Page 44 of His Determined Bear

“I think the word you’re looking for is annoying,” I said, going for levity because every second with him brought me closer to throwing myself in his arms and blurting out the truth.

“Maybe I have a thing for annoying,” Graham replied smoothly. Why did he always know just the right thing to say?

He got out of the car, walked over, opened my door, and helped me out of the car. And he didn’t take his hand off the small of my back as we walked into the supermarket together, and I may have leaned into him as we did.Graham stopped to grab a shopping cart and gestured for me to push it, still with his big hand plastered to my lower back.

I was surprised when we didn’t go down the produce aisle. I figured he needed to grab something for dinner. Instead, we ended up on the baking aisle. I watched as he grabbed several bags of flour, cocoa powder, baking chocolate, brown sugar, and white sugar. “We’ll grab butter on our way to checkout,” he said.

“Do you need help making the wedding cake?” I asked when I saw how much he was getting. “Did something happen to it? You know the wedding is tomorrow, right?”

“The wedding cake?” His brow crinkled, “that’s in the fridge at Three Bears, ready to be delivered.”

“Oh, so what—” I glanced down at the shopping cart and studied the ingredients. And a slow smile spread across my face. It couldn’t be. I tried to stifle my laugh, but I couldn’t stop myself, and I burst out laughing.

I looked up at Graham, and I couldn’t help it. I doubled over laughing because he looked guilty and embarrassed. I couldn’t believe he’d taken my words to heart and was still trying the recipe for the brownie.

“Let me guess,” I said between laughs, “I can’t leave your house until I tell you your brownies are perfect?”

“Don’t tempt me,” he said, “Or you’ll be in for some truly horrible trays of brownies. I can burn brownies like the best of them.”

I stopped laughing immediately because Graham had just basically said he didn’t want me to leave his house unless I was hearing things.

* * *

When we arrived at Graham’s house, he gave me a quick tour before ordering pizza. Just like he had said, he had two fireplaces, a massive one in the family room and a smaller one in his bedroom.

After the pizza arrived, we sat at the bar and enjoyed talking to each other. The laughter at my realization that we were making brownies tonight had settled my nerves a bit. I could eat my dinner and relax while I learned more about the father of my child.

We cleared away the pizza boxes and threw away the trash before starting. Graham hadn’t asked me about why I left so abruptly three weeks ago but instead chose to kind of start over from the beginning.

“Okay, Mr. Wakefield, our mission tonight is to try several recipes to determine the best one. You have suggested in the past that my brownies were dry, and I must now defend my baking honor,” he went on as if I had cut him to the quick. I just snickered at him.

“Well, Mr. Hallbjorn, the sample that I was given to try was indeed a bit dry. I told you after I assessed the condition of your baked good how to rectify such a problem,” I answered in my haughtiest and snarkiest manner.

“Well, we shall see which one is actually the best tonight,” Graham replied, going for two aprons on the back of the door. He hung one around his neck, then proceeded to approach me like a lion stalking its prey with the other one.

“Are you planning on tying me up?” I asked in my flirtiest tone.

“That might be a plan for later, but right now, we are going to bake. Turn around, sweet cheeks, so I can tie this on you. We wouldn’t want to get your clothes dirty and have to take them off of you,” he growled in my ear. As he tied the apron around my waist, his hand slipped around the front to smooth down the nonexistent wrinkles on the front of my apron. I sucked in a breath and held it as he skimmed his hand down my belly. Did he know?

He pulled back and placed a sweet kiss on my cheek before moving away. I covered my cheek with my hand as if I could keep his kiss there forever.

“Okay, Cooper, here we go,” he snapped, pulling me from my mushy pregnancy-induced sappy feelings." Let's get all the ingredients out and start this bake-off. You can make your recipe, and I’ll make mine. There should be no deviation of the recipe, and it should be made to its original standards.”

I couldn’t help but laugh at his snooty chef-speak. I was not a baker. I’m a food critic. But I would play along with him because it was him, and it was fun. At that moment, I think I realized that I was falling for him if I hadn’t already. I still wasn’t ready to tell him about the baby, but I would in time. I needed to play with him right now.

Graham took out his stainless steel mixing bowls and proceeded to gather all the ingredients we would need to make the brownies. He was sexy when he cooked like this, moving around like a sleek cat in his kitchen. I got caught staring at him, so he took his big paw and swatted me on the ass, telling me to get going. I may have dawdled on purpose a couple times just to feel his hands on me.

After preheating the oven and preparing the pans, we finally got down to the business of baking. When I had faux-difficulty getting my eggs cracked open, Graham stepped up behind me, pressing his big body into my back. He brought his arms around my body while resting his chin on my shoulder to “help” me do it. I would admit to him that I knew how to perfectly break open an egg.

We went on this way, touching in every way we could without it being too obvious what we were doing. We laughed and poked fun at each other until it was time to put the pans in the oven.

Graham slid them both in, side by side, and set the timer. When he turned around from the oven to face me, his eyes were like pools of dark chocolate, ready to pour all over everything.

“Come here,” I called, crooking my finger at him.

Graham made his way to me and took me in his arms. I reached up laced my fingers through his hair. Looking into his eyes, I pulled his face down to me, where a small smudge of batter had ended up on his cheek. When I had him where I wanted him, I used my tongue to lick away the batter from his face, moaning at the delicious chocolate and coffee.

It didn’t take long for him to pull back and bring his mouth to mine. Our tongues writhed around each other as if trying to memorize the texture and taste. We ground our bodies together and moaned at the feel of our cocks rubbing together through our jeans.

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