Chapter 9 Macho Bake-Off
MACHO BAKE-OFF
MABEL
This is nuts.
I didn’t even ask for a bake-off. But Corbin did, in a way.
That’s why I’m awake earlier than I want to be the next morning, twisting my hair into a messy bun, swiping on some powder and blush before leaving the bathroom and my makeup bag behind.
Then, fuck it.
Before I’m two steps out, I spin around, grab my mascara, and brush it on.
I like makeup. So sue me.
A little lipstick next, then I check the clock on my phone, and right when he said he’d be here, the buzzer sounds.
I ask who’s there to be safe.
“The guy who’s going to prove he’s a ten out of ten.”
“It is on.”
I press the button to let Corbin in. Soon, the stairs creak as he bounds up them. I swing open the door to my tiny place, and my eyes pop when I take him in. Corbin’s holding a huge red grocery bag that smells obscenely delicious, and he’s wearing an apron with the words: ALL THIS AND I CAN BAKE.
“Seriously?”
“Yes, Mabel. Seriously,” he says, then offers the bag. “Also, I brought more proof.”
I peer into the bag. It’s filled with the telltale signs of a competitive guy—Tupperware container after Tupperware container.
“You do know I didn’t ask for a bake-off,” I point out as I shut the door, then motion for him to follow me. “We don’t have to compete with each other.”
“Oh, I’m not competing with you,” he says.
I arch a brow, what-gives style, as I turn into the tiny kitchen with its sad, army-green counters and dingy brown cupboards. If I could paint them and not violate my lease, I so would. “You’re not?”
“I’m competing with me,” he says, tapping his chest.
“What do you mean?”
“I’m going to show you I’m more than just the money. That’s my condition.”
I don’t entirely get what he’s going for. “Corbin,” I say, imploring. “I know you can bake.”
He lifts a finger and wags it back and forth. “You’ve tried a few things. And that’s just not enough, especially when I’ve eaten your sweets—I dunno—a dozen or more times.”
I can barely focus when he talks like that.
Eating.
Sweets.
Me.
“Right,” I say, trying to clear the filthy thoughts from my head. Has my kitchen always been so small? It’s around forty square feet, but is that really enough room for him, me, and all my dirty thoughts?
Unlikely.
“Let me show you, Mabel.” He dips a hand into the bag, grabs a container, and pops it open.
The spicy-sweet aroma of pumpkin floats into my senses.
“Pumpkin blondies with chocolate chips. No nuts,” he emphasizes as he reaches for one.
“Made them with Charlotte last night. She’s at a friend’s house in the city today. ”
My mouth waters. “Smells good.”
“Try it,” he urges, a little commanding, and I like the sound of his voice. Confidence tinged with hope.
I pause for a second. Is he going to feed it to me? I don’t love being fed, so I take it from him right away, then bite into it.
It’s rich and chewy, toasty and warm, like autumn. Milk chocolate runs throughout.
I could rave about the treat, but I doubt Corbin would believe me. The man wants to earn my praise. To vie for it. Plus, he wouldn’t want me to say yes, yes, yes so easily.
“It’s good,” I say, “but what else have you got?”
Like he’s taking shot after shot on goal, he grabs another Tupperware container and offers me a piece of bread that smells lemony and zesty. “Since you hate nuts, I made some lemon bread late last night.”
As I take a bite, I realize it’s more like lemon cake, sweet and moist and just the right amount of tart. I nearly moan, but I hold back so he can prove himself. “I like it, but what’s next?”
And the answer is…
“Try this thing,” he says, then pops open one more container and plucks out a white, very average-looking cupcake. I arch a skeptical brow at the vanilla-on-vanilla concoction.
“Just try it,” he urges. “Not everything has to be an Earl Grey, honey-infused latte cupcake to be good.”
“Fair point.”
I bite into it, and sweetness tap-dances on my tongue. It tastes like nostalgia, like the slice of cake your grandma or grandpa would give you when you went to their house after school, like something that made you unreasonably happy when you were a kid.
“It’s really good. But like I said, you don’t have to prove—”
He presses a finger to my lips, and I shut up, my thoughts immediately spiraling in far different directions. I’m imagining the pad of his finger brushing farther over my lips, a tease, a soft kiss that tastes like sugar.
“I do, Mabel. And I will.” He doesn’t move his finger from my mouth.
Just leans in closer and keeps going. “You do this for a living. You’ve built a business from the ground up.
You have reviews online for your cookies and cakes.
” He somehow manages to make those two words sound vaguely dirty.
