I followed her. “Merrie.”
She turned, looking up at me, eyes wide.
I took the container of raspberries out of her hand then leaned in slowly, giving her a chance to run away. But she didn’t.
I cupped her face, kissing her, her mouth soft under mine. I pulled her closer to me, loving the softness of her body. She wore a short skirt and green stockings. I slid my hands up her warm thighs and under her skirt as I slipped my tongue in her mouth.
I wanted to undo her clothes and rip her out of those tights.
“I need to start baking,” she said finally but didn’t pull away from me.
I kissed her again.
“I have to make English cream from scratch and homemade Heath bars,” she gasped.
I caressed her curves, reveling in the fact that I could. She was wearing a tight little jacket, and I reached up to lower the zipper slowly.
Merrie batted my hands away, her face flushed. “We’re in the middle of the bake-off. Where are your priorities?”
I kissed her hard one more time. “I don’t care about the bake-off. I want to come on your tits.”
53
Merrie
Matt’s attention certainly wasn’t going to help me concentrate on baking an award-winning dessert.
Trifles were layered desserts with cake, custard, whipped cream, fruit, and booze for the adults. While tasty, the issue with trifles was that they tended to look rather rustic and not in an Instagram-thirst-trap, Christina Tosi, naked-cake kind of way. Trifles were very British garden party.
“Let’s just lean into the rustic element,” I decided as I made notes. Mason jars with carefully cut cake rounds would keep them looking intentional. “I’ll serve a whole variety of them. Everyone likes Mason jars.”
I would also mix it up with the type of cake I used. Trifles were a little kitschy, so why not make a cake that had Christmas patterns in it and go very fifties. Shoot, I was even going to make a trifle with Jell-O.
It might have all gone a little more smoothly if Matt hadn’t been standing right there, the waves of sexual desire crashing off of him.
I fanned myself.
“Hot?” Matt asked mildly, pressing a cool hand right under my chin.
“No,” I lied.
His fingers brushed my chest lightly, making my nipples tingle.
“Too bad. Maybe I’ll have to warm you up.”
“Or,” I said, practically throwing a bag of sugar in his hands, “you can start making brownies.”
He scowled. “I thought we were making a trifle.”
“We are making a chocolate trifle, a traditional Christmas trifle with berries and English cream, a caramel pear cheesecake trifle, a gingerbread eggnog trifle, and because the peaches from your farms look nice, we’ll do a peach trifle.”
His mouth quirked. “I’m very interested in tasting your peach trifle.”
My face lit up like Rudolph’s nose. “I thought you wanted to lick my Christmas cookies.”
He grinned. “That too.”
The thought of Matttheredoingthatto me was seriously throwing me off my baking game. Everyone else was being super efficient making their trifles while I was just standing around and staring at Matt while he peeled peaches then pitted them, his fingers curling the juicy flesh apart.
