Chapter 10
CHAPTER TEN
“ N ow I know you’re worried that I don’t know how to bake and that I’ll ruin your tarts,” Malik announced once we were both in the bakery with the pears washed and laid out on clean cloths on the counter of my workspace in the back of the bakery.
“What? I never said that,” I protested uneasily. (Luckily the effects of the pear I’d eaten had finally worn off so I was talking, not singing.)
“No, but you were thinking it back at your house when I was holding you,” he said firmly. “But I want you to know there’s a way to calm your fears and be sure I don’t fuck things up.”
“Oh? And how is that?” I asked, frowning.
“You just have to let me kiss you.”
“What? Come on,” I exclaimed. “You’re not serious!”
“Yes, I am,” Malik said patiently. “You know I can hear what you’re thinking when I touch you. Well, another demonic skill of mine is the ability to pick up new skills and information when I touch a mortal long enough and intimately enough.”
“You’re not serious,” I said skeptically.
“Yes, I am,” he insisted.
“So you can pick up all my baking knowledge just by kissing me?”
His black eyes went heavy-lidded.
“Well, I could eat your luscious little pussy instead, if you’d prefer it.”
My heart was suddenly thudding in my chest and I felt my cheeks getting hot.
“No! I mean, that’s not…I don’t want…”
“Yes, you do, baby,” he growled softly, taking me in his arms. “That’s definitely one of your fantasies. Getting your pussy eaten by a man who knows how to do it—and who wants to do it. But for now, I’ll settle for a kiss.”
Before I could protest again, his mouth found mine and I was drowning in a sweet, hot kiss that stole my breath and made my whole body ache with desire.
His lips were insistent but he didn’t ram his tongue down my throat, like some other guys I’d been with. Instead he teased me, kissing me softly but urgently, then probing lightly with just the tip of his tongue at the seam of my lips.
I opened to him with a little moan and his tongue darted in to dance with mine before withdrawing as he sucked lightly at the tip, inviting me to explore him the way he had explored me.
I took his invitation without thinking, slipping my tongue eagerly between his lips and tasting him in turn. His mouth was hot and he tasted inexplicably and deliciously like cinnamon candy.
I don’t know how long the kiss went on for—I never wanted it to end. It was hands down the most erotic kiss of my life and it sent shivers of desire through my whole body. My nipples were tight little peaks inside my baker’s whites and my pussy was suddenly liquid with desire. My clit, where he had stung me with his tail earlier, was throbbing like a second heartbeat between my legs and my mind was filled with all kinds of erotic images.
I saw myself naked on the couch with Malik kneeling in front of me, his face buried between my legs as I gripped his horns and urged him on…I saw him taking me from behind, bending me over the metal counter of my bakery workspace, gripping my hips as he plunged into me and I moaned and backed to meet every thrust…I saw the two of us in bed with me on top, riding him as I gasped and rolled my hips, taking him in deeper and deeper…
And then, just as I was thinking I might come just from all the mental pornography and kissing alone, he pulled back, ending the kiss.
“Oh!” I half gasped/half moaned as I looked up at him. “That was…why did you stop?”
He gave me a grin that was full of lazy lust.
“Because I got all the information I needed. And because we need to get baking—don’t we?”
“Oh, I…I guess we do.” I nodded, still feeling dizzy with lust and the aftermath of the kiss. My body was humming with desire and I wished for a moment that I could just give in and go for it right there with the big Incubus. But no, I wasn’t going to do that. I had a bakery to run and pear tarts to make. Malik was right—we had to get down to business.
And so we did. I already had a lot of puff pastry in my refrigerator unit that I’d laminated earlier in the week. I’d had a feeling that the pears were going to be ripe soon and I wanted to be ready. So what I mainly had to do was roll out the dough, cut and prep the pears, put the tarts together and bake them. And to my surprise, Malik worked along side me with ease and competence.
The big Incubus seemed to know exactly what to do—I barely had to show him anything. It was like working with Sarah, who was also a natural baker.
It was also nice how strong he was. I was used to working with huge blobs of dough and the enormous metal mixing bowl of my industrial sized mixer, but it always took some effort on my part. Malik didn’t even have to try—when I ran out of pre-made dough and decided to make another batch, he lifted the bowl and turned the dough out onto the work area without even breaking a sweat. I loved watching his muscles flex as he did it too—he looked amazingly hot in the plain white t-shirt and white baker’s trousers he had conjured for himself to wear.
