Honey Pie (Cupcake Club) - By Donna Kauffman Page 0,59
taking charge of the situation and him, kissing him like she’d been waiting for the green light. It was no teasing of lips, no tentative brush of her mouth on his. She laid claim.
He had to dig his fingers into his thighs to keep from reaching for her, to keep the contact to their mouths only. It about killed him.
She made that little moaning sound that already drove him crazy, and he might have been a little insistent at urging her to open up for him and let him inside, but that sigh, and the way her shoulders softened, and her body moved toward his, absolved him of any guilt. And then her tongue was sliding in, dueling with his, and his body ramped straight past rock hard to begging for release. Her gasps turned to groans of want and he knew that nothing short of nailing his hands to his thighs was going to keep them there much longer.
He eased out of the kiss and lifted his head slowly, leaning back and away. When he spoke, even he heard the strain in his voice. His fingers were curled into fists on his knees. “I think that ends the personal discovery portion of today’s little experiment.”
Honey let out a sigh of disappointment and closed her eyes, but nodded as she eased back more fully into her seat.
Dylan took another minute or two to get his body somewhat under his control, then with far more reluctance than he’d have thought possible even ten minutes earlier, he shifted the gear into drive. He took another moment to look over at her, surprised to find her watching him. “Fair warning.”
“Warning of what?”
“If we ever try another experiment like that, we’re going to find out what happens when I put my hands on you. No way I can do that again and keep them to myself.”
To his continued surprised, rather than go wide-eyed . . . she smiled . . . very much like a cat who’d just spied a particularly plump canary.
“Okay, that scares me a little, sugar.”
“What does?”
“That smile. It’s kind of . . . predatory. You sure you didn’t leave a string of broken hearts back in Oregon?”
“Very sure.” The dry note in her voice had crept right back in, which settled him a lot more than the smile had.
He held her gaze for another extended moment as an idea popped into his head. A half hour earlier, he’d have thought himself crazy for even considering it. Not that it wasn’t still crazy . . . he simply didn’t care.
“Buckle up.” Before he could change his mind, he leaped another tall building. “I want you to see something.”
“Oh, really,” she responded suggestively, even as she wiggled her eyebrows over those ridiculously unsexy glasses that made him hard all over again.
He found himself chuckling. “I’m finding it harder and harder to believe you’re tellin’ me the truth about those broken hearts.”
“Oh, that part is true enough.”
Just don’t break mine, sugar, he thought, then shifted uncomfortably because it had even entered his mind.
“Where are we going?”
Dylan tightened his grip on the wheel, keeping his eyes on the road. Superman or utter fool, he supposed he was going to find out. “To look at your new shop space.”
Chapter 10
That was pretty much the last thing she’d have ever expected him to say. “My . . . what? I already told you my farm hasn’t sold, so I don’t have the money for a lease.”
“What about the lease payments on your aunt’s place? That’s rightfully your income now, isn’t it? Wouldn’t that cover all this?”
“Yes, well, that’s the other thing I looked into today. Turns out Lani and Baxter paid the full five years up front with some cookbook advance they got. They didn’t even do anything with the place for the first year, but Lani knew she wanted to expand when the time came, so when Bea put it up for rent, she jumped on it.” Honey waved a dismissive hand. “Anyway, it’s all moot. The lease payment went to the management company Bea had hired, as it should have, who deposited it into the account they’d set up for her, as they were supposed to do. That money, along with her savings, took care of her senior care living expenses and medical bills. Anything left over and her life insurance paid for her funeral and any outstanding bills. I am just thankful the Dunnes paid what they did, when they did, because if