Chapter 4
Tallus
“Do not eat the cake. Do not eat the cake. Don’t eat the fucking cake!”
Chanting the mantra did me no good. I wanted the cake.
In my belly. Now. I wanted to devour it.
I wanted to suck every crumb from the plastic container and lick every morsel of icing from the lid.
It had been taunting me since Kitty dropped it off that morning.
My piece had vanished in ten seconds, and my crafty co-worker had warned me more than once not to touch Diem’s piece because she would know.
That wily woman and her witchiness frightened me, so I had resisted. All. Freaking. Day. But now… now I wanted it. I was hungry, suffering a late-afternoon crash, and in desperate need of sugar.
Besides, Diem was late. He didn’t deserve a reward. I was organizing Nana’s party. Not him. The cake was my idea. Plus, no one would know if I ate it. I would call Kitty tomorrow and tell her how my lovely boyfriend had fawned over it and gave it two lip-licking thumbs-up.
She would be thrilled.
She would also hear the lie in my voice and hex me. I’d end up with a forehead pimple or something equally unpleasant.
If I so much as lifted the lid on the Tupperware and stole the teensiest spec from within, her inner alarm bells would bang and clang, informing her of my deception. Diem’s tardiness would not be an acceptable excuse.
Where the fuck was he?
I eyed the thick slab of cream-cheese-frosted deliciousness through the clear sides of its unfair prison, wanting nothing more than to help the poor, lonesome piece break free. The shreds of carrot, bits of pineapple, and crunchy walnuts made my mouth water and stomach growl.
“I can’t take it anymore. In ten minutes, I’m eating you. What am I supposed to do? Starve to death? I’m a growing boy. I need sustenance. I need sugar.”
I broke out in song, crooning the chorus to Lifehouse’s Love of a Lifetime, a far-outdated band that sometimes played on the classic rock station Diem listened to in the Jeep. The cheesy love song fit the moment.
I glanced at the door to the records room, then at the wall clock above.
My boyfriend was fifteen minutes late. For a man who was perpetually on time, it was unusual.
Maybe I should have been concerned, but I wasn’t.
After the debacle that was dinner at my parents’ the previous night, Diem had been quiet and distant.
Those moods could last for days and often distracted him.
He became forgetful. Thinking too much and too hard was never good for Diem.
The man would think himself into stage four liver or lung cancer one day, and I wasn’t sure I could stop it.
“Thank you, Mother, for mentioning weddings.” I huffed, staring longingly at the cake again. Cake would make it better. Cake made everything better. For me. Maybe not for Diem, which was why I should eat it now and not worry about saving it.
I wasn’t surprised when Diem used the first available excuse to fly out the door during dinner. Although the phone call he’d received was real, at the time, I’d figured it was a clever con.
When I chased him down—after giving my mother the what-for—I half expected to find the Jeep and my boyfriend gone. I wouldn’t have blamed him. I had promised he wouldn’t get the third degree, and then my mother had gone and spoken the word wedding.
Did her seemingly innocent questions mess with Diem’s head? Abso-fucking-lutely. Did he doubt my claim that I didn’t need to get married and was perfectly content with what we had? I had no doubt.
I touched the ring that hung on a chain around my neck, remembering the day Diem gave it to me.
The awkward exchange had been sweet torture.
He’d stumbled over his words more than once.
My poor emotional wreck. God, I loved that man.
The ring symbolized more to me than a wedding ever could, but I wasn’t sure Diem believed it.
Especially now.
I pulled up our texting thread and shot him a message.
I have cake for you. It’s the trial birthday cake for Nana’s party. I ate my piece this morning, but I swear to god, I’m going to eat your piece if you aren’t here in the next five minutes. Did you forget me? Should I arrange an Uber?
When I didn’t get an immediate response, and the message remained unread, I hopped onto the counter with a sigh.
The bank of overhead fluorescents hummed in the silent room, drawing my attention.
They reminded me of the day we met when I had literally fallen into Diem’s arms. If he hadn’t been there to catch me, I would have probably ended up with more than broken glasses.
If that wasn’t fate, I didn’t know what was.
I smiled at the memory. Diem’s surly tone. His snarly scowl. His abrasive edge as he’d barked his opinion on my failed circus act while setting me to rights.
The way he’d reached out to adjust my crooked tie, brushed his fingers over my jaw, and admonished me for being an unsafe idiot.
