Chapter 10
[Saint]
Baking cookies newly tops my list of foreplay after last night.
Saved by the oven’s buzzer once more, Lumi and I broke apart and finished covering our next batch of cookies in silence.
No second round of finger sucking in sight.
We ended the evening by cleaning up Lumi’s kitchen, while stealing glances at one another. I held firm every time she caught me. She ducked her head each time I caught her.
First, I was worked up over massaging her temples.
Now, I’m a mess over sucking her fingers.
I wanted to shovel away whatever snowy line is between us and take Lumi down to her kitchen floor to explore all the sugary sweet places on her, as well as the crunchy bits that needed softening.
Instead, we worked quietly, washing bowls and utensils, like a couple who’d made cookies together for forty Christmases instead of their first.
Sugar cookies were put off for another day and my body buzzed at the thought of another night spent in Lumi’s kitchen. The small space kept us in close proximity to one another. Allowing me to experience the intoxicating mix of fresh-baked cookies and Lumi’s green apple scent.
The anticipation of a second night together only stoked the heat swirling inside me. A sudden, visceral need to unwrap Lumi Snowe. Read the instructions. Assemble the parts. And see how she works.
As she’d made the sugar cookie dough last evening, and it needed time to chill, she left it in her fridge overnight. The evening starts out innocently enough by rolling out dough and cutting out shapes. Christmas trees. Five-point stars. Santa heads.
Lumi also has sprinkles and cinnamon candies for additional decoration on the food-colored frosting.
We each fill another sheet with cookie dough shapes and wait as they bake, eating leftover pizza between baking times.
Our conversation from last night continues as well, me asking her about more places she wants to visit, making a mental list of all the places I wish I could take her one day.
If only . . .
“There are plenty of places on this side of the planet I’d love to visit. Maybe even the mysterious North,” she teases, like it’s a place easily found on a map.
“I’d like that,” I admit, finding the response truthful. I’d love to show her new-to-her places and bring her home, but it’s not possible.
Bringing home a woman has never happened.
There isn’t a rule against it so much as a hesitation on my end. I’d have to trust someone with family secrets that I’m not willing to share with just anyone. Again, the right woman will get all the keys to the mystery.
The thought has me glancing at the spare key Lumi left on the counter for me earlier.
The newly made gold key had a little red ribbon slipped through the end like a key chain.
I didn’t want to appear overly eager and swipe it off the counter, shoving it into my pocket like a greedy man, but something about that key made my chest ache.
Almost like I longed for a place to turn that key, unlock the door, and call home.
With a glance at Lumi, I realize she’s given that to me in a small way. She’s opened her home to me, provided a key for the door, and she’s slowly letting me in to know more about her.
In no time, the sugar cookies are cool enough to decorate.
We laugh at our lack of skill. Some cookies end up with lumps of frosting instead of a smooth surface.
I overshot with the sprinkles container, and a pile of multi-colored candy lands heavily on one end of a Christmas tree, making the cookie look lopsided.
Lumi puts cinnamon drops on her trees like ornaments.
“Here.” She holds an extra one out, pinched between her fingers. “I overcalculated how many my tree could hold.”
Taking her wrist in my hand, I hold her hand steady as I suck the spicy candy from her fingertips, reminding us both of how I took her fingers in my mouth last night.
While I’m still holding her wrist, Lumi swipes at my nose with her other hand. “You have a little something . . . right there.”
I release her hand and brush at my nose, coming away with a glob of frosting on my fingers.
“And, you just happened to have a little something . . . here.” I swipe at her nose in retaliation, passing frosting from me to her. As the glob was heavy, some drips down to her lips, and Lumi swipes at it with her tongue.
She’s quick to stick two fingers into the frosting container and stretch toward me, only I’m faster and capture her wrist again, bringing her fingers to my mouth where I suck at the sugary goodness. Only this time, I show no mercy.
I slide my tongue around her fingers, spreading them apart and forcing one from my mouth to savor cleaning the length of it from webbing to tip.
I don’t let it escape but draw it back into my mouth, swirling my tongue around the digit one more time before I brush it aside and treat her other finger in the same manner.
While I close my eyes to enjoy the experience, I sense Lumi watching me.
When my lids flip open, she flinches like I’ve startled her.
Catching her eyes on mine. But she doesn’t pull away.
She actually is leaning toward me. The neutral space over the table-island has become the peak of a mountain.
Our eyes hold a moment like we stand on a literal precipice.
Which way will the wind blow? Which direction will it take us?
Suddenly, Lumi’s hand caresses the side of my face, but I feel the stickiness the second she makes contact. The mixture of frosting in the coarse hair along my jaw.
“You have more . . .”
“You’ll pay for that.” With no mercy, I stick my finger into the frosting container again while still holding Lumi’s wrist. She struggles, but I’m stronger.
“You wouldn’t,” she choke-giggles.
“Wouldn’t I?” I round the table, still clutching at her wrist as I near her, and at the same time I pull her closer.
Then I swipe at her neck, coating a swath of her flesh in green frosting.
My favorite color mixing with my new favorite scent, green apple.
But I’m only concerned with a possible new favorite flavor.
Lumi.
I lick up her neck, cleaning off the mess I made, forcing her head to tilt back, and a deep moan to escape her.
Fuck!
Her reaction wasn’t something I’d considered, and yet everything I’d hoped it would be. I cup the back of her neck and bring our foreheads together.
“Lumi,” I groan as my heart races. My chest heaves with the effort to hold myself back. I want to kiss her when I shouldn’t. I don’t want to take advantage of her hospitality or this friendship slowly brewing between us. I’m not staying long in this town, and I don’t want to complicate us.
Oven timer buzzers make it to the top of my sounds-I-hate list, as the interruption instantly separates us, like a cookie cracked in half. Lumi slowly pulls back, her eyes avoiding mine.
“Lumi, if I crossed—”
“You didn’t.” She smooths down her shirt and wraps her hand around the front of her neck like she can still feel my tongue rushing up the column. Then she clears her throat and steps toward the oven, which continues to beep its warning blare.
She removes the trays from the oven, setting them on top of the stove.
“I don’t want to take advantage here, Lumi,” I start again, wanting to explain myself. It’s not that I’m not attracted to her. I’m overly attracted to her, but that isn’t good for her. She told me how she let someone not intending to stay in town into her heart. I cannot be that guy again.
Although no one is taking hearts here, something tells me that deep beneath the sarcasm and wit is a sensitive woman. A survivor of broken bits. Her mother’s death. Her father’s too. Some man who casually came and easily left from her life.
I don’t want to do that to her because I will go. I have to leave.
“I know,” she whispers, eyes still on the cookies. But then she looks up at me. The clear understanding in the blue sea of her eyes is overwhelming. She knows I don’t want to hurt her. She knows she’s done me a favor by letting me stay here. A mere stranger.
I glance toward the key on the counter. The one which opens her home to me.
Lumi Snowe is a good woman.
Any man would be a fool to leave her.