Jackie came through the swinging door looking exhausted. “I’m taking my break. Going to sneak out for some ramen, I think. Do you want anything?”
“Soup isn’t a meal. It’s an appetizer.”
“There are noodles involved, boss, but I’ll take that as a no.”
He’d never be sure where his next words came from, but suddenly he was speaking them. “Why don’t you and Tad go together? I can watch the front.”
Jackie paused in the act of removing her apron. “Huh?”
Leo grunted. “I can watch the front. Go. If you’re forcing yourself to eat liquid for dinner, at least have some company.”
“Who are you and what have you done with Leo Bexley?”
That was a good question. Maybe he just wanted to try and be better with people. Maybe it didn’t seem so daunting after he’d talked to Reese about what typically held him back. He’d written himself off as antisocial for so long, but after last night, did he really have to be? Or was that just an excuse not to have to try? With Reese, he had things to say. With her, it was easy. A lot easier than it had been growing up. And while it wouldn’t be like that with anyone who walked into the Cookie Jar, he wanted to make the effort. Wanted to earn her confidence in him and prove something to himself in the process.
Tad breezed into the back room, noticing Jackie’s odd expression. “What’s going on?”
“Um…nothing. Leo is going to watch the register while we go have dinner.”
“Soup,” Leo corrected. “Arguably a snack.”
“Speaking of a snack,” Jackie hummed, busying herself tying a red ribbon around one of the finished boxes. “Is a snack named Reese responsible for this change?”
Leo started to tell them to mind their own business, but apparently his mouth not cooperating with his brain was becoming a regular occurrence. “We went out last night.”
His employees executed an air high five. Tad said, “O-kay. Based on that baritone, I’m going to assume it went extremely well.”
“When are you seeing her again? When do we get to hang out with her?” Jackie wanted to know. “Show her you have friends, boss. Charming, attractive friends.”
“I’m seeing her tomorrow. You’re definitely not invited to that.” He cleared his throat, threw back a single shoulder. “I don’t know. She just needs to keep it…day to day right now.”
Both employees rocked back on their heels.
“So she’s not interested in a commitment?”
Leo’s head came up. “Who said that?”
“I’m just picking up on a little unwillingness to get attached. Am I wrong?”
Leo hated to admit Jackie was right. Between Reese balking at the prospect of dating at all, clamming up when it came to certain topics, not wanting him to see her perform and refusing to invite him upstairs last night, all signs pointed to Reese wanting to keep things light. But there was no way to explain how his gut believed the opposite. When they were together, the worry of her backing off was completely absent.
“The real test will be Valentine’s Day,” Tad said, looking smug. “You’ll know where you stand by then.”
“I’m not putting that kind of pressure on her.” Fuck, he was starting to sweat. “Do you think I should plan something for Valentine’s Day?”
Jackie and Tad sucked in a simultaneous breath. “Risky move,” Tad said. “Very risky. Relationship is quite new.”
“Could also be a baller move,” Jackie chimed in. “It depends.”
“Christ, go eat your soup.” Leo waved them off. “You’re sowing chaos.”
“No, no! Let us help.” Jackie bounced side to side, stilling suddenly. “Oh, I have the best idea. Plan a group hang out for Valentine’s. After the bakery closes. That way, you’re expressing your desire to spend this romantic holiday with her, but you’re also keeping it casual, in case she’s skittish.”
He didn’t hate the sound of that. He didn’t care how he spent time with her as long as it happened. Often. “I’ll ask her,” he relented, pointing at the back exit. “Go.”
Jackie and Tad disappeared, leaving Leo to eye the swinging door to the front of the house thoughtfully. Wiping both hands on his apron, he shouldered his way to the front, crossing his arms and leaning back against the rear counter. Only a few seconds passed before a group brought the cold air in, laughing and rubbing their hands together. They were young, phones in hand, reminding him a little of the selfie people from the night before. Instinct told him to stay quiet and try to blend in until they addressed him and he could just give them what they wanted, send them on their way. But he heard Reese’s voice in his head.
