Baking Up Love Read online

  My hands danced across his muscled chest and up past his neck to wrap around him. Unable to support myself I curled first one, then the other leg around his waist, locking my ankles.

  I looked into his eyes, they were wild with lust and affection. I knew he must be looking into a similar expression of need and hunger. There was something animalistic about trapping my man. Locking my legs around him and forcing him to spill inside me.

  The thought of it almost unraveled me.

  “Come for me,” I moaned.

  The effect was immediate and deliciously gratifying. He swelled inside me. The fullness was almost too much to bear. I was already so close and that small act brought me within inches. But I wanted to come with him. I wanted to feel him throbbing and pulsing inside me.

  God, calm down Claire. You’re going to push yourself over the edge just thinking about it!

  It didn’t matter.

  A few seconds later he was giving me long, powerful strokes. The fullness of him inside me, the man of my dreams, the man I loved more than anything was worshipping my body with his hands, his lips, his tongue. The weight of him against me, pressing me against the wall. It was too much. I felt a knot of pleasure unfurl in my belly.

  The rising crest of agonizing bliss swept me away.

  I writhed and moaned against him, panted his name, clung to him like he was a rock amid a stormy sea. My safety. I clamped down on him hard, felt the torturous hardening just before he came.

  “Fuck… Claire I’m gonna-”

  His words bit off with a shuddering groan. His whole body shook. He throbbed and pulsed inside me, spending himself and I was delirious with the thrill of it.

  Pressed against the bathroom wall, I hadn’t even made it halfway to the shower I realized groggily. “What a way to wake up,” I said leaning forward to taste his lips.

  His hungry response took my breath away.

  “You can look forward to waking up like this for a very - very - long time.” Each word breathed between one kiss and the next. “How do you feel about being bathed?”

  I was still a little dizzy from the kissing, an effect I both hated and adored. It was like he made my mind shut off, something that was almost impossible for me to do on my own.

  Only Thomas could focus my whole attention on him. He brought something feral and beautiful out of me that I couldn’t do on my own. I loved it, and I loved him. He made me more than just a nerdy girl who loved spreadsheets and numbers.

  I tightened my thighs around his legs, suddenly fearful of him pulling out. I couldn’t say why. His look of surprise melted into a warm and loving smile.

  “I’d love it,” I said breathlessly. “But you’re going to need to give me a moment first. I don’t think my legs will support me right now.”

  “That’s all right,” he said with a devilish smile and a surprising thickening inside me that awoke my need for him. “We can go for round two in the shower.”

  Heaven help me.

  4

  Thomas

  After round two, and a third after that at Claire’s abrupt insistence, we laid in a tangle on my - our - bed. Neither of us had the energy to get up and do much else so we laid there, covers a mess around us. Claire curled up against me, laid her cheek against my chest and I wrapped an arm around her, tracing my fingertips along her silky smooth skin.

  I had the best view. Her soft curves outlined the swell of her breasts pressed against me, the perfect curves of her firm ass. One thigh was laid across my stomach and the contrast between my hard muscles and her soft leg made me ache with want.

  If you’d have told me this was where I’d be a year ago, I would have said you were crazy. There was absolutely no way Claire would go for a guy like me. The truth, it seems, is even more unbelievable than fiction.

  This was the girl I had pined after all my life.

  From the moment my boring brown eyes locked with her bright greens I was in love. It may have taken me many years to realize it, and more besides to work up the courage to say something, but I loved her from that first rainy day in second grade.

  Sometimes the good guy does get the girl, and sometimes things do work out for the best even - perhaps especially - when they don’t seem like they’re going to.

  Despite it all, I was still a little worried. Claire had some serious misgivings about us. Even if she had gotten over some of them I’d be an idiot to think this was the last time something would come up.

  The problem was, I didn’t know how to help her.

  I could love Claire with all my heart but it was up to her to love herself. To decide that she was truly worthy of love and that what she had was enough for me.

  I still couldn’t believe she waited in line in the pouring, freezing rain just to tell me she loved me.

  I would have taken her back without something quite so dramatic. I loved her, and I was absolutely sure of it. I was doubtful of a lot of things but that wasn’t one of them. It felt a bit like a superpower sometimes.

  “I love you, Claire.” She tensed for just a moment and then it was gone.

  Claire turned her head up to look me in the eyes with those beautiful green gems of hers. “I love you too, Thomas.” There was a pause and a sly quirk to her lips. “And I’d love you more if you made some breakfast.”

  I couldn’t help but laugh. With a playful smack on her ass, I slid out of bed and left her lying there watching me put on a pair of black boxer briefs.

  She rolled closer to the edge of the bed. “It’s not fair.”

  “What isn’t?”

  “You’ve got all your sexy clothes and all I’ve got is business attire and business casual.” She flopped over onto her back, legs and arms spread eagle. She was gorgeous and despite the many times we’ve already had sex, I almost jumped on top of her right then and there. “That does it, I’m taking drastic action.”

  Her eyes were far away. I had to rein in my dirty thoughts. “Yeah?” My voice came out thick with desire but thankfully she didn’t pick up on it.

