Her feet skidded to a halt as her gaze met Avery’s over the peninsula where she’d left Brooke. He was holding the tempermental cord and the top of the mixer, grinning like he was having the time of his life.
“Am I holding it right?” he asked.
“Gotta go,” she said into the phone and hung up. Her gaze connected with Brooke’s.
Brooke shrugged as she added a divider to the box awaiting choux buns. “He said he wanted to help.”
Jo flew around the counter to check the ganache. “You can let go of the cord now. It’s ready.”
As soon as he let go, the mixer sputtered to a stop. He stepped back, and she retracted the whisk.
“What is this?” he asked, nodding toward the bowl.
“Ganache.”
He reached around from behind to catch the thick chocolate threatening to plop into the bowl.
Like a deer in headlights, she couldn’t move except for the hammering of her heart against her ribs. Even her breath stalled as strong fingers gripped her hip. Slowly, his body pressed into hers, hot, hard, tummy tugging, and she watched him suck a finger into his mouth and lick it clean, only to go back for more.
Doubling up, two fingers disappeared then reemerged coated with thick chocolate. He looked at her, his eyes dark with an appetite for more than the sugary goodness. His tongue speared and curled around them. Hers darted out to wet her lips.
His eyes close briefly. “Mmm, that’s really good.”
His deep voice rumbled into her back, and she wondered if he was talking about the ganache or the feel of his dick against her ass. Then he stepped back, leaving her drunk on thoughts of other things he could lick.
“But you need a new mixer. That one is a piece of junk.”
“It just needs a new cord,” she said, snapping out of the lust-induced coma he’d put her in, her whole body burning and bristling all at once as she spun to lay the whisk in the sink. Now that the pans were gone, that piece of junk was the only thing she had left of the woman who raised her. “Some things are priceless, you know, and some of us can’t afford to throw away something just because we want something shiny and new.”
Like the girls you fuck then toss aside.
“Hey, I was going to lick that.”
“You’ve done enough licking,” she grumbled under her breath.
“She had a shiny new mixer, but it was a casualty of the break-in.”
His head swung toward Brooke, then back at Jo. “You didn’t tell me about that. When did that happen?”
Brooke chuckled. “The night you got her fired.”
Jo glared at Brooke but aimed her words at Avery. “I didn’t tell you because it’s none of your business, and it wasn’t that big of a deal.” She spooned ganache into a piping bag. “Would you mind taking some of the boxes to your car? We’re running behind.”
When he didn’t answer, she glanced over her shoulder.Shit. He was taking deeper stock of her apartment. Her stomach churned. She could only imagine what he was thinking or how this shithole compared to his castle in the sky.
“Avery?”
“Huh?” He looked at her, frowning. “Oh, sure.”
As soon as he’d loaded an armful of boxes and headed out the door, Jo joined Brooke at the table. “Was that necessary?”
“Which part?”
“Any of it.” One by one, Jo began filling the choux buns with ganache.
Brooke placed the finished buns in boxes. “It’s my duty as your friend to slap some sense into you. You might not see it, but he’s clearly into you.”
“He’s playing a part.” She needed to tell him Brooke knew about their arrangement.
