33. Chapter 33
thirty-three
Sadie
After holding me until my shivers stopped, he got up and grabbed a washcloth.
The bed dipped as he came back, warm water in hand.
“Oh!” I started to sit up. “You don’t have to—”
“Sadie.”
Just my name, low and firm, froze me mid-motion.
Then he added, “Good girl.”
It wasn’t just two words; it was a claim, and it slid through me like heat, making me shiver all over again.
“This is part of you belonging to me,” he said as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. “I will take care of you. This isn’t over when I get off, yeah?”
I could only nod, because my voice was lost somewhere in the haze he’d wrapped me in.
He grinned, unhurried, and started cleaning me up, his touch gentle but thorough. When his gaze dropped to check me, I felt my cheeks flush. “You’re fine,” he murmured, “just a little blood. No tears.” He made eye contact then. “Feel ok?”
“A little tender, but… yeah.”
He dropped back onto the mattress, pulling me against his side, his arm banding around me as he dragged the blanket over us.
“Perfect,” he said simply. And it was. Not because the sex was over, but because for once, I wasn’t an afterthought. I was his.
Diesel
I woke up alone, tangled in purple sheets that still smelled like her.
Her pillow was empty, but there was a note tucked against it:
I smiled like an idiot before I even realized I was doing it.
A quick stretch, a little cleanup, and I padded down to the bakery. The sun was low, the air warm, and Sadie was behind the counter, wiping down surfaces.
“Sorry,” I murmured, sliding up behind her, hands finding her hips as if they belonged there. “Didn’t mean to sleep so long.”
She tipped her face toward mine, rising onto her toes to kiss me. “No problem. I think you needed it. Moving those ovens must have taken it out of you.”
She was teasing, but the glint in her eyes was dangerous.
“Oh, sunshine…” My voice dropped, and her breath caught. “It wasn’t the ovens.”
Her gaze flicked to my mouth. A little unfocused. A little undone.
And just like that, I wanted her again.
Sadie
My gaze went straight to his mouth. My brain… went nowhere.
Before I could blink, he’d caged me in against the counter, big hands braced on either side of me. My heart stuttered. My thighs pressed together on instinct.
“Daniel—”
“Mm.” He crowded closer, his thigh slipping between mine, forcing them apart just enough that I had to catch myself on the edge of the counter. “You look at me like that, sunshine, and I’m not waiting until we get upstairs.”
My breath hitched. The bakery door was locked, the blinds were drawn, but my pulse raced like we were about to get caught.
His fingers found my chin, tilting it up so I had no choice but to meet those dark, knowing eyes. “Last chance to tell me no.”
I couldn’t. I didn’t want to. My body had already decided for me.
His lips crashed against mine, deep, claiming, tasting of Diesel and sin, I was gone. Completely, utterly gone.
No thoughts of health codes—nothing but getting him between my thighs again. I had slipped a dress on for the lunch rush because it was easier, and I felt like I needed that after the way he wrecked me earlier.
Now, here he was lifting me again onto the counter, and this time, the counter was lining me up perfectly with the bulge in his jeans.
The edge of the counter bit into the backs of my thighs, but I didn’t care. I was too busy trying to breathe through the heat spiraling low in my belly.
His hands skimmed up my legs, calloused palms rough against my skin, pushing the hem of my dress higher and higher until cool air hit the tops of my thighs. I bit my lip, but it didn’t stop the sound that escaped me when his thumbs pressed into the sensitive crease where my hips met my legs.
“You’re already warm for me, sunshine.” His voice was a low rumble, the kind you felt more than heard. “Tell me you’ve been thinking about me all afternoon.”
I couldn’t lie. My head tipped back, a needy sound caught in my throat. “I—yes.”
“That’s my good girl.”
My toes curled in my shoes. He leaned in, mouth at my ear, and the scrape of his stubble against my skin had me shivering. “You want me to take you right here?”
God help me, I did. The bakery could burn down around us, and I still wouldn’t have moved.
The whimper that came from me was probably enough confirmation for him, but I still answered. “Yes,” I whispered, my hands gripping his shirt as if I let go, he’d step back, and I’d never survive it.
He pulled back just far enough to give me a slow, devastating smile. “Then keep your eyes on me. Don’t look away.”
It was a command, not a request, and my body obeyed before my brain caught up.
His eyes devoured me with their hungry heat, and his mouth was turned in a wolfish smirk.
My breath came faster as his hand slid between my knees, pressing until they parted just enough for him to step in, his hips pinning me to the counter.
“Spread for me, sunshine.”
I did, pulse hammering so hard I could feel it in my fingertips.
“That’s it.” His voice was molten, dripping into every nerve ending. His thumb stroked up the inside of my thigh, maddeningly slow, stopping just shy of where I needed him most. My hips tried to chase him, but his free hand landed firmly on my stomach, holding me still.
“No squirming.”
God. My whole body locked up at the way he said it. Low. Certain. Like I belonged to him now, and we both knew it.
“You’re already soaked,” he murmured, finally letting his fingers brush the lace of my panties. The contact was light, teasing, and it stole the air from my lungs. “You’d let me do anything I wanted to you right now, wouldn’t you?”
I swallowed hard, my voice breaking. “Yes.”
His eyes flared, and the smirk that followed was pure sin. “Careful, sunshine. I’ll hold you to that.”
In one sharp move, he hooked a finger in my panties and dragged them to the side, baring me completely to him. The rush of cool air was nothing compared to the heat in his gaze when he saw me.
“You’re trembling.” His tone was smug, satisfied. “Good. I like you like this.”
Then he sank to his knees.
Right there, in my bakery.
In the middle of the damn counter.
I grabbed for the counter’s edge just as his mouth found me, and the first stroke of his tongue shattered me. My back arched, my thighs clamped around his head, but he just growled and pushed them apart, devouring me like I was his last meal.