Page 133 of Only Ever You

Something unspoken moved through the air between them as Faye dragged her plump lower lip between her teeth, peering at him as though she’d waited all day for them to be alone. Bash could only imagine what he looked like in the shadows; his eyes dark and brooding, grey t-shirt stretched over his chest.

“Would you come over here?” he asked her warmly.

“Why?” she responded but moved to her feet, her trouser hems falling into place.

Bash would’ve thought the answer was obvious. “I’ve been desperate to kiss you since we stepped foot in the building at dawn.”

The flash in Faye’s eyes hinted to her shock that he’d be so bold. Another side of himself that was new to her which she should get used to, and fairly soon.

She slid onto his lap with ease, like when his designs on paper fitted perfectly together in reality, arms folding around his neck. Breathing in her nearness and the hint of her bright, floral perfume, Bash brushed his hand up her back, the other finding the clip in her hair and setting it free. Her exhale as her mouth inched towards his was like blessed relief.

Their kiss had been a long time coming. All day he’d been so near to her and unable to take her in his arms like he’d been desperate to do so many times.

He opened his mouth to her and groaned at the weight of her in his lap, the tangle of her fingers in his hair. He massaged his blunt nails through the roots of hers, earning him groan after groan.

Bash lost himself to the minutes of lips brushing his, and his intensifying fantasy of locking the front door, closing the shutters and locking themselves away in this office all night.

Time both quickened and slowed until a cramp in his hip made him pull back with a pitched whine that Faye misinterpreted at first.

“Oh no! I’m hurting you?—”

“Don't. Go. Anywhere.”Bash clamped his hands around her hips with a grimace. The muscle spasming awkwardly in his thigh was enough to make his eyelids squeeze shut.

Faye stayed, chuckling at his misfortune even if she tried not to. “You good?”

“Mhm.” It wasn’t exactly how he’d planned for this kiss to end.

“Was that too much excitement for you?”

Very funny.

“Not nearly enough.” It didn’t pass Bash by as the cramp ebbed how she’d shifted her ass further over his halfway excited crotch. “By the way, I know you’ve told Maisie and Sienna about us, I told Ben and Freddy too. So long as we don’t mention that we’re having sex in front of them, they’re happy.”

“We’re having sex?” Faye teased.

The darkness in Bash’s eyes was like a promise for later. “If you play your cards right,mon cœur?*.”

Smiling like kissing him had satiated a kind of need, Faye tipped her head against his shoulder, content to rest in his arms. If neither of them moved, then they’d sit here for hours more just holding onto one another, which went directly against Bash’s desire to get her home and rested.

This bakery was her life, but maybe Faye needed reminding that there was more to life than the numerous walls of this place.

She’d just spent five whole days away with him and there’d been no fires atBaked,no catastrophes. Bash knew she’d been reserved at first, but kidnapping her away from here had been the best thing he could’ve done for her this Christmas. To see her so content and relaxed … Maybe he could make the plans for her evening even better and serve that reminder?

His pulse quickened to a canter, feeling it kick in every inch of his body.

He had something he wanted to ask her closer to midnight on New Year’s eve tomorrow anyway, so why not ask her here and now?

“Something’s on your mind,” Faye murmured, her lips skimming up and down his throat. “I can see it.”

Here goes nothing.

“I was thinking,” Bash said slowly, “that we should get married.”

Silence.

* My heart

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