“Which is why you’re here today? Or you’re a couple and she dragged you along?” Calla asks, clearly investigating whether Tatum and I are an item or not.
I offer a curt nod. “She asked, and I came.”
“How lovely.”
A moment later another woman appears with a tray, and she sets it on the table in front of us.
“We have our orange blossom with vanilla bean, lemon with lavender, raspberry with almond cream, and honey with fig for you to sample today,” Calla says, pointing at each piece of cake that’s also labeled on the tray. Two small tasting forks sit in each sample, so we don’t mix the flavors on our forks.
I really want to ask where the normal flavors are. You know, yellow cake with chocolate frosting or chocolate cake with buttercream.
I don’t think the question would go over well in this atmosphere.
“Let’s start with the orange blossom,” Tatum suggests, moving from left to right across the tray. We each take the fork and try it, and it’s fine. A little flowery for me, to be honest. We try the lemon and lavender next, and then the raspberry with almond cream. They’re all fine, but nothing as good as a nice slice of chocolate cake with a layer of that raspberry jelly shit in between. Or that Nutella cake Tatum mentioned once before.
“Finally, we have the honey and fig, two flavors often considered aphrodisiacs,” Calla says.
I catch Tatum’s eyes with mine, and I swear that a heated moment passes between us as we each pick up the fork with a bit of the cake on it. Rather than lifting the fork to her own mouth, though, Tatum’s fork moves towardmymouth.
I’m not sure why she’s feeding me the aphrodisiac-inspired cake, but as the sweet honey and caramelized fig touch my tongue, the way it melts in my mouth is unexpected and absolutely delicious.
I bring the other fork up to her lips, and her eyes are on mine as she opens her mouth, takes the fork, and closes hermouth over it. I pull it out, and it’s clean. My dick wakes all the way up at the sensual way she did that. I watch as she closes her eyes and leans her head back with a moan at how fucking delicious the cake tastes, and I nearly come in my pants.
Fuck.
I need to pull myself together.
“It feels like it just got about a million degrees hotter in here,” Calla says, interrupting the moment as she fans herself. “See? It’s why it’s labeled as an aphrodisiac and also why it’s one of our top-selling flavors.” Tatum’s eyes haven’t left mine despite Calla’s interruption. “I’ll give you two a moment to discuss.”
She leaves the room—I think. I’m guessing. I hear a door click shut, but I haven’t ripped my eyes away from Tatum’s.
There’s something here between us, and it’s not just me.
What I do next is stupid, probably. Emotionally suicidal, maybe.
But I do it anyway.
As her eyes hold mine, I lean in toward her. I drop the fork, and my hand comes up to cup her jawline. She leans into my touch a little, and I brush a crumb of cake away that escaped to her lip. Her eyes flick down to my lips, too, and I get the sense that she wants me to kiss her.
God, do I want to kiss her.
And so I do.
I lean closer and closer until I can smell her, the sweet honey the pervading scent, but then, she always smells like honey, and maybe that’s what is doing this to me. Smelling her, tasting her. Needing her.
Our lips connect, and it’s the sweetest, softest brush of a kiss.
I want to dive in deeper, but I don’t want to scare her off, either.
It’s everything I’ve dreamed of since the day I realized I’m in love with her. Since the day I realized she deserved better than my brother. Since the day I met her, maybe, and definitely since the day I last kissed her.
She leans in, too, moving so one of her hands is gripping my bicep, the other sliding along my jawline. I let her take the lead, and she opens her mouth first, her tongue moving tentatively at first until she finds mine, and we dance.
The dance turns urgent, desperate, as I push everything I have into this kiss, as if I can make her fall in love with me through one single kiss filled with delusions.
I fucking love her, and kissing her like this is only going to ruin me.
Well, fucking ruin me, then. It’ll be well worth it just to have lived in these seconds that are far too short.