Or maybe it’s that he says them while looking at me with flames flickering in his green eyes.
“I’m going to show you what I can do and bake for you right now. ”
I part my lips to protest, but there’s no point. And really, I’m not sure I’m wired to say, Don’t bake for me to a man who clearly stayed up late baking all sorts of goodies to prove he knows his way around a whisk and a spatula.
“Bake for me, Corbin.”
I don’t bother to make apologies for my tiny kitchen and my tiny stove and my tiny apartment. This is the obstacle course he’ll have to complete. He retrieves ingredients from the bag he brought with him. Baking soda, flour, chocolate chips, brown sugar, butter that looks like it’s already soft.
Mmm. This man knows what he’s doing. “Can I preheat your oven?” he asks.
I stifle a laugh, then say with a straight face, “I think you already have.”
He freezes, then turns around slowly, eyes flashing with mirth and innuendo too. “Good to know, Mabel.”
After he sets the temperature to 375o, he gets to work mixing ingredients, then stops and winces. “I forgot the salt.”
“Cabinet to the right of the stove,” I say, but of course I’m standing in front of that cabinet. “I’ll grab—”
Before I can pivot to open the cupboard, he reaches past me. “I’ve got it,” he says, in a husky voice that’s dripping with restraint.
As he stretches an arm over my shoulder, I catch the scent of him again.
Campfire, and a fresh lake, but now mixed with flour and the sweet smell of brown sugar.
Yep, this kitchen is too small. That’s my only explanation for why I steal a whiff of him.
I want both for him to find the salt quickly and never find it at all.
As he roots around the cabinet, his chest is almost, almost touching mine. I clench my fists at my sides so I don’t impulsively grab his apron and jerk him against me. Demand another kiss. Grind against his hard-on. Is he hard?
Don’t look.
With him this close, my head is swimming with longing for a man who wants to bake for me. Who wants to prove his prowess in the kitchen. Who wants to show me what he can do with…cookies.
Has anything been sexier? Nope. It’s so hot that a soft gasp escapes my lips unbidden.
But not…unheard.
Corbin lowers his gaze, eyes locking with mine. “Your hair looks good with and without frosting in it.”
“Thanks,” I say, reaching up to touch my messy bun.
His eyes track my hand as I lift it. As I touch. As I lower it.
“Really good. The color…”
But he doesn’t finish the thought. I want to ask, What about the color? but I’m already achy all over just being near him.
I can’t rub up against my potential new business partner. I’ve got too much at stake to risk ruining it with romance. One year to make this business work, and if I start hitting on him, hot-mess me would inevitably fuck it up.
When he grabs the salt at last, I clear the fog of lust from my head. “I already know what you have in the abs department. Why don’t you show me what you’ve got in the chocolate chip cookie division?”
“I think you’ll be pleased,” he says, and the sparkle in his eyes tells me what’s coming next, “with both.”
I slip away from him, even as I dream of him fucking me while the cookies heat to 375o—the same temperature as me.
Thirty minutes later, he offers me a warm, gooey cookie. It melts on my tongue and makes me moan. “Oh my god, that’s good. That’s so good. That’s incredible.”
Pretty sure I sound like I’m coming. Pretty sure the cookie makes me feel like I am.
“Ten out of ten?” he asks.
Funny how I gave him a ten out of ten on the monkey bread, but when I utter a long and satisfied “yessss,” he seems to believe it more.
Maybe because I moaned the loudest for the chocolate chip cookies.
“Do you believe me now?” he asks as we clean up.
“That you can bake your ass off?”
“Yes.”
“Dude, you had me at the monkey bread. You didn’t have to prove it.”
“But I did,” he says, insistent, strong.
“Why?” I scrub the last measuring cup under the hot water and hand it to him to set on the rack.
“Because,” he says, as he dries it then gives me the towel. “What if I don’t just want to invest in it?”
Wait.
What?
He came over here to show me he doesn’t want to finance it? What was the point of this baking exercise?
I mentally gulp, and somehow manage to say, so stoically, I could be a hockey player, “If you don’t want to, I’ll figure something out.”
But inside, my thoughts are spinning faster than a washing machine out of whack.
What can I do to salvage this? I can turn the firehouse into my ghost kitchen, and then I’ll just have to work all day, and all night, and take on more orders, and market more and harder, and maybe then someday it’ll be enough. I’ll be enough.
He shakes his head, setting a hand on my arm. “No, I mean—what if I want to do more than simply put money in it? What if I want to…” He pauses, like he’s still a little surprised by the words coming out of his mouth. “Help run it when I can.”
“Wh-what?”