My heart skips a beat. “Very much so.” Since the moment I left the meeting, my fingers have tingled and my mind has raced with possibilities. “It’s for an ultra-wealthy couple, and if all goes well, this could lead to a lot of new business.”
“It will go well,” Cameron replies almost instantly.
My chest tightens a little, anxiety creeping back in. “The bride wantssoftflavors.”
That cracks his cool composure. His lips curl up on one side. “What the fuck’s a soft flavor?”
“Could be a champagne cake with fresh berry compote between the layersora vanilla bean cake with Swiss meringue buttercream,” I muse, running a hand through my hair. “She also wants florals on the cake, specifically lilies. But they can be poisonous, so there’s no way in hell I’m going to use them.” I shuffle to the sink and wash my hands, peering over my shoulder at him. “So I also have to design a few cakes thatwowthe pants off her so she forgets what a lily is. And I want to practice sugar flowers as a backup if something goes wrong with the floral vendor. I’m not familiar with her florist’s work, so I’d rather be cautious. Then, of course, I need to rent a bigger vehicle for transport, maybe even invest in a better cake stand, and…” I sigh as I dry my hands on a clean towel. “There’s a lot of room for error.”
He lets out a low whistle. “Damn.”
“Yup,” I confirm with a grimace, partly because my uterus is torturing me again, partly because I’m psyching myself out. “I was offered the opportunity right after the bank rejected my loan, so you have this cake to thank for my willingness to be your fake boo thang.”
“I’ll be sure to send the happy couple a thank-you note.”
I laugh, readying to tell him how relieved I am to not have to stress about baking in a cramped space anymore, but I’m cut off when a sharp pain shoots through my stomach, stealing my breath.Fuck. If men were the ones with menstrual cycles, I guarantee there’d be paid time off to deal with the anguish and no such thing as the tampon tax.
“What’s wrong?” He sits up straighter, his muscles tense and on alert. “Are you okay?”
I squeeze my eyes shut and shake my head. “Yep.”
He stands, frowning at me. “You don’t look okay.”
“Thanks. That’s just what every woman wants to hear,” I mutter.
Grunting, he crosses his arms. “Answer my question and tell me what’s wrong.”
I’m too distracted to point out that barking orders and asking a question are two very different things.
“I’m fine,” I repeat. “Simply shedding an internal organ.”
He tilts his head, that brow pulled low. “You have your period?”
“Yep.” I choke out a laugh. Leave it to Cameron to be confident enough to not sugarcoat a woman’s biological functions. “Can you grab me a glass of water while I find ibuprofen? Cups are in the cupboard above the sink.”
By the time I’ve located the medicine, he’s waiting with a glass of water in hand. My fridge is one of the fancy ones that has a built-in ice and water machine on the door, yet there isn’t a single cube floating at the surface.
“I remember you asking for no ice when we went out to dinner,” he explains, answering the question before I’ve voiced it.
Worried the idiotic smile trying to break free will succeed, I toss all three pills into my mouth and swallow them down. How I prefer my water wasn’t on my list of get-to-know-you questions, nor was it a detail I explicitly told him. It’s one he clearly picked up on his own.
Once I’ve chugged half of the water and wiped my mouth with my wrist, Cameron sits again. “What else do you need?”
“To lay on the couch with a heating pad and wallow in the woes of being a woman.”
With a snort, he stands again. “Okay. Show me the way.”
I snag my heating pad off the counter, then lead Cameron to the couch, where I promptly slump into the over-worn cushions.
He sits next to me, giving me space, yet close enough that his body heat soaks into me.“Do you want me to give you an orgasm?”
My lungs seize up and I choke on my iceless water. “Excuse me?”
He shrugs casually, as if that wasn’t the most out of left-field thing he’s ever said. “Orgasms can help with pain. They trigger oxytocin and dopamine. When I have a headache, I jerk off. It does more than Tylenol or Motrin ever has.”
All I can do is blink at him. Is this how he feels when I ask him questions he isn’t expecting? Completely thrown off and not sure what to think, let alone say? Did he switch my ibuprofen out with a hallucinogenic? Because there’s no way he said that. Right?
He laughs, his eyes lit with amusement. “I didn’t think it was possible to stun you silent.”
