Page 8 of Baked

Slowly twisting around to face the counter where he sat, she eyed him warily.

Dear lord, those are ridges. Deep, sexy, muscley ridges. It should be illegal to go around looking like that.

“Is there a reason you’re looking at me like that, baby?”

Again with the names. Honeybun. Baby.What the fuck is going on?Which was what she asked next.

“What’s happening?”

“What do you mean?” She watched him take a healthy bite of her muffin.

Don’t.

“I mean, last week I was still struggling to get full sentences out of you. And now ... now you’re naked in my kitchen, kissing my cheek, calling me sweet names, and asking me how I slept. Did I wake up in another dimension?”

When he’d finished chewing, she witnessed the most glorious thing. A smile. Not a lip twitch. Not a barely there lopsided grin. A huge, wide, megawatt smile. Teeth and all. That was definitely the first time she’d seen him smile like that. She would have remembered seeing this before. It would have been burnt into her memory.

“Not naked, baby. Not yet.”

Seriously? That’s his answer?

She threw her hands up in defeat and went back to her muffins. At least muffins made sense.

CHAPTER THREE

How Rachel managedto look even more beautiful in the morning was a mystery. Makeup-free, with batter in her ruby red hair, she was a vision. And her muffins? Hot damn, they were good. A man could get used to this.

He’d flustered her though. She was busying herself and trying her best to avoid eye contact with him. She’d done the same thing last night when his top had come off. He knew it was because she liked what she saw. Otherwise, her eyes wouldn’t flash as they roved down his stomach, and those tinges of pink wouldn’t be on her cheeks.

It made him want to beat his chest. Or drag her onto his lap. Resembling the Hulk came in handy for once.

“You got a moment to talk about your schedule?” He took a final bite of his second muffin.

“Uh.” Her eyes darted to his face, his chest, and then back to the Tupperware she was packing full of muffins. “What do you want to know?”

“Well, I’m gonna talk to the chief about switching to earlies today. Seeing as you’re up at five, I figured I could do six to six for a while. But it does mean I won’t be able to pick you up until around six-thirty on the days I’m working. Is that too late?”

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