I had put out the “Pear Tarts Later Today” sign that a thoughtful customer had made me last year on the front door, so nobody bothered us as we worked. I had always made the tarts alone in the past but I found I liked having help. It made everything go so much faster having Malik beside me—even if I did keep having intrusive thoughts about letting him touch me and taste me.
I was pretty sure that Malik was sending me some of those thoughts. Every time he brushed past me or touched my arm or hand when he handed me something I got another mental image of all the hot and dirty things he wanted to do to me. I would have told him to stop it, but I confess I was kind of enjoying it. It made me feel desired to look up from cutting out another row of tarts and see the big Incubus staring at me with heat in his eyes. I had to blush and look away, but I couldn’t help loving the feeling that he wanted me so much.
He doesn’t really want you—he’s just pretending. It’s just his job, whispered a skeptical little voice in my head. But I didn’t really believe it. Malik wasn’t acting—he’d been as into that kiss as I was. Besides, I could almost smell his lust in the air—mingling with my own. It was like we were creating a brand-new fragrance together that was all about longing and desire.
“We stopped for a brief lunch—sandwiches that I’d made the day before and left in the fridge—and then worked into the afternoon. At around two o’clock I was finally ready to open the doors.
“All right, do you want to run the register or wrap up the tarts?” I asked him as we got ready to let in the crowd that was already forming.
“Whichever you want me to do,” Malik said, smiling. We’d both been working hard all day but he wasn’t grumpy like a lot of men get. He still had a charming smile which I felt right down to my toes when he turned it on me.
“You’d better let me run the register,” I said, laughing. “If I let you do it, every female resident of Hidden Hollow is going to forget their own name and what they came in for the minute they see you.”
“I don’t think anyone can forget what they came in for.” He inhaled deeply. “The tarts smell amazing —which is probably why you already have so many customers lined up outside.”
I looked at the line outside the bakery and sighed.
“Yeah, well I hope they like this year’s tarts because there aren’t going to be any more.”
Malik frowned.
“Why do you say that?”
“Well, because—the Ogre. Mr. Grimy Rhymey,” I said dryly. “If the Golden Warbler pear tree really does belong to him, I can’t take anymore pears. And even if it doesn’t, I’m never going to risk going back there again!” I shivered at the thought.
“Don’t get ahead of yourself,” Malik counseled. “If you’ve never seen him before in all the years you’ve been walking on that path and picking the pears, chances are he’s just saying he owns the—what did you call it? Oh, right—the ‘haunted mansion—’ and the pear tree.”
“Maybe you’re right,” I said. “But I’m still not going to risk going back there again. If you hadn’t come out to save me just when you did?—”
“Don’t think about it.” He put a hand on my shoulder and squeezed gently. “Think about this instead.” And he leaned down to give me a lingering kiss on the lips that sent sparks of desire shooting through my body and planted another naughty scene in my mind—the two of us holding each other naked in bed, looking into each other’s eyes as he?—
“Hey—when are you going to open?” a voice shouted from outside.
“Oops, I’d better go let them in,” I told Malik, pulling away. “Get ready—it’s going to be crowded for a while.”
“We can handle it together,” he murmured, giving me another smile. “And afterwards maybe we can talk some more about fulfilling that fantasy of yours.”
“Maybe…” I said noncommittally. I had to confess that I wasn’t nearly so resistant to letting him fulfill some of my sexual fantasies now. The way he had defended me from the Ogre had been wonderful but the way he’d pitched in and worked beside me, helping me instead of expecting me to do everything, was almost as good.
Did I mention that I dated a lot of mama’s boys before I gave up on the dating apps? It was so nice to meet a man who acted like an adult and actually wanted to help me and fulfill my needs instead of expecting me to take care of him and do everything myself.
Better slow down there, Celia, whispered the pessimistic voice in my head. Remember, he’s not a guy you’re dating—he’s a lust Demon who’s only interested in fulfilling the contract he had with your ancestress so he can be free and go back to Hell’s Waiting Room. So the minute you let him get really intimate with you, he’ll be gone. It’s better not to let your heart get involved.
That was true, I reluctantly admitted to myself. Even if I did get physical with the delicious Demon—and believe me, after having an entire day of teasing and erotic mental images, I definitely wanted to—I would have to be careful not to let myself catch feelings.
I would have pondered more on the subject but at that moment Malik opened the door and the customers started pouring in so I couldn’t think about anything else but serving everyone in town.