Page 65 of Sweet and Salty

“No. She disapproved of my moms getting married. She wouldn’t even come to Ma’s funeral. Afterward, she reached out once to all four of us, but none of us talked to her. She had said so many hateful things about our moms. We didn’t need to invite that into our lives.”

He kisses my neck, leaving a streak of damp sugar and flour. It’s like a tattoo, something forever, indelible. “You miss her.”

“Every single day.” I set aside the rolling pin again and pick up the bowl of brandied cherries, moving it beside the chocolate almond ganache. “She was an amazing woman, and she left this hole when she died.” I step around Jesse and go to the utensil drawer for an offset spatula. “She wanted so much for me, and I worry every day that I’m letting her down.”

Jesse waits, watching as I move around the kitchen. “I have a feeling she is incredibly proud of you. Look at everything you’ve built, and you’re so young, Laura. I know what it’s like to lose parents too young, and it fucking sucks. Be proud of yourself. I’m positive your ma is.”

Tears well up, but I snuff them out behind a kitchen towel. “Thank you. I’m sure your parents are proud of you too.”

Jesse barks a pained laugh. “Maybe. Maybe they were, but I don’t know if they would be now. So the kringle is filled?”

Right. Pastry lesson. “Yes. Filled and topped with icing, sometimes caramel or chocolate. Why skimp on the sugar? That’s what Ma always said. She said life is hard so we should do what we can to sweeten it up.” I swipe some of the chocolate almond ganache onto one of the rectangles with the offset spatula. “She always thought there should be a balance between the sweet and the salty parts of life.”

Jesse wraps his arms around me, hugging me from behind, resting his forehead against my hair. “I think you’re the balance in life.”

His lips graze my scalp, sending tingles that activate every sex brain-focused part of me. “Really?”

“Yes.” Now his mouth traces the line of my neck. “What kind of kringle are we making?” He dips a fingertip into the ganache, paints it on the curve of my collarbone, then licks it off. Maybe it’s my imagination, but his voice has lowered a register, and it’s exactly the kind of growl that makes me wet.

Or maybe it’s his hands, skimming down the sides of my chest, testing the weight of my breasts before moving lower and settling on my hips. I love how he treats my body, how he cherishes me. Even when he pushes me to my limits and past them, somehow I always feel safe.

“Laura?” His tone teases as his mouth sucked on my ear lobe, making me shiver. “You sound…distracted.”

“Um.” Words. He asked a question. I need words. “Chocolate cherry old-fashioned. It’s a whole thing. We make our old-fashioneds with brandy instead of whiskey.”

“That sounds delicious.” One of his hands slides into the elastic waistband of my pants. “Is this okay? You can tell me to stop.”

“Don’t stop.” Those words come out easily enough, even if I’ve forgotten every single item on the worktable. I’m wet and hot and yearning for him. Who needs fresh kringle when Jesse is here?

“As you wish.” His hand cups my mound before parting my folds and sliding one finger inside me.Yes.I arch back against him, seeking more friction against my clit. “When can I taste one of these brandy old-fashioneds?” he asks as he fingers me, pressing the heel of his hand against my clit. Maybe it’s because I’m exhausted or emotionally strung out, but I’m already so close to coming. I never want him to stop. I want to pause time in this kitchen, and live here for as long as we can.

Despite my hand shaking from the hormones and desire surging inside me, I manage to pluck a single brandied cherry from the bowl and hold it over my shoulder toward his mouth. “Try this.”

He leans forward, his magical hand not leaving my clit, and devours my fingers and the cherry in one long, suckling motion that zings straight to my center. “Mmm,” he murmurs, then slides a second finger into me, and that’s more than enough. The stretch, the pressure, the delicious feeling of him inside me sends me reeling, and I clench around him with a sigh falling from my lips.

“Jesse,” I breathe, collapsing a little onto the worktable, propping myself up with my forearms.

But then hot, sturdy hands on my hips whirl me around, and his mouth is on mine. He passes that same brandied cherry into my mouth, its sweet and alcoholic tang exploding like a firecracker of flavor. “I like this cherry best.” He circles my wet, swollen clit with his finger, making me whimper. With his other hand, he pulls my pants down past my ass. “Can I taste it?”

I nod, and just as my teeth clamp into the sweet cherry, he licks my clit, hard and firm. I slide my fingers through his hair and hold on as he suckles me until, impossibly, I’m coming a second time. Maybe the first never really went away, because this is waves and waves of red hot pleasure.

Cherry juice drips from my mouth, my clothes are a wreck of flour and sex and sugar, and all I can think is how I want him. Inside me. Beside me. Forever.

I see our future so clearly. The two of us on my farm, raising our animal babies. Human babies, too, toddling after Einstein. The ones with Jesse’s eyes and my dark brown hair would soften even Cree’s tough exterior.

I want it so badly. Now. Always. I feel so close to having everything I’ve always wanted, and it’s intoxicating and thrilling.Like sitting in a roller coaster car at the very top of a near-vertical drop.

“I need you.” I pull him toward me and wrestle him to a cleaner part of the worktable. Far enough from the kringle that it’s not such a major health code violation. “Please.” I reach for his belt, kicking off my pants and shoes. “I want you inside me.”

“Laura.” His voice holds a note of warning, which is not helping matters. It’s not like I’m going to fuck him in kringle dough, but he resists my tugging on him. “Laura, I didn’t bring a condom.”

“What?” Why does that matter? We love each other. This is the hottest morning sex I ever could have imagined. I want him to take the ganache, pile it on my nipples, then lick it off while he rails me. Condoms aren’t a part of the fantasy of forever playing in my brain. “I’m clean. There’s no one else. I trust you.”

“Are you on birth control?”

I still, the post-orgasmic fog ebbing, but one question sticks in my brain. Who cares if we make a baby? I want it. I want that purpose, that direction to my life. I’m tired of spinning my wheels. “No, I had a blood clot in my leg when I was twenty-two. They told me I shouldn’t take hormones.” I lick my lips. “I don’t care if we don’t use one.”

“I came here to apologize, not to have sex with you.” Jesse maneuvers his hips away from my hand, and understanding crashes through me. It feels a lot like rejection. “I mean, I always want to have sex with you, but we don’t need—”

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