"And there’s you after you ate my cookies," she said, pointing to another character that seemed looser and more relaxed.
I was so close to her. The smell of spices mingled with the slight honey scent from her hair.
"This is me." She pointed to another cookie shaped like a girl wearing a dress and holding a tray.
"They're beautiful," I murmured in her ear.
She hurried to put the gingerbread figures in the oven. She had to brush past me, and it wasn't my imagination when I felt her shiver as her body pressed against mine for the barest moment.
"Scoot," she said as she closed the oven door. "I need to make icing."
I watched her mix the frosting. She did it deftly, measuring the correct proportions of sugar, meringue powder, and water, then whisked it by hand until it was foamy.
"Come put in the icing sugar," she said, looking at me. She continued to whisk as I carefully spooned in the heaps of icing sugar.
I was behind and slightly to the side of her, and her hip pressed into my groin. I could feel myself growing hard, so I stepped back.
"That’s enough!" she squeaked.
The timer dinged. The gingerbread people were done. She moved them onto a cooling rack.
"Where's your icing snow-maker?"
I handed her the tool. She placed some of the icing she had made into it, then squeezed the whipped icing all over a plate.
"It's just like snow," she said. "This is amazing."
She had little bits of icing on her cheek. I watched her as she placed a few of the gingerbread people in the icing.
"It's like they're playing in the snow. This is really cool." She scooped up some of the frosting with a gingerbread girl and held it out to me. I took it from her and bit into it.
"Again, the spices you had weren't a hundred percent up to my standards, but see how you like it."
"This is amazing," I said. The gingerbread wasn't cloyingly sweet, and I could taste the spices. The cookie had a zing that tickled my nose.
"I thought you were going to eat it out of my hand again," she joked.
I scooped up a dollop of frosting and held it out to her. Her tongue darted out, and she licked it off my fingers.
"I make really good frosting," she said.
"You do."
She laughed nervously. "It's really warm in here, isn't it?"
I reached out to her. "You have frosting on your cheek," I said and kissed it, licking it off. "And your neck," I said, nuzzling her. I could feel her pulse racing. Chloe was soft, like a pillow stuffed with marshmallows. "And it's on your mouth," I said, kissing the corner of her lips. She was spicy like the gingerbread.
I pressed her against the wall, letting my hands caress her as I kissed her. The smell of the spices and sugar was making me a bit dizzy. Chloe moaned when my hands slid down her back and lower. She immediately pushed me off.
I think I drooled a little watching her adjust her skirt.
She swallowed. "I, um, I have to go because we have this contest, you see, and I should, um, you’re the judge. Okay, bye!"
She ran out of the apartment, leaving me alone with a mountain of frosting and some of the best cookies I had ever eaten.
19
Chloe
