“No, what?” His voice rough with sleep, he ran a lazy hand over his chest.
His naked chest. Muscled and glistening with sweat because it was a hundred degrees outside when it should be fifty.
And then her gaze lowered. Saw abs for days. And a tidy little happy trail leading down inside those Calvin’s like an arrow showing her the way to the promised land. Heaven on earth.
Hell in real life.
“Were you sleeping?” The daybed behind him was stripped to the fitted sheet.
“Trying to,” he muttered, in his signature sexy way. “It’s too fucking hot inside. When’s the last time that A/C unit was serviced?”
“Umm, according to the repairman, approximately the same year you entered kindergarten. It’s beyond repair and needs replaced, for a price that gave me heart palpitations. Like, medication was prescribed. I could buy a boat for that money.”
“Are you?” he pressed, agitating her with his special brand of cantankerous.
“Am I what?”
“Gonna buy a boat?”
“No,” she shot back. “Why would I buy a boat?”
He lifted his arms, showing off well-defined biceps and a tattoo covering the left one. “Then fix the motherfucking air conditioner.”
“With what money?” she shouted.
“The money you were gonna use to buy a boat!”
“I’m not buying a boat! What do you not understand here? I have no money, I have no working A/C, I have no willpower when it comes to you naked, standing in front of me, flaunting your ding-a-ling like it’s God’s gift. I have three dozen bourbon-spiked banana chocolate muffins to make, and I’m drunk as hell.”
She wobbled involuntarily, but it helped to prove her point. “What more do you wanna know?”
A small smile tilted his male model-quality lips. “My ding-a-ling?”
“Ugh,” she groaned, her shoulders sinking as she looked skyward. “Why is it always about the penis?”
“You brought it up.”
She flicked a hand his way. “You brought it out.”
“It’s not out. It’s safely tucked away, where it plans to remain. Are you really drunk?”
“I was working on it, but you have a way of sobering me up, so, thanks for nothing.” Huffing, she used her whiny voice, perfected at age three. “I can’t even get my tequila on now that you’re here.”
“And why are you here?” His hot gaze raked over her, stopping at her chest and lingering. “Need something?”
So, no, she’d not put on a bra.
Clutching her bottle, she sighed. “Okay, I can see how you might be wondering why I’m here, in my pajamas, on, or around, what’s widely known as the traditional booty call hour.”
Despite her tequila-only dinner, she made the statement without slurring a single word.
“I’m not wondering.”
But the residual alcohol in her system had selective hearing.
“Well, don’t get your hopes up, buddy boy. Or get, um . . . other things up. This visit is solely regarding my muffin.”
When his eyes widened, she shook her head, attempting to unscramble her brain.
“I mean, muffins. Plural. Not mine, per se.” And then she motioned toward her crotch.
Toward her crotch, people.
“Really?”
“Why do you seem suspect of my motivations?” She managed to open the door into the house on the first attempt. “I didn’t even shave my legs.”
Walking into the dark kitchen without stumbling, she heard him chuckle as she hit the switch, wincing as bright light flooded the space.
Prepared for blood and potential amputation, she looked down, but all her toes were intact. “How is that possible?’ she murmured, curling them.
Yep, they still worked fine.
Giving thanks, she headed for the coffee maker. A splendid idea for a buzzed baker gearing up to work with a gas range.
The pot was sputtering out hot java when she noticed him again, standing in the doorway, a beefy shoulder propped against the jamb.
Still in his skivvies.
“Could you put on some clothes, please? I’m trying to eat in here.” As if his half-naked body wasn’t appetizing.
“You’re not eating.”
She sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose.
“I’m gonna drink coffee. Then I’m gonna bake muffins. Then I’m gonna eat them while drinking tequila. Maybe all of them, and yes, maybe all of the tequila. I don’t want . . . this”—she indicated his offensive body—“in the kitchen. That’s a Suffolk County health code violation.”
He flashed her a smile. A full-on, I-know-you-want-me smile, and it caused a fluttering in her tummy.
And farther south.
Downing coffee as fast as the piping hot liquid allowed, she scolded her clamoring southern region. Ignore him, she told her hungry hormones. But those sluts would not obey. They had other ideas.
Stare at him, they demanded.
Check out that physique.
Gurrrl . . . get ya some.
But the good Lord took mercy on her horny soul, and Jameson walked away before she tackled him.
Forcing her gaze from his retreating backside, she took in the immaculate kitchen and the luxury appliances that, while ten years old, were sparkling new in terms of hours of use. The Maine’s remodeled the winter prior to her diagnosis, because Lydia was a home cook who took her kitchen seriously.
“Hi, Lydia,” Chloe whispered to the empty room. “I miss you.”
Silence.
They’d baked in here together on the days she had the energy. On the days she didn’t, Chloe baked solo, Lydia sitting on a counter stool at the island, head wrapped in a silk scarf. Offering tips on the best techniques to use, including a trick to make her egg whites form stiffer peaks.
“I’m sorry I broke your frame.” And I’m so, so sorry I broke your son.
Silence.
Only the sound of Chloe swallowing back emotion, then breathing deeply as she pulled herself together.
She grabbed bowls, utensils, and three muffin tins from the cabinets, then the dry ingredients she’d stocked the pantry with after moving into the carriage house. Gathering her tools and laying them out methodically on the island, she was ready to follow the recipe committed to memory.
Baking was her happy place. An activity that centered her. Saved her ten years ago when her only companions were abandonment and remorse.
She once wanted to open her own bakery. Had drawn up the floor plans herself, everything from convection ovens and blast chillers to the black and white checkerboard floor. The name, the logo, all decided.
Jameson had encouraged her passion, promising to make that dream come true.
“It might be in base housing with crappy appliances the first few years,” he cautioned her, until they could swing the money for a commercial space. “But we’ll make it happen even if it means I deploy non-stop and stay in longer for the re-upping bonuses.”
She believed him and, for the first time, believed in herself. Dreamed of a life she determined, not the one her mother had already decided for her. Dreamed of more than just a bakery, too. A husband. A family.
A mistake.
The kitchen got suddenly smaller, and she looked up from an open bag of flour, her measuring cup poised and ready to dip. He was there, a few feet away, wearing jeans and nothing else, though they were half-zipped and unbuttoned. She didn’t see his black Calvin’s underneath.