehog was bigger than she expected, more of a sprawling restaurant than a cozy pub, although it had all the character of exactly that. A series of rooms in an old Victorian mansion, it was dead quiet in the pre-dinner lull.
Isla idly wondered if they wanted to order pies like she was making weekly for Mac’s Diner.
There wasn’t anyone at the bar, so she kept going, finding a back room full of pool tables and lined with dart boards that would be perfect for a party.
Just as she went to turn back, she heard Adam’s name mentioned clear as a bell, and in the context of her own voice mail.
“So apparently Adam Kincaid’s wife left a message? She wants to book a party room.”
She froze.
“The baker?”
“Yeah. Have you met her?”
Isla wished she knew people around here better. She didn’t recognize either of the voices. Two women were standing just around the corner, clearly familiar with her husband and his family, but who were they?
“Oh yes, a few times. The bakery’s…” The last bit of that sentence dropped off to being incomprehensible, and Isla leaned in further.
“What is she like?”
The answer to that was also mumbled, and Isla told herself to make her presence known before she heard something she’d regret, but she was frozen.
“I guess we’ll see them in here next week if she wants to have a party for him. Can you imagine? Adam blowing out birthday candles?”
They both laughed.
Isla frowned. Why the hell not?
“People ask about him, you know. What the deal is with her, why Mr. Player suddenly got hitched. How long it’s going to be before he reverts to his old ways?”
That didn’t feel good to hear. It’s also not true.
“Maybe he’s really changed.”
And then they laughed again.
Laughed. At the thought of Adam being a good husband.
Isla saw red and stepped around the corner. She didn�
��t recognize the taller blonde woman, but the shorter, curvier one was Bailey Patel, whose eyes went wide in recognition.
“Isla, I’m…” Isla raised her eyebrows and Bailey visibly cringed. “Lore, this is…” And then she swore under her breath.
Isla laughed, because while it was hella awkward, that was also kind of funny. She held out her hand. “I’m Adam’s wife. I left a message earlier?”
And then Lore swore too, not at all under her breath. “Fuck, I’m sorry. We shouldn’t have been talking about you.”
“You weren’t talking about me as much as you were my husband,” she said dryly. A decade of knowing troops would talk about her behind her back—and much of it in the very not good category—had inured her to the brunt force of gossip. It had taught her a few tricks for correcting the narrative, too.
To Lore’s credit, she didn’t look away. “We shouldn’t have been doing that, either.”
“No, you shouldn’t have.” She wanted to set them straight, tell them that she had known Adam for years, and the perception of the community was only one side of who he was. She wanted to tell them that Adam knew exactly what he wanted, but it wasn’t any of their business. All that mattered was that she knew how committed he was to her and their relationship. It still rattled her more than she liked that anyone might question their relationship.
It hit a little too close to the truth of how their marriage started, for one thing.
But for all intents and purposes, they had a real marriage now. Unconventional, but…
Adam only wanted her. She had to stay focused on that part.
Chapter Nineteen
The parking lot at the Hedgehog was jammed full of vehicles Adam recognized, so it was hardly a surprise when they walked into the back room to find his brothers and neighbours there. He liked the way everyone turned and cheered as he stepped into view, and he loved the way Isla leaned into him, pleased with the party she’d put together in his honour.
He scanned the room, grinning, then did a double-take, because one of the guests actually was unexpected.
Leaning against the wall, holding a bottle of beer, was Stevie. Adam grabbed Isla’s hand and tugged her through the crowd, waving at everyone as they went, then pulled his friend in for a bear hug. “Hey, man.”
“Happy birthday.” Stevie thumped him on the back, then turned to Isla and gave her a nod.
She wrapped her arms around him, too. “Thanks for coming,” she said. Then she turned to Adam. “Surprise!”
“How did you…?”
“The internet can be used to search for people and then reach out to them.” She winked. “Stevie said he’d been thinking of coming home, but couldn’t swing the Christmas break, so a visit now made more sense. We made sure to line the party up with when he could be home.”
Adam tapped his chest. “Wow. You guys.” He turned back to Stevie. “How are your folks? Good?”
Stevie nodded.
“Awesome. We’ll catch up later, yeah?” Another nod, and Adam wanted to just stand there and lean against the wall with his buddy. “I’ll be back soon. I’ll do a quick loop and then—”
“Go.” His friend grinned. “I’ve got my drink. I’m good.”
But when Adam moved on, Isla hung back, and as he greeted everyone, he noticed her quietly talking to Stevie for some length. She didn’t leave his friend’s side until he returned, in fact, and when he got back, Stevie was actually grinning.
Adam caught Isla around the waist, pulling her in for a hug. It felt good to hold her in public and not worry about accidentally crossing a line with her. She wiggled against him, and he kissed the side of her head, then her mouth when she tipped her face up to look at him.
“My turn to make the rounds,” she whispered. “Let you guys catch up.”
Stevie watched her walk away for a second, and Adam did, too, for a lot longer than a second. She was wearing a dark purple sweater tonight that made her eyes pop, and the world’s tightest jeans that made his mouth water.
When he looked back at his friend, Stevie had a knowing look in his eye. “Captain Petersen, eh?”
Adam felt a hard tug in his chest. “Yep.”
“She’s great.”