You’re genuine and interesting. I wouldn’t be here if you weren’t.
Give them a story. Get out of your head.
“Hey,” he rumbled, whipping out a sheet of wax paper, picking up on the very distinct scent of marijuana. “Let me guess. You folks just came from church.”
They all jerked around, wide-eyed. And promptly burst into laughter.
“I told you the Mean Baker was cool.”
One of the young guys approached, looking at the display case the way one might look at a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow. Behind him, two girls whispered furiously to each other, one of them making swoon eyes at the kid’s back. “Damn. Those brownies look insane.”
“They might not have the ingredient you’re looking for,” Leo said.
The young man snorted, glancing back over his shoulder, definitely making goo-goo eyes right back at the interested party. Leo studied the guy closest to him, noting he was probably no more than seventeen, probably limited cash-wise, but trying his best to impress the girl and hell, even Leo could relate to that now.
Leo slid open the bakery case and wrapped a frosted purple cupcake in wax paper, sliding it across the counter to the kid. “Here,” he said. “Give her that.”
A disbelieving laugh puffed out of the young man. “Seriously? Thanks, man.”
“No problem.” He nodded once, crossed his arms. “Now beat it.”
The kid barked a laugh and turned back to his friends, handing off the cupcake to the girl with a flourish. And when the whole group cheered like it was a marriage proposal, the other guys in the group teasing the young man mercilessly on the way out of the shop, Leo couldn’t help but crack a smile.
“What do you know?” he muttered to himself, picking up a rag to clean off the counter, but not really seeing it. Seeing Reese, instead. “It works.”
Chapter 17
This was one of those times. When something seemed like a really great idea. But upon execution? Begins to feel like a potentially humiliating mistake.
Reese hopped out of the Uber in her high heels, arms crossed tightly over her midsection, Leo’s building entrance only twenty yards away.
Seemed more like a mile.
She might be a Wisconsin girl, but with nothing but panties and thigh highs beneath her coat, even she could admit it was too cold to walk, so she’d spent ten dollars on the quick cab ride.
God, Reese.
People only showed up naked at their love interest’s door in movies.
In real life, she might look ridiculous, but she’d come too far to turn back now.
At least the prospect of showing up at Leo’s apartment door naked was distracting her from everything else. The pressure of her upcoming open calls, perhaps the final ones of her dance career. The ticking clock on her time in the city. The pit of untruths she’d dug herself. This naked party trick might be corny or played out, but it was giving her something to focus on besides her potential defeat.
Reese drew to a stop in front of Leo’s building, stepping inside the vestibule and ringing the buzzer for his apartment. She smiled when the inner door clicked open within a second. Giddiness stole over her on the way up the stairs, the thrumming between her thighs growing heavier, even more unbearable than it had been all morning. This was some 9½ Weeks type stuff. There was no turning her off anymore. Even
in the free class this morning, her movements were executed with more sensuality than ever, her palms raking down her belly, her hips giving that extra roll, fingertips cruising along her scalp, senses heightened.
In front of Leo’s door now, her knees shook, anxious heat making her skin flushed, dewy in that intimate place between her thighs. The lock slid on the other side of the door and there he was. I’m really doing this. I’m actually doing this.
And then there was Leo, outlined in the doorframe, his head nearly brushing the jamb. The sheer joy that leapt in her breast at the sight of him, the way her knees stopping shaking for one reason, then resumed trembling for another, told Reese she hadn’t just fallen for Leo. She was well on her way to being in love with him. In love with his intensity, his bluntness, his passion for his job. The depth of him, his wealth of honesty, the way he took things she said to heart. She especially loved the way he was looking at her now, as if she’d arrived on a cloud from the heavens, instead of a pair of cheap heels.
As if they had all the time in the world.
