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June 3 - June 3, 2025
Whenever she walked inside, he would turn to look at her, and the scowl on his face got at least 50 percent scowlier.
Didn’t she remember when she’d come back to tell them that they’d accidentally given her three pastries instead of two? She went back to the bakery and tried to pay for the third one after she’d realized what had happened, but he’d just barked “Never mind!” at her and turned away. He’d made mistakes like that a bunch more times, but she never bothered to tell him anymore, even though she sort of worried that his bakery must be losing a ton of money if he was messing up that much.
Maybe those extra pastries were because he was trying to fatten her up so he could eat her, like a fairy-tale villain.
She smiled back at him, for just a half second, before she caught herself. And then she just stared at him. “Are you flirting with me? Here? Now?” Was she imagining this? If not, he had to be concussed or something. He shook his head, and then winced a little. “No, of course not. That would be ridiculous, to try to flirt with you when we were trapped inside my bakery after an earthquake while I was bleeding from a head wound. I would never do something like that.” And then a glimmer of a smile appeared in his eyes. “But if I was, is it working?”
“I wasn’t giving everyone free stuff. I was giving you free stuff. Because I fell for you that first moment I heard you laugh that day.”
I guess I gave you a dirty look when I did. I didn’t mean to—my face just does that sometimes.”
He’d really noticed her, every time she’d come in. Just like she’d noticed him but had tried not to. Had pretended to herself that she hadn’t.
“I like your face. I like it a lot, actually. Especially now that I know that when you look furious it’s just like a normal person smiling.”
“Did you have a plan for what you were going to do here? You know, other than to give me free pastries and hope I realized that meant you were into me?”
“The last thing I’d ever want to do would be to make you feel uncomfortable,” he said.
“I hope you have a good idea, because right now I’m sitting here, alone in my bakery with the woman of my dreams on Valentine’s Day, with a box full of pastries that I saved for her in the hope that she would come in today and they’d be waiting—”
You usually come in Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, so I thought I’d see you today. At least, I hoped so.”
“I notice everything about you, especially which pastries you like the best. So I put all of those in this box for you. But you didn’t come in when you usually do, and I thought you weren’t coming in at all. And I felt so stupid, especially since I actually shouldn’t even be here today. Some celebrity ordered a wedding cake from us, and I should have flown out there with the cake to supervise the last-minute decorations, but instead I sent Ella, so I could be here, just in case.”
“Holy fucking shit, Daisy, you’re going to destroy me.”
“Do you have any idea how many times I’ve dreamed of this?” he said in her ear. She shook her head as she looked at him. “So many times,” he said. “But the reality is far better than my imagination.”
“If I remember correctly—and I know I do—I was being driven wild by your breasts.” He moved his hand to her knee and then slid his hand up under her dress to her thigh. “I was also fucking losing it because I realized that when I touch you, you close your eyes, with that look of ecstasy on your face, and that’s the same way you look when you bite into a pastry that you really love.” He moved his hand up higher and hooked his thumb around her underwear. “And it made me think that I desperately wanted to touch you everywhere—with my hands, my lips, my tongue—so I could see if you look like that
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“What’s that?” he asked, just as the shaking started. “Aftershock!” she said. “Aren’t you glad I moved those prints above the bed?” “For that, and for so many other things,” he said. “I’ll cover you. Now, hold on.” And he rolled on top of her.
