The Cake King (Sugar & Spice Book 1)

by Rosie Chase

  I twisted it around my finger as he approached, held out his hand, and requested this dance.

  “Awww yeah. Get it, girl,” Rei bellowed.

  Eric and Nellie joined us on the dance floor. And then all the bakers and their partners. And, yes, it really was magic. It felt like a new beginning even as it felt like an end. A happy end. Soon, the floor was full, I looked around and saw my friends, my family and happiness welled up inside of me. I was a lava cake. Ready to crack open. Reveal my gooey, molten center.

  “You ready to get out of here?” he whispered, his breath gliding across my neck as he held me close, his hand pressing into the vintage dress I’d found.

  We were heading for a tiny island in the Mediterranean sea the next morning. Michael had heard about an ancient recipe for honey cake still being made there and couldn’t wait to taste it.

  In minutes we were back on the luxury boat he’d borrowed and he was pushing the door open even as his free hand yanked at the pins that so precariously secured my hair. Pink waves tumbled around my face as I kissed him, as I bit his bottom lip, as his tongue swept into my mouth. Claiming me. I was his.

  He was mine.

  Michael pushed me against the tiny boat closet, and then we tumbled into the little stove, the little fridge, the little table as I wrestled with his tuxedo jacket, his bow tie, the tiny buttons on his shirt.

  We fell into the bedroom, a seething pile of gasps and groans, and he picked me up and tossed me onto the bed. I yanked at my brand new underwear and lacy push-up bra.

  I scooted to the edge of the bed where Michael was maneuvering out of his pants and then I saw him. All of him. The lean planes of his body, the muscular tone of his arms and chest, stomach and legs. The long, thick cock that was mine. All mine.

  I reached out, wrapped my hand around the hard member, tugged just a little. Michael came closer and I opened my mouth for him. Slid my tongue, gently, around the smooth head of his cock. Fuck, I loved the taste of him. I wrapped my lips over my teeth, pulled him in deeper, as far as I could, while I worked him with my hands, running up and down his length, squeezing his balls.

  “Oh, fuck, Sam. Fuck,” he rasped, twining his fingers in my hair.

  “Mmmm…” I said around him, and felt his knees buckle, just a little.

  “Fuck, Sam… I want to fuck you. I want to fuck that sweet pussy.”

  “Mmmmm…uh-uh…” I mumbled, smiling.

  “Oh, God,” he groaned, holding me by the shoulders, pulling me off of him with a pop.

  He pushed me down on the bed and I cackled as the boat rocked and he wrestled my legs.

  “You looked so fucking beautiful tonight,” Michael rasped as he held my wrists, pushing me into the bed, holding the tip of his erection, maddeningly, just at the entrance to my sex. I bucked my hips trying, in vain, to take him in.

  His lips closed around one nipple. He kissed, licked, sucked and all the while I didn’t bother stifling the little whimpers that came from my mouth.

  “And every night,” he growled against the other nipple.

  I pushed my hips toward him again, but still couldn’t reach him. I let out a frustrated grunt.

  “You want this cock?” he asked.

  “Yes…” I heaved, bucking toward him again and again. “Yes.”

  I wanted to reach out, grab him, yank him down on top of me, press his body into my own. But, even more, I wanted him to go on holding my wrists, go on tempting and teasing me, go on driving me so wild I knew I would explode.

  He leaned down, his cock still just grazing my wet folds, and nuzzled my neck, my jaw, my ear.

  “Then it’s all yours,” he growled, as he thrust into me.

  And, fuck, was I ready. I grinded my hips into him, frenzied with desire for this man. And then he backed up, just a little, and stood at the edge of the bed. He grabbed my ass, one hand on each side, and pumped into me.

  “And this pussy,” he groaned over his own panting gasps, “is all mine.”

  “Yes,” I breathed.

  I wound my fingers in the soft blankets, balled them into fists, let myself twist into a model of raw desire as he slid, silky and slick, in and out of me. As he worked my body, as he moved his hands so one tugged at my nipples. First one. And then the other. They were tight, stiff peaks and I was already so, so close, when Michael’s other hand came around to my sex. As the pad of his thumb pressed against my clit. As it massaged, round and round, in tiny circles.

