Page 74 of Hard to Love

Not a bad way to spend an evening.

Christ.

The house smells like Faith has been baking and no man would ever complain about that prospect. But as I turn the corner to enter the kitchen, I’m knocked off my stride when I see Stevie standing there with flour dusting her shoulder, her face etched in concentration, a smear of what looks like frosting on her cheek, and her tongue between her teeth as she tries to cut the top off what looks to be a layer of uniced cake.

“Should I be worried that you’re baking?” I ask remembering a conversation we had somewhere about the severe limitations on her culinary skills.

Her head whips up—eyes wide and smile shy—and I swear to God my fucking heart stops. That’s the only way I can describe what that constricting feeling in my chest is when her eyes meet mine.

“You’re not supposed to be home yet,” she says, obviously flustered, the knife stopping halfway through the top of the cake.

“I wasn’t aware I had a schedule.” I take a step closer, still staring at her, still trying to figure out why seeing her like this is striking a chord with me in the most foreign of ways.

“We have a schedule,” she says matter-of-factly and then makes a squeaking noise when something she’s doing goes wrong. Her expression is adorable as she tries to fix whatever she’s trying to fix before she glances up at me. “You go to work. I go to training. Then we meet back here in the kitchen in about thirty minutes to talk about our days.” She points to the clock. “You’re early.”

I laugh. “Okay. But what am I early for?”

She innocently licks what appears to be frosting off her fingers and I don’t think I’ve ever wanted to be frosting so bad in my life.

“I was attempting to make you a cake.”

“A cake?”

“A carrot cake with homemade cream cheese frosting, in fact.”

The surprises keep getting even better.

I step up to the counter and survey the damage. It looks nothing like the perfectly frosted carrot cakes that Faith has made me in the past. There are two round layers cut horribly askew, one is frosted with the crumbs all mixed in so the white frosting looks like dirt is peeking through. The frosting is in a bowl, but it has lumps and bumps with powdered sugar thrown all over the counter from where she lifted the mixer up from the bowl. There are carrots half peeled on the far end and a half-melted stick of butter on the other.

It’s a fucking disaster, but it’s the most awesome fucking disaster I’ve ever seen.

She tried to bake me my favorite cake.

“It looks . . .”

“Like a disaster.” She chuckles the words out as she steps backward and takes in the whole mess.

But all I see is her in the moment. The messy hair. The disappointment that it doesn’t look better. The pride that it looks as good as it does. A woman trying to do something for me when I expect nothing.

I reach a finger out and swipe it in the frosting and lick it off. “Damn. That’s good.”

“It is?”

The hope in her voice, in her smile, in her eyes fucking undoes me. My mouth is on hers in an instant. She tastes like frosting and desire and everything I suddenly seem to want, every second of every damn day.

My hands are in her hair. On her hips. Lifting her up so that her ass is on the counter and she’s at the same height as me.

Yes, my dick’s hard already (when is it not when it comes to Stevie?) but there’s something about her kiss that consumes me completely. That makes me want to enjoy the moment in a way we haven’t before.

There’s hunger in our kiss, a sated desperation, but underlying that is a desire to savor it. To take our time. To enjoy the moment.

We’ve never done this. Slowed down. Not gone from the starting point to the end game and maybe, I want to put the end game on hold for a moment. Maybe I want to enjoy Stevie and her kiss.

And when it’s over, I rest my forehead against hers, still trying to figure out what that pressure in my chest is.

“Well, wow. If that’s what I get when I bake you a shitty cake, I wonder how I’d be rewarded if I made you something that actually looked good.”

I lean back and look at her, a half-cocked smile on my lips, my thumb reaching out to dust some flour off the side of her chin. “Why all of this trouble?”