Page 9 of Single Mom's Secret Diary
“They had contamination in their last harvest that didn’t meet our standards, so we’ve had to pivot.”
Nodding again, I remember her mentioning that. Vaguely. “Fine. Let’s start with the vanilla.”
Her heels clack against the sealed concrete, a distinct sound that always signals her coming and going.
The minute it takes her to retrieve the samples is a minute I spend replaying the way Avery’s hand felt in mine—small, soft, warm. The zap that tingled up my arm at the contact. How she smiled at me with the smallest corner of her full mouth and didn’t shrink back at my abrupt comment about HR. How sheagreedwith me about it and moved us along.
Every little detail of her swirls around me like a suffocating weighted blanket that I can’t rip off.
Laurel’s clicking heels draw me back to the otherwise empty lab. Fuck, this feeling is insufferable.
She has six vanilla beans in petri dishes that she lays before me. First, I pull the magnifying lens over them, checking their color and crystallization. Laurel does the same.
We smell and squeeze, cut them open, and scrape the pods to taste. Laurel prepares a section of each to make extracts.
Once we’re done, I check her notes and add my own. “Keep the remnants in their dishes and put them on my desk. I want to see if our new technician comes back with the same notes.”
“You want to test her again, don’t you? If only HR heeded your request to be part of the hiring process.” Laurel’s hand finds my arm, and my gaze narrows in on the contact. She rarely touches me, and only ever out of necessity.
I flinch back. “Yes. That would have been preferable.”
Standing, I gesture her back to the storage room. “What’s next?”
“The new carrier oils.”
I wave her off and sink back into myself. Avery’s eyes close in my mind, the small bite she takes, the slight softening of her features as she tastes one of my chocolates. A sharp breath punches into my lungs.
What does she taste like? Those rosy lips, that pale caramel skin, the softness between her thighs. Heat returns to my body, tunneling down my chest to my cock. I wipe a hand across my jaw and mouth.
People rarely stir these kinds of thoughts. A few women in my past slipped into my bed and then out of it. But it’s never been anything I put much stock in chasing. Never been a need that I desire much help to satiate. It’s more of an annoying task for maintenance.
But this—the obsession with seeing Avery make that face again. To discover the other ones she can make. To know if she enjoys the flavors I created.
Heel clicks wipe away most of the lingering thoughts plaguing me. It makes the process of testing and tasting each new ingredient all the more tedious. Would it still be that way if Avery performed this task with me instead of Laurel?
The hard twist in my stomach is hard to interpret, but the answer seems to be an easyyes.
“Did you want me to save these samples as well?” Laurel asks as she scribbles my last notes on her paper.
“Yes.” I stand again. “Is there anything else?”
Her slow blinks stall me momentarily from stalking away. “No. I’ll inform you if anything else arrives for us to look at.”
“Good.”
“I’ll be in the store room if you need me, Wyatt.” Her voice softens on my name, and I bite my cheek, cringing as I turn and march into my office.
If this feeling—thisdesire—won’t go away, I’ll go challenge it. Taking the competitor’s chocolates I’ve been studying from myfridge, I take one that I’ve labeled “Spiced Mayan” and carry it in a paper cup up to Avery’s office.
Every step I take sends unhelpful questions at me.Why am I doing this? Why can’t I stop myself? What is the point of this? Will she make the same face she made when she tasted mine? Will she enjoy this one more than the one I created?
The knock on her door doesn’t shut down these questions, but when she lifts her hazel gaze up to take me in, everything inside me goes silent.
6
Avery
Finally, room to breathe. It took a dark, pointed look at Ezra to get him to leave me once he handed me the key to my office.
