I Hate, I Bake, and I Don’t Date! by Alina Jacobs

37

Tess

Iflopped down on my fainting couch after I finished cleaning.

You should have just let him kiss you, the drunk part of me decided.

Drunk me very much would have liked to have spent the evening with Beck.

The problem?

Beck was also drunk.

And I did not want to wake up next to him just to see shock and horror on his face. I would literally melt on the floor from the awkwardness.

I changed out of my clothes then went back into the kitchen and opened the fridge. I had hidden my own personal container of cupcakes.

Since I couldn’t have sex, the next best thing was chocolate and wine. I opened Beck’s wine fridge.

“Wine makes everything better.”

Five chocolate cupcakes and two thirds of a bottle of wine later, and I realized that I had not in fact made everything better and was in fact dangerously close to making everything worse.

I tipsily took two more cupcakes and the rest of the wine to my bathroom and drew a bath because I didn’t have a bathtub in my mushroom apartment, and the room in Beck’s condo had a freestanding tub that I was going to live my best Julia Roberts life in.

Tess:Can you overdose on cupcakes?

Maeve:How many cupcakes did you eat?

Tess:A dozen?

Tess:They were small though.

I snapped a blurry picture and sent it to her.

Maeve:Those are not small cupcakes.

Tess:I made them with the special imported Belgian chocolate.

I slid into the bathwater and picked up my Kindle. While I read, I finished off the rest of my cupcakes and the wine. When the water started to cool, I stumbled into the bedroom and passed out facedown on top of the comforter. I thought I heard Beck and his sisters return, but it might have just been my dreams.

Or not.

The door to the bedroom opened, and his footsteps were soft over the carpet.

“Tess.”

He positioned himself behind me. I moaned as he spread my legs, his fingers rubbing me. My clit ached, and my panties were soaking wet.

“You ready for me?” Beck said in that deep voice as he unzipped his pants and—

I woke up with a snort.

“Shit,” I gasped in the dark. My mouth felt like cotton. There was chocolate icing in my hair, my panties were soaking wet, my pussy ached.

“You need a cupcake,” I said forcefully.

The dream had been way too real. I almost expected to turn over and have Beck lying next to me.

But he wasn’t.

“Chocolate will definitely make everything better. And maybe some seltzer,” I decided, stumbling through the dark to the kitchen.

I grabbed two cupcakes and put them on a plate then poured a glass of sparkling mineral water and sat on the couch.

Unfortunately, the cupcakes weren’t cutting it.

I didn’t want chocolate. I wanted sex.

I kept thinking about the last time I had sat on the couch, Beck shirtless, hovering over me, his hands moving up, up my thigh, closer and closer to my aching pussy.

I spread my legs, imagining him there.

I needed him. I rubbed one of my nipples through the thin T-shirt fabric, imagining it was him as I fingered myself through my soaking wet panties.

“Beck, I need you,” I whispered as one finger hooked under the edge of the lacy fabric.

“Need me how?”

Wow, I had really gotten good at this lucid dreaming thing.

“I need your cock,” I whimpered, opening my eyes slightly to see his gray ones staring back at me. I jumped and shrieked, but he grabbed me and silenced me with a kiss.

It was forceful and masculine. He smelled amazing, and his jaw was slightly stubbly against my skin. One of his large hands grabbed my hair, tipping my head back so he could take my mouth like I wanted him to take my body. It was way better than anything I had even fantasized about.

I moaned, straining against him, needing to feel him, needing his hands on me and his dick inside me.

His tongue slipped into my mouth as his other hand ran down my curves, briefly cupping my breast then going lower to trail circles on my thigh.

I whimpered, grabbing his bare shoulder, needing to feel him closer to me.

Beck drew back, and I gasped.

“I can’t believe,” he said, sounding way more collected than I was, “that you would rather sit here and stroke your pussy instead of coming to find me.”

“I was trying not to lead you on,” I said, mesmerized by his mouth.

“And yet,” he said, his fingers trailing tantalizingly close to my pussy, “you instead opted to make an erotic display on my sofa.”

“I got carried away,” I croaked, straining against him, my nipples brushing his bare chest through the thin T-shirt fabric. “But since you’re here, do you want to join me?”

He pushed me back against the sofa, and little whimpering noises came out of my mouth as I spread my legs for him. His tongue flicked out to taste my mouth.

Abruptly, he drew back.

“Actually,” he said, “I was going to go for a run.”

“After all that?” I asked, looking at him in shock.

“I want to make sure you’re good and ready.”

I reached between my legs. “I’m ready now, so since you don’t want to join me, maybe I’ll just take care of it myself.”

He moved and grabbed my wrist, forcing my arm up to pin it above my head. He kissed me hard.

“When you come, I don’t want you to come just thinking about me. I want you to come because I made you come.” He bit my lower lip. “I want you to be hot and ready for me.”

He released me. “Trust me, it will be worth the wait.”

I almost touched myself after he left but blew out a breath of frustration. Beck was right. I wanted him, not whatever image of him was in my head.

And if he wanted to play games, then that was fine by me.

I didmy best to ignore Beck the next day at work.

When he reached for me after I brought him his afternoon tea, I wrapped my arms around him, making sure my tits were in his face, then I forced his jaw up to kiss me.

“Wish you had fucked me last night?” I asked against his mouth.

He made a strangled noise then said, “Yes.”

“Too bad.”

“We could rectify it now,” he suggested, large hands circling me to grip my ass.

I moaned against his mouth then cursed and jumped away from him when someone knocked on the door.

“What is it, Cressida?” Beck asked sharply.

She glared at me.

“I just wanted to know if you wanted to go over the new hires that were picked for the intern program. They’re going to be placed in the forensic accounting department.”

Beck rubbed a hand over his jaw.

