Page 46 of Half Baked

“I know the feeling,” he murmurs, trailing his hand down my back. A shiver snakes along my spine behind the touch. I wanted to talk about my grandmother, but this is becoming absurdly confusing for me. I need to get back on track.

“So, what you’ll do last is drizzle the maple butter over the cobbler.” I look up as Hayden dumps a puddle onto his side of the dish. “I saiddrizzle. What are you doing over there?”

“I don’t think you’re using enough of this stuff, it’s so good.”

“I’m not using enough?”

He smirks as he reaches out and dollops extra atop the side of the cobbler I’m dishing ice cream onto. “Try it now.”

“You don’t want it to pool,” I protest.

Hayden turns to me, taking hold of the scooper in my hand and passing me a fork instead. Pulling his hand back, he sends a glob of vanilla ice cream flinging through the air and landing on my cheek.

“Oh!” I exclaim, taking a step back. Hayden sets the scoop down and closes the distance between us once again. With a wicked grin, he grabs my waist with one hand, and lifts the other to slowly drag his thumb across my cheek, wiping the cold dessert away.

It’s intimate, and the sweet smell of our baking is mingling with his masculine scent that always has a hint of salty sea to it. My bakery’s motto drifts into my mind.Because salty and sweet were made for each other.

I’m utterly intoxicated, forgetting about the camera and crew watching the moment passing between us. The look in his eyes is sinfully seductive, and I want to indulge in him shamelessly.

Record high temperatures combined with me being trapped in the scorching bakery with Hayden is leading to delusional, heat stroke induced dirty thoughts about a man I have dedicated myself to hating.

“What were you saying about not wanting it to pool?” he jokes.

“You lose the way the flavors complement each other if you have too much of one thing,” I rasp.

“Noted,” he says with a wink, turning back to the camera. “I hope you all are learning as much as I am.”

We return to finishing the cobbler, digging in to try our first tastes. Trevor brings the camera near, focusing on the dessert before panning up as we take a bite.

“Delicious as ever, Poppy Seed,” Hayden moans. “But I’ve got to say, it could use more maple butter.”

My mouth falls open, and his deep laugh echoes through the air as Tara calls cut. The camera light blinks off and we’re out.

“I love this.” Tara motions between us. “You too are downright steamy. Excellent, just excellent. We will get going on editing and see you next week.”

The crew wraps up quickly and leaves together this time. Trevor doesn’t seem to make any flirtatious comments to me or linger to talk. Instead, I catch his eyes flit between Hayden and myself. And I am more than okay with that. Because my body still remembers the feel of Hayden’s hand on my waist from a few minutes ago. And my brain still remembers the smoldering look in his eyes.

I steal a glance at Hayden to find his focus on the mixer. Sensing me, he quickly turns away from it, like he’d just been caught doing something wrong.

“It came today,” I explain. “I have no clue how. Only like three people knew my old one was dead.”

“How long was it dead for?”

I don’t want to admit to him that I got it on its last leg. It’s too embarrassing considering he’s got more money than he’ll ever know what to do with. And speaking of his money… the idea sneaks into my mind on a whim. But it could never be true. He didn’t even know I needed a new mixer.

“That’s hard to say, some days it would randomly decide to work again.”

I turn my focus to cleaning up when he asks, “Do you like it?”

“Like what?”

“The new mixer, is it a good one?”

A laugh escapes me. “It’s the best one. I’m waiting for whoever sent it here to come and snatch it away to its real home. Why?”

Hayden shrugs, picking up a rag to help clean the prep table. “Just asking. Are you heading to the town meeting from here?”

“I am,” I reply skeptically. “Why?”

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