  “Yes,” I said again. “Yes. I’m all… all yours.”

  “And I will keep you,” he said with a moan. “I will keep you forever.”

  “I love you,” I gasped. I saw stars. Tasted Michael’s scent on the air, his skin on my tongue. My heart thumped in time with his pounding rhythm and my sex gripped him. Over and over. Pulling him closer. Refusing to let go as I screamed with wild delight.

  “I love you, Sam,” he moaned, his eyes shining down at me. One more pump and his heat flooded my body. I lay there, grinning and limp, the aftershocks of my climax shuddering through both of us as he tumbled to the bed beside me.

  It wasn’t long until we sat at the little galley table, our naked asses pressing into the cool wood of the chairs. Michael took one big piece of fluffy cheesecake, left over from the rehearsal dinner, from the fridge and handed me a fork.

  “You’re a prince,” I said, digging into the fluffy texture of the cake.

  “I’m the Cake King,” he replied with a smirk.

  “My Cake King.”

  He nodded and cut a bite of cake out for himself.

  “Always.”

  THE END

  Thank you so much for reading THE CAKE KING!

  I hope you enjoyed Sam and Michael’s story. Find out what happens to the rest of the bakers as the Sugar & Spice series continues.

  Next up is Adrienne’s story.

  Five years ago, Adrienne burned her life of luxury and her future of plenty to the ground… and that included her relationship with brooding billionaire, Oliver Kline. She thought she’d never see him again but, when she arrives at The Bonneville for Michael Godwin’s contest, she realizes she never truly left Oliver behind.

  Read DEVIL’S FOOD DUKE now!

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  I’m wringing my hands again and I know I shouldn’t be. I can hear my mamma’s voice in the back of my head telling me, “If you can’t do something pretty, don’t do anything at all.”

  And hand-wringing definitely isn’t pretty.

  But what else am I supposed to do?

  I take a deep breath, run my sweating palms over the fabric of my dress, flattening the layers of fabric against my legs. It poufs back out again. My mamma dislikes the 50s retro styling but at least it is a dress.

  I don’t even own a pair of jeans.

  I shift from foot to foot and I’d bet you can guess by now that I don’t wear sneakers either. Well, I have one pair. I wear them to the gym where I do water aerobics and swim laps twice a week without my mamma knowing. She’d say it was common, ridiculous. Women in my mamma’s circle don’t exercise. They’re just naturally waspy, thin-waisted, and brittle. I think it must burn a lot of calories being so judgmental all the time but Lord help me if I ever say something like that out loud.

  “Good morning, bakers,” Tom says. He has an adorable accent. And I say that as someone who’s often told she has an adorable accent. As adorable as his grumpy Mr. Darcy routine is, though, I often think Tom’s the one really running this whole show.

  And by “show,” I mean a crazy baking contest apparently hosted by eccentric millionaire, Michael “the Cake King” Godwin, supposedly so he can find a pastry chef f
or his sister’s wedding. But this isn’t some kind of reality TV throwdown everyone pretends not to watch. It’s a private competition and, as far as I could tell, Michael is the only judge. No cameras. No press. Just a bunch of bakers fighting for a job behind closed doors. Just a contest.

  And I would know a lot about that. I was born and bred for the Texas pageant circuit. I spent my entire childhood being made-up, teased, pouffed, prodded, bedazzled and quizzed. There were things about it I didn’t exactly mind. After all, it’s not like I knew anything different. But it didn’t end well.

  For one thing, I was supposed to graduate from high school and then spend the rest of my life as an unchanging, perpetual size four. I tug at the fabric of my dress but more out of habit than necessity. This dress fits me perfectly. It hugs my curves and flaunts my form instead of hiding it. Years ago, I’d have been terrified of a double-digit dress size. But now? Now, things are a little different.

  I look up as Mr. Godwin enters the room known to us as “The Bakery” through a set of huge doors. In actuality this isn’t a real bakery. It’s a small ballroom in an old hotel in an old river city. But it’s been kitted out to look and function like one of those baking shows.

