Here for the Cake

by Jennifer Millikin

“It’s yours,” I pant as he works slowly, torturing me with an unhurried rhythm, as if we’re not hiding out in a pantry and we have all the time in the world. “Mine,” he whisper-groans, increasing his pace.

Lips pressed to my ear, he whispers, “You can come quietly. Or you can scream and give away our location. I’m a proud contributor to either response.”

“That’s my girl,” he says,

“You are a dangerous woman.” “I doubt that.” “You pose a threat to every part of me.”

“Paisley, if you want me in here, you’re going to have to open up for me.”

He begins using a fingertip, looping and swirling, crossing and dotting. “What are you doing?” I ask, propping the side of my head on stacked hands. “Plotting a story.” I smile lazily. “What kind of story?” “A love story.”

It’ll be fun, they said. They lied.

“If you want to keep your soft hands, I suggest you take them off my girlfriend.”

“Why are you looking at me like that?” “Like what?” “Like you adore me.”

“Tell me to stop,” he says hoarsely. “Don’t stop.”

Why was I looking at Paisley like I adore her? Short answer: because I do.

He takes a step toward me. I back up playfully. He takes another step. He wants to catch me? Well, guess what? I want to be caught.

Another step. “You look like a predator.” He’s close enough to grab me now. “You look like prey.”

“Do you know what’s coming Paisley?” “Me,” I manage to say.

Klein’s face presses against my sex, and he chuckles into me. Why is that hotter than hot?

He grips my hips, pushing me down until I’m full. “There you go.” He rocks my hips back and forth. “Right where you belong.”

She has so many names for me. I have a few, too. Whipped. Fallen. Fool. I am a whipped fallen fool for Paisley Royce.

Klein unhooks his leg and pats his lap. “Sit down.”

“No.” So powerful, this word.

“Proud of you,” he murmurs. “That’s my girl.”

It would be beyond satisfying to hear the thwack of my hand up the side of this dumbass’s head, but it wouldn’t get us anywhere.

Paisley wasn’t a background character. She was the whole damn story. A complicated plot, interwoven with subplots. A riveting main character. Internal conflict mixed with shifting goals. Shane was never man enough to read her story. But me? I’m immersed in it. Forget slowly diving in, I’m already lost in her pages. I was hooked on page one, sentence one. Do I have a favorite book? Sure do. The tale of Paisley Royce. And I’ll be damned if it doesn’t end in a happily ever after.

“You smell divine.” “Describe it, Wordsmith. What do I smell like?” I groan into her skin, the sound reverberating. “You smell like you’re mine.”

Her beautiful eyes, her heart-shaped face, her sun-dappled freckles, they undo me. This woman, this woman.

“We joke that I came here for the cake, right?” She nods, waiting. “Paisley.” My fingers slip through her hair, curling around the back of her neck. Here we go. “You are the cake. I’m here for you. I’m here for your hard times, and I’m here for you as you grow as a person and I don’t know about you, but all this fake dating stopped feeling fake as soon as we landed.”

“And this mouth.” She dives in, kissing me briefly, leaving me begging for more. “Don’t even get me started on this mouth. You say big, lovely things, and you make me feel even bigger and lovelier.” I push forward, capturing her lips with a searing kiss. “This mouth?” I ask, teasingly nipping at her lower lip. “Yes,” she whimpers.

Our lovemaking does not require her to enter me, and yet, she is there, infiltrating me from the center of my chest all the way to my extremities. Shades of Paisley, throughout.

Are we our own people? Of course. But do we belong to each other? Absolutely.

I grin against the T-shirt on her body that I never want back.

Paisley turns around, propping one foot up on the built-in shelf seat, and shakes her rear end at me. I point at her. “Siren.”

Waking up to ‘Klein the boyfriend’ is, in a word, magnificent.

I’m a fool for that man.

“Maybe wordy isn’t always better.” Klein’s hand slides up the inside of my thigh. Even covered by my dress, it blazes a hot trail on my skin. “Wordy is always better.” I nod solemnly. “Yes, Word Daddy.”

“I’ve lived in the desert my entire life, and coming here this week has made me realize that I am⁠—” “Thirsty?” I ask, unable to stop myself from making the joke. He laughs, pausing to drop a kiss on my lips. “In more ways than one.” “And now?” I ask, tipping up my face, asking for more. “Has your thirst been quenched?” “Not at all.” He obliges me, kissing me again and again.

Klein grips my face the same way I have his, absorbing the moisture on my cheeks. “We had something back then, Paisley, and we have something today, and that tells me we’ll have something in twenty years. In forty. In fifty. We are evergreen.”

He kisses me like I’m sustenance and all he desires is survival.

Pressing kisses to the scruff of his neck as we go, I whisper, “Klein the guy I’m in love with.” “Of all the nicknames you’ve given me, that’s my favorite.” “I’ll get it tattooed on my other thigh.” “And I’ll bite it. Every. Damn. Day.”

“Paisley the everything,” he murmurs against me. “Is that my second nickname?” He nods, taking my nipple in his mouth. “It’s perfect for you,” he murmurs around the hardened peak. “You are my everything.”

Against my lips, he says, “You are my favorite story. The best I’ve ever heard, and the best I’ll ever tell.”

Sighing contentedly against me, she says, “Klein the husband.” “Paisley the wife.”