“Don’t kink shame.” He laughed. “Perfectly lit beautiful products. Hand models make a shit ton of money. I’m sure someone out there gets off on it.”
My head whipped around, and I glared at him. “Someone like you.” Now more than ever I was happy she’d used other guys in her photos and videos and nothing more than her hand was in other shots. Not that it still didn’t set me on edge to know there was probably a guy out there jerking off to her fingers and perfectly filed nails.
He folded over the fondant he’d been molding and grabbed a rolling pin. “Nope, definitely not my kink at all.”
Leo, Everest, August, and I all exchanged looks. I spoke up first. “What exactly is your kink then, Jameson?”
His face went as red as the fondant he shaped into a disc with his hands. “You’re all assholes.”
August taunted, stirring the melting chocolate in a glass bowl on top of the double boiler. “Someone’s keeping secrets.”
“Like you don’t all have secrets? Fine, I’ll tell you all my bedroom secrets if you guys tell me about Milwaukee.”
A stack of empty cake pans clattered off the stove. August spun around with wide eyes before crouching to pick up the scattered pans.
Everest knocked into the blast chiller, banging it into the wall.
Leo focused on the slowly mixing batter like shifting his gaze for a single second would send the whole thing up into flames.
Jameson slammed the towel he’d been keeping over his shoulder down onto the counter. “It’s been years, guys. Just tell me what happened.” He braced his hands on the sugar-coated laminate and stared at us.
There was no noise in the kitchen other than the hum of the appliances I’d arranged to have delivered after the last two disasters of birthday cake assembly duties.
Our trip after graduation to the city was a no-go topic in our circle. We didn’t discuss what had happened in Milwaukee and preferred to forget it ever happened, although local law enforcement, the parks department, a bank, and the Milwaukee County Zoo probably wouldn’t be so forgiving.
“Teresa and my mom had the flu and I couldn’t go. Six years later you assholes are still holding out on me?”
Everest recovered and grabbed a bowl filled with chocolate batter. “You’re lucky you weren’t there.”
“I swear, I won’t tell anyone else.” Jameson looked to Leo, who he’d been friends with since middle school. Then to August, who he’d roomed with freshman year, and Everest, who’d lived next door, and then to me, who’d been the last one tagged into the friend group. That none of them had told him yet drove home how much everyone wanted what had happened in Milwaukee to stay in Milwaukee, and also how I was the last one added to the group that had been solid before I’d shown up junior year of college. Hell, Maddy had probably been closer to most of them before the breakup than I was.
It sucked being on the outside, but I wasn’t going to be the chink in the armor, not after everything Everest had put on the line to help extricate us from that situation.
August shook his head and walked over, dropping his hand onto Jameson’s shoulder. “You don’t want to know.”
A phone timer went off, saving us from the Jameson-Milwaukee press.
“Let’s get this cake made for Teresa.”
The timer was silenced, and we got back to work. A quiet tension blanketed the overly crowded kitchen. It was a lot like how things had been in my apartment since Sabrina moved in. Either a rippling irritation or an unreliable tension, although the kind in this kitchen had nothing on the kind that kept me digging my fingers into my thighs when she was near so I didn’t reach for her. So I didn’t wind my fingers into her hair and breathe in her scent.
Jameson slapped a rolling pin against one of the multicolored fondant boulders. “Thanks for getting the stand mixers for us, Hunter. The last two years it’s been a pain in the ass sharing one hand mixer.”
Everest pulled a sheet pan of cake out of the oven and swung it around. “And the extra oven.”
Jameson ducked out of the way of the blazing hot pan. “Everest! How many times have we said to warn us first?”
Everest stuck the pan into the chiller, which dropped the temperature to around forty degrees in a little over an hour. “How did we do this last year without the blast chiller?”
Leo poured his batter into two round pans. “What? You didn’t have one of these in your Viking kitchen growing up, right next to the ice cream machine, double ovens, and wine fridge?”
“No, the chef took care of all that, and the wine cellar was on the far end of the house beside the movie theater, so I don’t actually know. Maybe we did have one.” While his voice was laced with sarcasm, none of us believed Everest had been joking about the type of house he’d grown up in.
Leo grumbled not so low under his breath and shoved the pans into the oven.
“How much more cake do we need?” I added the powdered sugar into my bowl and flipped on the machine. A cloud of white sprayed me in the face.
Everyone froze before bursting into laughter.
I slowly opened my eyes and looked down at my shirt and pants. Literally caked in sugar, I spit bits of sugar out of my mouth and shook my head, throwing even more sugar into the air.
The guys all shouted.
“If I have to be covered, everyone’s getting covered.”
Jameson coughed and swatted at the dusty air. “You got off easy the first time we did this. Now it’s time to pay the piper.”
“Only because I was getting a three-carat diamond for Leo. That kind of rabbit-out-of-a-hat-pulling requires some time and finesse.” It had required more than that, but I’d gotten it done in record time and came out of the trades without owing anyone anything.
That was the way I worked, especially when it came to my friends.
What did Sabrina want? What did she need? Was she anywhere near as hungry for me as I was for her? After our night together, she’d steered clear, not that I hadn’t done the same, but I needed to know if she spent her nights staring up at the ceiling wishing she was beside me.
23
Sabrina
I dried my hands on the fluffy green towels in the bathroom and checked myself out in the mirror, taking my hair down and finger combing it. I cursed under my breath and rolled my eyes and whispered to myself, “What the hell are you doing, Sabrina? Who are you trying to impress?” I put my hair back up, shaking my head the whole time.
I jerked open the door, flicking off the light, and closed it behind me.
One step out of the bathroom and Hunter entered the narrow hallway.
“Are you okay?”
“Hunter, seriously. It’s not like I’m going to sue you. No need to shoot into concern overdrive.” I tried to scoot past him.
His arm shot out to block my path. The heel of his hand pressed against the wall and his shoulder almost touched the opposite one. His fingers were covered in icing.
What I wouldn’t give to lick them clean.
I may have let out a low hiss-growl combo. Get a damn grip and buy some new batteries for your vibrator, Sabrina. Cat would be disappointed in me right now. Good thing she wasn’t here.