Which they very possibly didn’t.
That troubling reminder gave Reese the impetus she needed to unbutton her coat, spreading the sides and letting it hang open, knowing full well what he saw. A pair of sheer black panties that barely covered a thing. And skin that had been lotioned head to toe.
Reese cocked a hip and rested one hand on the doorframe. “Mister Bexley?”
In the afternoon light pouring down the hallway, she could see his pupils expand until his eyes were almost black, the knot in his throat bobbing up and down. “Fucking Christ.” His hand shot out to grip the doorjamb. “Yes. I’m…yes.”
She trailed the tip of her index finger downward between her breasts, over her belly, stopping to play with the edge of her panties. “Did you order a nap date?”
Reese’s startled peal of laughter hung in the air as Leo bundled her inside the apartment, kicking the door shut and locking it haphazardly. Within seconds, her coat had been stripped away, panties ripped down the center by desperate male hands, tossed by the wayside. In nothing but heels, she was thrown up onto the closest surface, a narrow entry table that knocked loudly into the wall, sending mail in a colorful waterfall to the floor.
“I forgot the sandwiches,” she gasped.
“Forgiven,” he rasped, his eyes raking down the front of her. “It’s forgiven.”
“I guess you didn’t think my naked-gram was corny and played out,” Reese breath-laughed, a split second before Leo’s mouth landed on top of hers, hard to soft, spreading, tongues delving greedily, pulses flying into twin gallops.
His mouth moved south from her lips, sucking at the exposed skin of her throat, neck, shoulders. “Corny and played out? As soon as puberty hits, men start fantasizing about a naked woman showing up at their door. We keep thinking about it until we die.” He lowered his head to tongue her perked up nipples, one, then the other. “Jesus, Reese. My dick is so hard, I can barely think straight.”
She captured his face, bringing him back for a kiss. “Don’t think.”
Leo jerked down his zipper and applied the condom, breaching her with a stuttered groan a moment later and hitting the ground running, ramming the table into the wall with an unrestrained thrust, two, three, her ass squeaking on the wood, legs jostling around his hips.
Reese tipped her head back and moaned. “Oh my God.”
“It’s so goddamn good,” he growled into her neck, pumping into her again, faster, faster, until they were straining, fingernails digging into flesh, the sounds of frantic fucking echoing around the hazy afternoon sun of the apartment. And she loved every wince that crossed his face, every bite of his lip when he tried not to come. She was blessedly naked, he was fully clothed, save his lowered zipper, and it felt naughty, illicit, while still being exactly, perfectly right. Because it was her and Leo. “Did you come here to spread your legs for me?” The gritted words were almost inaudible amidst the table slamming into the wall. “Do you love how deep I can get it?”
“Yes,” she panted. “Yesyesyes.”
“I’ve got you,” he said raggedly, reaching down to polish her clit with the flat of his thumb, those hips never stopping, never ceasing in their attack, ramming, ramming, ramming that table into the wall, his head falling back on a groan. “I’ve got this pussy.”
His utter thickness stroked everywhere at once, his touch relentless on her sensitive nub, and finally their mouths met to push her over the edge. She screamed, arching her back, her femininity rejoicing in the way he knocked the table out of the way and finished her roughly against the wall, her ass clutched tightly in his hands.
“You’re my tight little fuck, aren’t you, sweetheart?” he gritted into her ear, grinding deep one last time and letting out a guttural sound, his grip turned bruising on her bottom. “Yeah. You are. God yeah, you are. Mine.”
Mine.
His.
She couldn’t even begin to deny it.
They exhaled long and jagged, Reese closing her eyes and memorizing the way his climax pulsed into her, one lick of heat at a time, that giant body shuddering, suffering through the pleasure until it let him down and they sank into one another, sliding down the wall into a heap. A beat passed and then Leo drew her into his lap, slowly kissing her hairline and cheeks, finally reaching her mouth and drawing her into a savoring kiss.
