Page 3 of The Baker’s Shadow

One moment I’m pressed into the corner where darkness pools deepest. The next I’m behind her, so close the heat of her body mingles with the heat bleeding off the ovens. My arms slide around her waist, solid, real, the kind of substantial warmth that makes my chest cavity ache.

She goes still. Dough forgotten under her palms.

My mouth is at her ear, close enough that my breath disturbs those loose strands of hair.

“You called me.”

CHAPTER 2

Kaia

Good Lord, help me.

I press back into the heat of what’s behind me. Did I really call him? The question should terrify me, but it doesn’t. Maybe I’m too tired to be scared, or I just don’t give a fuck any more because well my life is shit since… My heart squeezes, since my husband died over a year ago.

The monster behind me smells like brimstone and scorched earth, like he’s crawled up from a place I’m not supposed to know exists. And God help me, I want to see him. I need to put a face to this presence that’s answered my desperate thoughts I didn’t know I was making.

I start to turn, arching back into the solid wall of his body, my head tilting with a sigh.

“Don’t look at me.” His hand comes down on my shoulder, firm and insistent. He pushes me forward until I’m bent over the table, my palms flattening against the dough.

My fingers dig into the softness, kneading without thought, and within me an ember sparks to life; a burning desire I haven’t felt in so long I almost don’t recognize it. This. This is what I’d been calling for. This is why I didn’t scream when the air changed and my skin prickled right before he touched me.

Take me now. I almost scream it aloud, but it comes out as a sigh instead as his hips push hard against my backside, pinning me to the table’s edge. His hands grip my hips, pulling me tight against him, and then his fingers press into my flesh, kneading me the way I’d been kneading the dough. There’s an uncertainty in his touch, almost hesitant, like he’s testing whether I’m real.

His heat warms me, soothes the emptiness that is a pit inside of me. His hands move up the sides of my body, over my curves as if mapping my body, over my breasts with a soft squeeze, dropping over my stomach with a tenderness that surely isn’t possible from a stranger let alone this beast.

I let my head fall back against his shoulder, exposing my throat. My breath comes shallow and quick, in the suffocating heat of the kitchen. His touch isn’t rough or demanding but full of gentleness I haven’t felt since⁠—

No. I won’t think about that. Won’t let the grief claw its way back up.

“Please,” I whisper, and I’m not even sure what I’m asking for. To feel something other than this hollow ache that’s been eating me alive? “Don’t stop.”

His breath hot against my ear, and for a moment his hands still on my stomach, fingers splayed wide as if he’s trying to hold all of me at once. Like he’s afraid I’ll disappear if he lets go.

“You should be afraid,” he murmurs, his voice rough and raw. It sounds like a warning, but his grip tightens, contradicting his words.

“I’m not.” And it’s true. The only thing I’m afraid of is him leaving. Of being alone again with nothing but flour and grief and the endless, mechanical rhythm of kneading dough until my hands bleed, and a business that’s about to go bust. “I’m not afraid of you.”

He growls into my ear, then his breath tickles my throat, as he grabs a handful of material, hitching my skirt up. His fingers brush against my thighs and I shiver, anticipation nearly tipping me over the edge as the ember he’s lit bursts into flames. Battling with the material, he pushes a hand between my legs, over my mound, and I shudder, pleasure bolting through me.

His other hand grips me back around the waist, steadying me, grounding me away from my peak too soon, and I sigh, leaning into him, giving myself over to his touch. My breathing steadies and his hand continues to move my skirt up, to where I really want him to explore. Long fingers slip under my panties, into my moisture that has pooled thick since he first touched me.

Soft sounds escape from my mouth, uncontrolled and encouraging, as he slips up and down my length, then up to the top of my slit, to the tight bud which he circles, slow and firm, drawing out more of my wetness, building the tension but not letting me release.

I bite my lip to stop myself from begging him, though I’m sure he can feel that’s what I want with how my body responds to his touch. Then he slips his other hand upward, over my breast, then backdown through the gap between buttons, pulling up my bra and cupping my breast firmly before flicking my nipple to hardness as his fingers keep circling between my legs. I moan, arch back into him, but he is in control, and he slows, until I calm, as if soaking up the last of my grief and loneliness, then begins again, and I’m totally his, tightening, around and around, until I tip, releasing with a shudder and a scream.

He moves swiftly, removes his hands from my breast and pussy, kicks apart my legs, pushes me forward onto the table, lifts my skirt, drops my panties, then his cock is hot and heavy at my entrance and I move to tempt him to slip inside of me, but he knows what I’m trying to do and stops me.

I reach around wanting to touch him, but he puts his arms around mine, returning them to the dough. Then ever so slowly he sinks into me, my muscles stretching, accepting him right up to his hilt.

A deep groan escapes my mouth, and my breath quickens. I know what he’s going to do next. But still the pleasure that pulses through me as he slowly withdraws before plunging inside of me heightens me close to my peak once more.

I squeal, trying to hold back. He rocks inside of me, back and forth, hands on my hips keeping me there as he sets a steady rhythm. My muscles grip him, pulling him to stay.

The emptiness, the loneliness inside of me drains away as if he’s taking it from me, filling the hollow spaces with something warm and alive. The release sends more waves of bliss through me, until I tip over the edge.

He moves to keep me there at my peak, holds my hips tighter until he joins me. Something magical happens between our souls as they entwine together in a desperation of grief that somehow transforms into blissful joy.