I wondered if Cressida had seen us. Was she going to make my life difficult? Or at least more difficult than it already was?

“She’s so thirsty,” Maeve muttered to me when I sat back down at my desk.

“She’s just the worst,” I agreed.

“So have you slept with him yet?” Maeve asked conversationally.

“No,” I admitted, “but we made out.”

“You made out with Beck? Oh my god!” She clapped a hand over her mouth then jumped up, dragged me to the bathroom, and slammed the door.

“Was he into it? Was he good? I need all the details!”

I wrinkled my nose. “I was kind of still drunk and had eaten a lot of cupcakes. All I remember is that it was so freaking amazing. I was ready to just do him right there on the couch.”

“Oh my god, Cressida is going to flip her shit when she finds out!” Maeve said, giddy.

I grabbed my friend. “She can’t find out. You know how she is!”

“She’s going to find out eventually,” Maeve reminded me. “If you guys are waltzing around town, going for brunch, people are going to figure it out.”

I chewed on my lip. “I think she might have seen us.”

“You were making out with him in his office?”

“Is that a cliché? It feels like a cliché.”

“If the cliché gets you off, then it’s worth it,” Maeve said, pressing her hands together.

“Maybe I should call the whole thing off.”

“You can’t just leave yourself like this,” Maeve said, gesturing at me. “Besides, there’s no way Beck is just going to let you walk off. He’s a hunter who has you in his sights. He’s not going to let you go until he claims you.”

“Have you been reading werewolf romances again?” I asked her, rolling my eyes.

“There was a special,” she said. “I bought a whole twenty-book box set.”

“Lord.”

Cressida was still talking to Beck when I returned to my desk.

The YOLO part of me wanted to waltz in there and tell him I was buying a dress for our big charity event that evening that Ethel was hosting. But the rational part of me reminded me that if eating a dozen cupcakes at once was a bad idea, Cressida finding out about Beck and my fake relationship/very real sexual tension would be apocalyptic.

The girls were excitedwhen I picked them up from the Svensson Investment offices. If I wasn’t going to give Beck’s cock a workout, then I would at least give his credit card one.

“What kind of dress do you think I should buy?” I asked Enola and Annie.

“We can make you one,” Enola offered. “We have sewing machines.”

“Really…”

I wasn’t sure that was a great idea. This was an important charity party. But Annie and Enola looked so hopeful that I didn’t have the heart to tell them it was a terrible idea. That was what my stepfather had always done to me whenever I had a suggestion. I had hated the humiliation that would flood my brain when he would condescendingly tell me why my ideas were terrible.

“Do we need to go fabric shopping?” I asked as we walked through the Svensson Investment lobby to the front door.

“Nope!” Annie said. “We’re going to make the dress out of curtains.”

Shoot.

Was there a tactful way I could buy a backup dress?

Once we were backat the condo, the two sisters stripped the lacy curtains from Annie’s room and the gauzy ones from Enola’s and threw them in the wash while they took my measurements.

I silently freaked out while they chattered to themselves about the best way to construct the dress.

“It’s like Little House on the Prairie,” Annie explained when the fabric had been retrieved from the dryer.

I, too, had gone through a Little House on the Prairie phase when I was a girl, and I, too, had attempted to make clothes out of curtains. I had of course ended up looking like a homeless woman.

I think I might have something nice in my closet.

I racked my brain. I owned business casual clothes and an ill-advised cocktail dress that I had bought for New Year’s one year when I had decided I was going to go out to party and live a little. I had ended up having my phone stolen and had to hobble two hours uptown to my apartment.

After that, I had decided my most exciting evenings were going to consist of my romance novels and baking.

Could I wear that dress?

While Beck’s sisters were busy cutting up the curtains, I went into my room to look in my closet. The dress had been bought two years ago when I was about a thousand cupcakes lighter.

I put it on—barely. It had long sleeves and a scoop neck in the back along with heavy gold chains to keep the front closed. Though with my boobs, every time I moved, I was in danger of falling out.

What if I wear it over a T-shirt?

Nope. Still looked bad.

I was online shopping for an emergency dress and trying to figure out a way not to hurt Enola and Annie’s feelings when I heard arguing from the living room.

“You can’t wear curtains to a charity ball, especially one your grandmother is hosting,” Beck was scolding when I skidded to a stop into the living room.

Annie and Enola were crestfallen. The dress was in lacy pieces around them and their sewing machines.

“It’s going to be nice,” Enola said in a small voice.

“You need to order a dress,” Beck demanded when he saw me. “We cannot screw up this charity ball.” His face softened. “I’m sorry, Enola and Annie, but you know how important this is. I can’t lose you.”

“They’re making a very fine dress,” I told Beck, glaring at him. Against my better judgment, there was no way I couldn’t stand up for the girls, even if they were going to send me to the party looking like a rag lady.

“Just you watch. I’m going to be the best-dressed person at that party,” I said loftily.

“No, you’re not!” Beck said, appalled. “I’m going to have to pretend that I don’t know you.”

“Want to bet?” I shot back.

He narrowed his eyes at me. “Bet what?”

“If everyone likes my dress, you have to do an activity we choose, and you can’t complain.”

“And if people gasp in shock and old women faint at the sheer horror of your dress, what I do get?”

“You can make me do anything you want me to do.”

“Anything?” The corner of Beck’s mouth quirked slightly.

I felt my face go hot. “Within reason.”

“It will be very reasonable,” he practically purred.

“Let’s go! Let’s go,” I urged the girls after he left for his study. “We have to win.”

“We’re going to,” Enola said confidently.

“I already know what I want Beck to do,” Annie said happily. “A tea party! A formal one.”

And I also knew what I wanted Beck to do, and it was not as wholesome as a tea party.