“Spend Valentine’s Day with me,” he said, pulling back to study her.
With her heart lodged in her throat, there was nothing else she could say but, “Yes.”
* * *
An hour later, Leo traced the curve of Reese’s back with his fingertips, marveling over the fact that this girl was in his bed, naked, drowsy, incredible. They were sprawled out in his sheets after round two of the sweatiest, dirtiest sex of his life, made all the more amazing by the fact that his fucking heart had been in it the whole time. To be able to look someone in the eye and say every word bombarding his brain, except for those three bombshell ones, was an experience he’d never known enough to covet.
Reese had piled her hair on top of her head in one of those sideways sagging knots, the strands snarled from his fingers. With her chin propped on a fist, she looked over the stack of remaining Fixes for Valentine’s Day he’d yet to fill.
“Aww, listen to this one,” she said, her voice scratchy from screaming into his pillow. “This guy is ordering a Fix for his mom. She’s a bus driver in Queens, hasn’t taken a day off in decades, loves to garden. No citrus.”
“I have some rose extract at the shop.”
“Really? I didn’t even know that existed. What would you pair it with?”
“White chocolate, maybe.” He traced the delicious swell of her backside. “Blackberry.”
“Yes. That.” She slid the pen out from behind her ear and made a notation on the sheet, her handwriting turning to a scribble when he delved between her cheeks, lower, until his touch found her sex. “If you keep distracting me, we’re never going to get through these, let alone have time for our nap.” He rumbled a sound and her breath caught. “Or is it safe to say nap date has become code for something else?”
“Definitely safe to say. And I’m one hundred percent behind that.” He teased her with one more delve of his finger, then pulled her body close, the Fixes forgotten above their heads. “But I don’t want you tired tonight at work because of me. Sleep.”
Their mouths coasted over each other, Reese pulling back to yawn adorably. “I wish I could send my mother a fix. I’d do…maple syrup flavor. Crushed macadamia nuts. She would ooh and ahh over it. Save the packaging.”
“You miss her.”
She nodded, snuggling closer. “Definitely. Just yesterday, I got really homesick. It catches me at the weirdest times. It’s not that I would rather be home than in New York. I just miss all the little familiar things. The junk drawer. My mom’s perfume. Knowing exactly where the light switches are on the walls.”
Leo brushed his hand up an
d down her back, inundated by the desire to give her those things, right here, right now. Wanting her to be happy at all times. Wanting his place to be full of familiarity for her. “Do you ever think about going back?” he asked, immediately wishing he didn’t ask.
Reese remained silent for the moment. “Sure. I think about it,” she said, haltingly. “I can only dance so long, right? What comes after that?”
With pressure in his chest at the thought of her leaving, he drew her even closer, closing his eyes over the soft warmth of her breath on his neck. “Have you thought of teaching like your mother?”
“Yes.” Wrapping an arm around his middle, she drew a lazy circle between his shoulder blades. “I’d like that. And I adore kids, but I don’t think I’d want to teach them permanently like my mother.” She paused for a moment, seeming to hesitate. “I’ve been thinking about how hard it is to learn the ropes when you’re auditioning for stage shows. I’d love to do prep courses or some kind of advocacy program for aspiring dancers. I would kill…I would have killed for something like that. An affordable one, you know?”
Just when he thought she couldn’t amaze him any more. “You’d be great at that, Reese. The way you give people stories, give them meaning. The way you can read a few lines about people and determine what they like. You’d be good at directing dancers, advising them, knowing where they would make the best fit.”
When the tips of her ears turned pink, he fell in love with her a little more. “Thanks.”
He kissed her forehead. “So you adore kids, huh?”
“Have you ever seen a three-year-old in tap shoes? They’re irresistible.”
Could she hear his heart rapping against his ribcage? “You want some of your own one day, then?”
The Sweetest Fix Page 14