  “Yeah! I’m going to go out and get some clothes, something comfortable and something sexy.”

  “It was always my understanding that those two are quite opposing usually.”

  Her response was a very grown-up raspberry blown my way.

  “They teach that at Columbia?” I asked with a chuckle.

  That brought her up short. “How’d you know I went to Columbia?”

  I pretended I didn’t hear her and continued into the kitchen, counting on her fatigue and general laziness not to get out of bed. Not that Claire was lazy, she had to be the hardest working person I knew. She barely knew how to turn her mind off to that sort of thing.

  Even when we were watching a movie or relaxing one night alone, I could see an idea percolating in that beautiful mind of hers. It was kind of sexy, actually.

  Thankfully, either the cold or her tiredness kept her in bed and I avoided having to answer awkward questions about how Richard used to tell me about Claire.

  The sad thing was I wanted to know so badly I never stopped him. I may have even encouraged him. It wasn’t like I stalked her on social media and obsessively went through all her pictures or anything.

  I wanted to know how the girl that got away was doing. Before I had realized how my love for her had grown into something romantic I had cared for her still. Even after she left and refused to take my calls, texts, or emails I still cared.

  I wanted the best for her. That never changed.

  More than often, the way her dad told it, she had gotten just that. High paying job, graduated top of her class at NYU and ended up getting into Columbia for her MBA.

  She’d only been two years at her current job, but I wouldn’t be surprised if she was already short-listed for a promotion.

  Once I started the freshly ground coffee, I knew it was only a matter of time before she dragged herself out of the bedroom. It’d been a little over a week now since I’d asked her to stay over.

&n
bsp; The apartment never felt so cozy. It was truly home now.

  I whipped up a large breakfast knowing that both our appetites would be ravenous.

  The coffee had only been steeping in the french press a minute before I heard her shuffling in the other room. She arrived at the kitchen table in my sweatshirt and no pants just as it finished. I nearly spilled the coffee gawking at her smooth long legs.

  Did she really have no idea how gorgeous she was? Her dark hair was a tousled mess that made me want to run my fingers through it and seal my lips to hers. We’d had sex three times before breakfast and already I could feel the blood rushing between my legs. The desire to have her again never seemed to go away.

  Was I just making up for lost time or was there something more?

  Claire pulled up a seat and looked at me curiously. “What’s on your mind?”

  “Thinking whether I want to eat breakfast or you more,” I said without even realizing I had spoken my thoughts aloud. Claire blushed. Her cheeks practically glowed red-hot and she bit her lip in that adorably sexy way that drove me wild.

  “M-maybe you should have something to eat first.” She cleared her throat. “That way if you’re still hungry for more, you’ve got the strength.”

  I sat down opposite her, scooted her coffee mug towards her and set our plates down. “Implying that I didn’t have the strength for the last three times?”

  “Oh, I know you did.” I watched her breath quicken, even in the sweatshirt it made her breasts more pronounced. I felt like a teenager again. All I wanted to do was put my hands all over her, specifically a few choice parts.

  Better change the subject before all the blood rushes away from my brain.

  I poked at my sausage. “Were you going to go out shopping for clothes today?”

  She nodded, mouth full. When she finished chewing she said, “I figured I’d give Jemma a call, see if she wanted to help me pick out some clothes. Give us a chance to bond like proper sisters, you know? God, I don’t think we ever went clothes shopping together. I was such a horrible big sister, I bought clothes for her, not with her.”

  “You did the best you knew how.” I reached over the table and grabbed her hand, gave it a squeeze. “You were a great sister. Maybe it wasn’t what she wanted but she needed somebody to help guide her. None of us can say how things may have turned out if you ended up turning a blind eye to all the things she did.”

  Claire winced at the memories. I was only there for a fraction of them, but even I remembered the screaming matches between them. “She was a bit of a free spirit.”

  “That’s one way to put it. Hell, Claire, she was practically half-feral at times. Could you imagine the shit she’d have gotten up to if you didn’t try to look out for her best interests?”

  “Do you remember that party she wanted to go to when she was fourteen? Some rich guy’s party up in the mountains about an hour away?”

  I groaned. “Of course. She wouldn’t talk to you for a week after you found her sneaking out smoking a joint at the party. You took her back home immediately. I was there, you know.”

  “You remember what she called you?” asked Claire giving me a teasing smirk.

  “Can’t say that I do, probably something pretty nasty. She wasn’t too fond of me after that.” Which was true. Jemma practically hated me all throughout high school.

  “She called you my personal Nazi because anything I said, you would do without question. Dad really laid into her when he heard her call you that.”

  “Do you remember what happened after we left the party?” I wasn’t sure if she ever knew.

  “I heard the cops got involved, people got arrested for drug possession right?”

  I leaned back in my chair, took a long sip of my coffee. “Yeah, they also found three girls drugged in the upstairs bedroom. Nothing happened, thankfully, but it still makes my skin crawl to think what might have if the cops didn’t show up.”

