Amber brushed past me with a tray of cupcakes for the bakery case, a naughty grin on her face. I acted cool and calm while breaking my eggs into the bowl and waited for her to leave so I could freak out in private. “Did you get cold in the cooler?” she asked, her eyes drifting to my chest where my nipples peaked like Mount Kilimanjaro.
I crossed my arm over my chest, innocently. “It was pretty cold in there.”
“Good thing you had Brady with you. His hotness surely kept you warm.”
She sashayed into the other room with her cupcakes, and I groaned, my arm falling away from my chest. She didn’t, did she? If she locked us in that cooler, I was going to have a word with her in private! What are you going to say? Are you going to thank her for giving you the best fifteen minutes of your life? The sound that left my throat was strangled, and I broke an egg too hard, the shells falling into the bowl with the yolk.
“I don’t think the recipe calls for shells,” Brady whispered from behind me, and I jumped, his nearness causing my dirty thoughts to flare back to life. “Let me help you with that,” he whispered, his lips connecting with the back of my neck while he scooped the shells out with a spatula. “That’s much better.” He buried his nose in the back of my neck and inhaled deeply. “I hate and love how you always smell so good, cupcake. All I want to do is lick you...for starters.”
I cleared my throat, his lips leaving trails of goosebumps down my back, and a shiver ran up my spine at the thought of him licking me. “I call it Eau de Cupcake.”
He ran his thumb across the nape of my neck, and the sound he made could have been bottled and sold for sexual pleasure. “Mmmm, well, I’d eat your cupcake, cupcake.”
He drifted off to his end of the workbench and began punching down loaves of bread, his breath heavy with every punch of the dough. If I didn’t know better, I’d think he was frustrated. Then again, if he was feeling the same way I was, frustrated was too mild of a word.
Eleven
The bakery was finally closed, and I lowered myself to a chair at a table by the window.
“Tired?” a voice asked, and I raised my head to see Amber standing by the table, holding a sandwich and a cup of coffee.
I sat up and accepted the food and drink, offering her a smile while I took a bite. “Exhausted, but I think all the cakes are baked and ready for the morning. It’s been a long day.”
“Made longer by your need to walk around the other side of the bench rather than pass by Brady.”
I moaned and dropped the sandwich back to the plate, resting my forehead on my palm. “He kissed me,” I whispered, my voice barely audible in the now quiet building.
“Come again?”
I hadn’t, but I still wish I had. That was the problem.
“Did you just say he kissed you?”
I nodded slowly without making eye contact. “When we were locked in the cooler.” I lifted my head. “Wait a minute. How did we get locked in there if we were both inside, and you were the only other one here?”
She gave me the palms out. “Faulty latch?”
“Amber Phyllis Larson!”
“What?” she asked innocently. “It was an accident, I swear!”
“Accidently on purpose!”
She held up her hands. “It was an accident. I think I bumped into it when I got the first set of cupcakes out. I didn’t realize it until I went back for more, which is the reason I then let you out.”
“You didn’t do it on purpose?” She swung her head back and forth, and I could tell she was being honest. “Well, regardless, it happened. Now I don’t know what to do.”
“About?”
I tossed my hands up in the air like a lunatic. “The kiss! Brady! Everything!”
Amber grasped my hand and squeezed it. “Talk to Amber about it, sweetie. What’s the problem?”
I lowered a brow to my nose. “You know what the problem is. I’m his boss.”
“Maybe, but that doesn’t mean you don’t need to get laid.”
“Amber,” I moaned, drawing out her name in frustration. “You know what I mean.”
“Let’s start at the beginning. Why did he kiss you in the cooler?”
“He smashed eggs against my coat by accident, and I got worked up.”
“Shocker.”
I lowered my other brow, and she snickered but stopped talking. “He said I was sexy when I was all riled up. I told him he was dangerously close to sexual harassment in the workplace, and he said then he might as well go all the way.”
“But he didn’t. Go all the way, that is.”
“He went far enough! He kissed me, and—and grabbed my ass!”
She bit her lip, and whether it was to keep from being a smart ass, or to avoid laughing, I couldn’t say. “I noticed he couldn’t take his eyes off your ass all day. He even dropped an entire loaf of bread on the floor when he missed the pan.”
“When I told him about the date last night with Maxwell, he told me I should own being all hips and ass. He said he liked the way my hips and ass look in my bakery whites.”
“And probably everything else, including those shorts you were wearing last night.” I groaned, and her laughter rang out through the bakery. “I can’t believe you kissed him.”
I held up my finger. “Brady kissed me. I would never kiss an employee.”
“But you kissed him back, right?”
I nodded and swallowed around the fear in my throat. “With tongue,” I added, “but by not thinking, I put our whole business in jeopardy.”
She held up her finger, pausing and licking her lips. “At the risk of sounding dumb, how did it put our business in jeopardy?”
“Duh, Amber! If he claims sexual harassment, we’re done! We can’t come back from that.”
“Whoa, back up the bread wagon, Haylee. Brady kissed you, not the other way around. He also did it in a place where there were no witnesses. A sexual harassment claim would be he said-she said. He’d never win in court with that.”
“He will in the court of public opinion. Who are they going to believe? The sexy guy or the thick chick? They’re going to believe the sexy guy because why wouldn’t a thick chick throw herself at a guy like him?”
Amber made the head explosion motion and shook her head. “You have serious self-confidence issues. I’m siding with Brady on that. Regardless, Brady isn’t going to cry sexual harassment any more than you are. You’re both adults, and you were both willing participants, right?”
“Seemed like it,” I agreed. “He was moaning louder than I was. I broke off the kiss, and he dove back in for another until you interrupted.”
“Dammit. I’ve always had bad timing!” she exclaimed, hitting herself in the forehead with her palm.
I chuckled and took another bite of the sandwich.
“That leads me to the next question,” she said, and I motioned for her to ask it while I chewed. “Do you want to do it again?”
I moaned and closed my eyes. “So much, Amber. I’m trying not to think about the fact that I’ll never do it again.”
“Why the hell not?” she asked, her brow up in surprise.