  Mr. Godwin looks over a clipboard that Tom hands him. In the row behind me I hear the woman with pink hair—Sam, I think—arguing with the woman that works at Velvet. I trade a look with Maya.

  My Mamma would say it was damn foolish to be friends with someone I was competing against, but she hadn’t met Maya Perlman who, out of view of Mr. Godwin and Tom, gives me a thumbs up and mouths, “Good luck.”

  I wink at her and she grins.

  Maya doesn’t seem to have a mean or cruel bone in her body. In fact, she seems almost impossibly good and, sometimes, a little naive. She’s quiet except when she’s rattling off facts about whatever rabbit hole of knowledge she’s recently emerged from. And her smiles are always genuine.

  “Today,” Mr. Godwin says, “You will be making an angel food cake with meringue icing, topped with strawberry ganache.”

  I look at my counter top. Then back at him.

  What’s the catch?

  Michael Godwin is known for his perfect mix of southern boy charm, incredible baking talent, and those startling green eyes set atop sharp-as-knives cheek bones. But, he’s not looking at me. He’s looking past me, right at the woman with pink hair, as she says, “There are no mixers.”

  Sure enough, she’s right.

  Lord, help me.

  My mamma would say I was a fool for signing up to compete against people from the working classes. But my mamma doesn’t know I’m here. And it’s not my mamma I’m worried about. She’s not the reason I’m checking the door over and over, glancing up like a wary rabbit on the lookout for the hungry wolf.

  No, that would be Oliver Kline, little brother to Clancy Kline of the Louisville Klines. My family, the Glenn-Pitts go way, way back with the Klines. Actually, Oliver and I go way back. We were even something like friends once. And, if I’m being honest with myself, I’d wanted be more than friends. But that was a long time ago.

  Before the fallout. Before I set my life on fire. Before my one act of rebellion dominoed into a schism between our families so catastrophic it meant I hadn’t spoken to Oliver in five years.

  Actually, I sort of can’t believe I was even invited to this contest. Everyone on Bakestagram knew Oliver and Michael Godwin were best friends. They’d been on vacation together, been seen with chic celebrity chicks on their arms together, been spotted at the most exclusive clubs together. I knew Oliver’s family owned this hotel. I hadn’t expected to see him though. I knew from experience that men in Oliver’s set rarely got their hands dirty with anything resembling manual or even managerial labor.

  But there he was on Day 2: Bread Day. I’d been kneading my brioche and looked up and there were those eyes so dark they were almost black. In reality, I knew that they were a deep, deep brown. And, seeing them again, all of the sudden, it threw me all the way back to being six years old and wrapping my fingers around his as he helped me off the ground, helped me sneak back inside before my mamma caught me out in the sun “ruining my complexion.”

  I’d wanted to chase the ducks I’d seen out on the veranda. They splashed down around the Kline pond, noisy and free, and I’d wanted to see them up close. Wanted to touch their soft, sleek feathers, hear their funny quacks.

  “I wanted to fly away with them,” I’d said to Oliver as he helped me into the window, giving me a leg up.

  “I know,” he’d said. “Me too.”

  Michael walks out of the room and Tom says, “You have three hours for this task. Good luck. And Good Bake.” And we all get to work. I grab the whisk I brought with me—the first thing I ever bought for myself with my own money—out of my bag. And start on the tough job of hand-whipping whites as Tom walks around the room, casually observing our work.

  Stop looking at the door, I whisper to myself. Ollie couldn’t care less that you’re here.

  One Click Devil’s Food Duke Now!

  Gratitude

  This book (and all of Sugar & Spice) is as much about friendship as it is about romance. The Cake King began as a gift for Eliza MacArthur and ended up becoming not just an entire series but a love letter to that friendship and ones like it.

  The friendships that weather the storms.

  My deepest appreciation also goes to Rachel, Laura, and Raighne for their work and support and willingness to listen to yet another joke about cake and/or vibrators.

  And thanks to Scott, for friendship and romance.

  Copyright © 2019 by Rosie Chase

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

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