  Claire gave me an appraising look over the rim of her own white mug. “That was a pretty swanky neighborhood,” she said carefully. “There’s no way one of the neighbors called in a noise complaint. Half of them weren’t even home at that time of the year.”

  No use in pretending. “I called the cops.”

  “They got there awfully fast.”

  “I may have called them.”

  “But that would mean-“

  I set the mug down and folded my hands self-consciously atop the table. “Yeah, I did it before you even saw that Jemma was there.”

  Confusion and suspicion warred on her beautiful face, she scrunched up her forehead in thought. “But why?”

  She really didn’t know. I guess that should be expected. It was more important to me, and by important I mean shameful. It wasn’t a particularly high point in my life.

  “Do you remember what you were doing before you found Jemma there on the back deck?”

  Claire shook her head. A small part of me felt relieved. She hadn’t remembered because it hadn’t been important to her.

  But it was as clear as if it happened yesterday to me. Just thinking about it made my blood boil a little.

  “You were talking to Ryan Holmes…and I got jealous of the attention you were giving him. I saw some people were smoking, and of course, I knew they had booze there so…I snuck off to one of the back rooms. An office or something, I don’t know for sure, and I called the cops on them.”

  “That’s so very sad,” she said with a barely repressed snicker. She looked up, eyes widened as she realized how it sounded. “I mean it’s so adorable too, but come on! You called the cops on a guy I was flirting with, but couldn’t tell me you liked me yourself?”

  I hung my head and hunched my shoulders. She had a point. “I was going to! In fact, do you remember how you first saw Jemma smoking?” I watched the memory unfold behind those brilliant green eyes. “Yeah. I was taking you to the back out of the party so I could tell you how I felt. So I could work up the nerve to kiss you.”

  Her hands went straight to her mouth, stifling an indignant squeal. “And I ruined it by being all motherly about Jemma!”

  All I could do was shrug.

  I thought about that night a lot. How things may have turned out if she hadn’t seen Jemma, or had and didn’t care. If she’d seen the hint of me wanting to talk to her privately for what it was.

  So many ifs.

  “The thing that matters,” I said, attacking my eggs and sausage with gusto. “Is that we’re together now. Whatever road we took to get here was worth it, and I’d walk it a hundred times again knowing it’d bring me right back to you.”

  Claire blinked back a few shining tears. “Shut up.” Her voice was barely a whisper. “I want those years back, and mark my words, Thomas we’re going to make up for those eight years or die trying.”

  The hungry gleam in her eye stole my breath away. I wasn’t used to seeing that side of Claire. The aggressive woman who knows precisely what she wants and isn’t afraid to get it.

  It was like admitting she loved me had flicked a switch in her and she was able to be herself with me.

  I loved it and I loved her.

  “I like the sound of that.”

  5

  Claire

  Later that day, after I put in some more work I went with Jemma to one of the upscale clothing boutiques an hour out of town.

  I stared at myself in the mirror and couldn’t help but find all the faults that I saw every time I looked. I imagined it was the same way with most women. We can’t help but see the flaws.

  And while I would be the last person to advise anyone getting their self-esteem from a man, it did feel good to have somebody there to balance out my flaw-seeking by telling me how beautiful I was.

  But I didn’t have Thomas with me in the dressing room. If I did, we’d already be on the ground in a pile of discarded clothes going at it like two college kids. I watched my cheeks color in the mirror at the thought and looked away.

  Jemma w
as with me, and as far as fashion advice went she was surprisingly helpful.

  “Don’t do that to yourself,” she said, sitting on the padded bench.

  “Do what?”

  “Listing the things you don’t like about the way you look. What, you think I can’t see you doing it?” She rolled her green eyes. Unlike mine Jemma took after our mom - the woman she never got to know thankfully - with her darker, hazel-green.

  “It’s hard not to when they’re staring you in the face,” I countered. I was wearing a skimpy black negligee that barely hid anything. The silk flowed off my curves and highlighted my shortcomings.

  “Yeah? So when you and Thomas are going at it, does he stop and go-“ She cleared her throat, dropping her voice a few octaves in a horrible imitation of Thomas. “‘Yeah babe, that one tit isn’t doing it for me, that’s your small one. I prefer the bigger one.’?”

  I burst out laughing so loudly that the woman from the boutique knocked on the door. “Is everything okay in there?” she asked prissily.

  “Just fine.” I stifled my laughter.

  “Do let me know if you’d like some refreshments, or would like to try out some different outfits.”

  Jemma and I both snickered behind our hands. “I take it he doesn’t do that then.”

  “No! Does any guy actually do that?”

  My sister shrugged her narrow shoulders. “I’ve never seen a guy turn down sex. And definitely not for any reason that we might. Does he want it when you’re feeling bloated?”

  Feeling a little embarrassed I wrapped my arms around my chest. “Yeah.”

  “See what I mean? I mean besides the fact that the idiot is head-over-heels in love with you, he’s obviously got the hots for you. Probably used to-“ She gave a crass miming motion with her arm. It looked like she was trying to stab the air. “-all the time thinking of you.”