Diem was a troubled, troubled man back then, angry at the world, so socially crippled he could barely function. We’d come a long way. He was calmer. More communicative. He still carried a world of self-doubt and childhood trauma on his shoulders, but he expressed himself better every day.
He smiled more.
He cracked jokes.
He even laughed on occasion.
Sometimes, I was convinced that I’d achieved the impossible. Finally, Diem believed himself worthy of love and happiness, and that, above all else, was the greatest gift of all. Not a wedding.
The reproachful voice that lived inside his head, the one he claimed sounded an awful lot like his father, still screamed on bad days, and Diem’s coping mechanisms were weak—he heavily relied on alcohol and cigarettes to bandage the wounds and quiet the noise—but he was more settled than when we first met.
I stared at the cake, then the still closed door to the records room, then the clock ticking away the minutes.
“Uh-oh. Time’s up, Guns. Too bad, so sad. All mine.”
Cracking the lid on the Tupperware—quietly, so I wouldn’t trigger Kitty’s supersonic hearing—I peeked inside. The scent of nutmeg and cinnamon wafted from the gap. I groaned, remembering how deliciously moist it had been on my tongue that morning.
Saliva pooled in anticipation.
I set the lid aside—licking it free of icing first—then, using my fingers, I plucked a morsel of cake from within, lifting it to my mouth at the exact moment the door to the records room burst open.
A familiar, deep, rumbling voice announced, “If that cake touches your fucking lips, we are gonna have a serious problem.”
I froze, fingers inches from my mouth as I glanced at my boyfriend. His bulk took up the entire doorway, and to anyone else, he might have looked menacing and ready to go to war, but not to me.
I registered the tiny glint of humor in his storm-cloud eyes and smugly ate the morsel of cake without blinking, ensuring I licked my fingers as provocatively as possible, while humming with pleasure.
“Ohh, you didn’t.”
“Ohh, I did,” I said with my mouthful, a mischievous grin on my face. “And it was yummy.”
Diem didn’t break eye contact as he unclipped Echo’s leash, letting her roam free in the office. He turned the lock on the records room door and lowered the dusty shade over the window that looked out into the hallway.
Oh shit.
Knowing I was in for it, I plucked another piece of moist cake from the container, as fast as a bunny.
Diem arched a warning brow. “You wouldn’t dare.”
I shoved it into my mouth, crumbs sprinkling my shirt. Haphazardly cleaning the icing from my fingers, I scrambled for another piece as Diem stalked across the room, his long legs covering the distance in a few short strides.
I recklessly stuffed a third bite into my mouth, but before I could lick the icing off my fingers, Diem caught my wrist with a growl. “You fucking brat.”
Smirking, I wiggled cream-cheese-coated digits in his face. “Come on, Guns. This is the best part. Don’t deny me my due. You were late. I text-warned you. You forfeited the cake fair and square, buster. It’s mine.”
The bear in Diem’s chest rattled his ribcage as he brought my icing-coated fingers to his mouth and proceeded to suck them clean with a force that would have made Dyson proud.
Then, he used his tongue to get the crevices in between, and I almost stroked out as an explosive pulse of pleasure rippled from my fingers in a direct line to my dick.
“Ohh, fuck that’s hot. Insta-hard-on. Christ, I’m going to come in my pants. No word of a lie. Do it again.”
Laughter from Diem was a treasured, rare commodity. When it happened, I preened, gloated, and silently cheered. He didn’t laugh often, and he didn’t laugh now, but the heat and humor blazing from his grey eyes was a powerful concoction in and of itself. It was sexy and seductive.
Diem released my wrist. Using his pointer finger, middle finger, and thumb like an excavator, he helped himself to a massive chunk of cake.
I gasped at the unfairness, but instead of eating it, he held it clumsily to my lips. More crumbs rained down over my dress shirt. A blob of icing dripped. I would be sorry later when I found grease stains on the fabric, but those worries were a distant concern.
“Aren’t you going to try it?” I aimed for innocence, not quite hitting the mark. “It’s your piece, after all.”
Diem didn’t respond, but his penetrating gaze held me hostage. It commanded every sense. Every nerve. It gave an order without giving an order.
I accept the cake offering, eating the morsel from his fingers. Before I could lick the remaining icing, giving him a seductive education in finger-sucking, he descended, kissing me instead.