“Relax.”
He lingers there and makes my body tremble with his soft lips against the stomach that I’ve worked for years to get rid of. “Gorgeous.”
He kisses northward, following the valley between my breasts to my throat and then to my lips.
“I should go,” I murmur against him. I want to stay, to see what else he has in store for me, but what we’ve done has already complicated things too much. We aren’t friends. Hell, I barely know him. This is a bad idea to top all other bad ideas, like bitter sprinkles on top of a regret sundae. Maybe I’m the same girl I was in high school—my love of sweets is still my downfall.
He kisses me gently and smooths my hair back from my face. “Why?”
“Because this is too much. You don’t know me. I don’t know you. I’m not the sort of girl who just jumps into bed with someone.”
He gives me a puzzled look. “I know you. You’ve known me for years.”
“Not like this.” I pull the corner of his comforter up to cover myself. “I should get home.”
“Wait.” He stands and backs away. “Just hear me out, okay?”
“Hear you out?” I stare at the hard length pressing against the front of his jeans. “You bake me a pie and then I just—I just—” I press my palm against my forehead. “I fall into your bed? What is wrong with me?”
“Nothing is wrong with you.” He walks over and sits next to me. “How many ways can I tell you that you’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever met? Inside and out.”
“But you don’t know that!” I huff out a breath as my reason wars with the happy emotions his words create inside me. “We’re strangers.”
“I know how you taste. Pretty sure that means we aren’t strangers.”
I glare at him, and he continues, “We went to school together. I thought you were hot and smart then. Turns out I was right. You went to college and became a business owner. More than that, you volunteer in the community, and everyone here loves you. Even my parents have told me how great you are. I may have been gone the past few years, but I kept up with you. How could I not? You are everything that I missed about home, all tied up in one beautiful package.”
The sincerity in his tone knocks a few more bricks off the wall I’ve tried to build between us. “You thought I was hot?”
“In school? Hell yes.” He gives me an incredulous stare. “Why do you think Pace Beverly went around bragging to everyone that he’d boned you?”
I cover my face with my hands. “I didn’t even know about that, and I find it really hard to believe.”
“It’s true. I swear. I still want to kick his ass for it. I didn’t even know what true jealousy felt like until the day he told me. I’d wanted you for so long.” He pulls my hands away from my face. “I swear it’s the truth.”
Either he was the best liar I’d ever encountered or he was being honest. “So, if all that’s true, why didn’t you ask me out?”
“Pace. We were friends. I didn’t want to cause problems. Shit.” He runs a hand through his hair. “I should have thrown all that aside and just asked. You were worth the fallout.”
I change tactics to try and avoid the warm feelings spinning through me. “What about you? You could be a serial killer, or worse, a dog person.”
He laughs. “Me? I did the usual college thing, then traveled like I said. I loved the freedom of it, but the entire time I was gone, I knew I’d come home eventually. To stay for good.”
“And you just had to open a candy shop?”
“Look.” He wraps an arm around my shoulders and pulls me closer to him. “I know you think the shop is, I don’t know, like the nemesis of your studio, right?”
“Something like that.” I nod.
“It isn’t. People enjoy sweets. No matter how much they sweat it out in your studio, they’re still going to want to reward themselves or maybe just do something nice for someone they love. Candy is one of the most heartfelt ways to do that. Even if your students come to my shop sometimes, your studio will still be standing. And, hey, think about it like this. My shop will ensure that you always have clients. Right?” He waggles his eyebrows.
I laugh despite myself. “I haven’t thought of it that way.”
He kisses my jaw, his lips moving down to the spot right below my ear. “I’ve thought about it a lot. Ever since I got back to town and saw you doing downward dog across the way.”
I elbow him, but he keeps kissing me, tracing a path down to my shoulder. I breathe deeply as goosebumps race across my skin.