“You don’t know the half of it, man. I really lucked out.”
“I go out west, and you stumble into a real relationship with her? I’d call that some fucking luck.”
Stumble was the right word for it, too. A real relationship by way of a fake one, although that was Adam’s dirty secret he’d bury forever. “Wait until you taste her baking. Do you want to come over tomorrow? Isla has to work, but we can visit the bakery. It’s really great. You remember the cafe? She’s totally re-done it.”
He spent the next five minutes raving about Isla, and when he finally came to a proud, grinning halt, he looked around for his wife.
He found her on the other side of the room, half-listening to something Kerry and Owen were talking about. But her attention was focused in his direction, and the soft smile on her face made him feel like a king.
Thank you, he mouthed, and her cheeks went pink as she quickly nodded.
Best birthday ever? Without a doubt. It would only get better when he got to tumble into his bed with her at the end of the night.
“Go over there,” Stevie said, nudging him. “I’m going to grab another drink.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah. I know other people here.” His friend gave him a lopsided grin. “I’ll be fine. And you look like you’re desperate to get her in your arms again, so…go on. Do it.”
He wasn’t wrong.
As he rounded the far pool table, Kerry and Owen moved away, and he had a moment alone with Isla. “This is amazing,” he whispered. “Thank you.”
“There’s still more fun to come. I made you a cake. And Josh said something about you really wanting everyone to loudly sing you Happy Birthday?”
He winced, then grinned. “Sure.”
“I’m teasing.”
The way she laughed made him downright giddy. “Honestly, it’s all good. I really—”
Before he could finish his thought, Will bumped into him from behind, then Josh slammed in for a group hug. Adam barely had a chance to brace Isla against him before a couple of ex-army guys joined in, and then he was lofted up onto their shoulders.
She waved at him as he was carried to the centre of the room, and someone—good Lord, it was Josh, the fucker—loudly announced the birthday boy needed thirty swats.
“I will fucking kill you,” he roared, and everyone cheered.
“Time for cake, then,” Isla called out, rescuing him, and the crowd turned. “I’ll get it while everyone sings for the birthday boy.”
The worst part of owning a bakery that was open all weekend?
Having to wake up at four in the morning after a very good party.
The best part would be closing at twelve noon, precisely, and coming home for a nap in Adam’s bed, which was rapidly becoming Isla’s preferred bed.
She dragged herself out from under his heavy arm and tiptoed downstairs to get ready in her room. The birthday boy didn’t move when she kissed his cheek goodbye, either.
Grinning, she headed off to the bakery, and went through her pre-dawn routine with a satisfied lightness in her step.
That happiness was disrupted briefly when she realized who her first customer was, waiting five minutes before the top of the hour when Isla stepped into the front shop to unlock.
Bailey Patel.
“I want to apologize again for last week,” she said as soon as she stepped inside.
“That’s not necessary.”
“Oh, but it is. Because I’ve been wanting to come in and talk to you about something, and then I made the absolute worst impression, and I regret that so much.”
That was not what Isla expected to hear at all. “Uh, well…come in.” She circled back behind the counter. “Did you want anything this morning, or were you only looking to spe
ak to me?”
Bailey pulled out a twenty. “Could I get a latte? With an extra espresso shot, please. And I’ll take one of the Snowbirds lemon bars, and a Born in the Bruce butter tarts. I really like the new names, by the way. Very catchy.”
“Thanks.” Isla rang that up, then carefully made the latte. “You said there was something else you wanted to discuss with me?”
Bailey’s expression turned wistful. “In a way, it’s related to what you overheard. Which wasn’t judgement, I should tell you—or wasn’t intended to be. It was jealousy. I want…” She trailed off.
Isla swallowed a burst of jealousy and reached for some understanding inside herself instead. “Do you have a crush on Adam?”
“Oh! No. Goodness. Uh, no.” Bailey laughed nervously. “Wow, that would make this very weird, and it’s already hard enough. No, I’m not jealous of you, although you seem lovely and this bakery is amazing. I’m jealous of Adam. You were right last night. Nobody in this town sees how much he’s changed, and how he did that for himself. I want that, too. I’m a bit lost, and I’ve been admiring what you’re doing here—from a distance, because I didn’t know how to broach it all.”
It was a startling admission from a near-stranger. “Wow. That’s…very honest.” Isla frowned and leaned forward on the counter. “You must have a reason for coming in and sharing all of that with me.”
“I have a business proposition for you.”
Isla’s elbow slipped as she did a double-take. She caught herself and stood up, slowly. “Pardon?”
“I’m twenty-three. I have a university degree, and probably a decade of experience in the local retail market.”
Isla trying to do the math on that must have showed on her face.
Bailey grimaced. “My parents own the hardware store in Lion’s Head, and a larger one in Wiarton. I grew up working there, and I like the business side of things. Not just like it, I’m quite good at it. So much so that they want me to go to business school, but I want to find my own way. I noticed that you had a stall at the farmer’s market for a few weeks before you opened up, but you haven’t been back there since…” Isla went from confused to stunned to impressed as Bailey outlined a very sound plan for Isla to hire part-time staff to work at the store and at the farmer’s market. “You have a great business idea here and an incredible product, but your entire marketing plan is posting to Instagram, and that’s not enough.”