Nuts

“Dammit, Sugar Snap, would you just—”

It was the Sugar Snap that got me. It always would. I swam closer to him, and even underwater I was mesmerized by his person. I couldn’t resist giving it a few strokes. His hands plunged under the water, grasped me by the shoulders, let me get in at least one more good stroke, then brought me back above the water.

“Gone?” I spluttered as he put me on my feet. Then he quickly picked me up under my knees and wrapped my legs around his waist.

“Gone,” he said, and pulled us gently into deeper water.

“What are you doing to me?” he said, holding my face delicately while he was decidedly not so delicate with my lips. It felt fevered, out of control. I answered his question with actions. Totally caught up in each other, our bodies molding to each other, skin heating even surrounded by the cool water. Blissful. Wanton. Unaware.

So much so that we didn’t notice the high schoolers along the rocky bank with their towels . . . and grins.

“You bet, Mrs. Montgomery, two dozen cupcakes for your Fourth of July picnic. You want them all cherries jubilee, or . . . Okay, I can do some with blueberry. Yes, that’s very patriotic of you. Cherries and blueberries, and I’ll pipe some vanilla buttercream on top. All the colors of the flag.” I wrote everything down, calculating how much to charge, and how much time I’d need to get this order in. Mrs. Oleson’s Carrot Cake had been a hit, and I was the talk of the ladies’ luncheon. Everyone wanted a piece of me. Of my cake.

When the bell dinged above the front door, I looked over my shoulder and grinned when I saw Leo.

“There she is,” he whispered, seeing I was on the phone. He gently set some bags on the counter stools, then braced his hands on the counter and pulled himself up, looking like he was about to start a pommel horse routine, resting his hips against the chipped Formica. Leaning in, he gave me three quick pecks on the lips, pulling away just enough to watch me smile, then zooming back in for a fourth. I almost dropped the receiver when his lips left mine to concentrate on my neck, making me shiver deliciously. My neck continued to receive this attention until he saw the empty dessert case.

He looked back at me in such a woebegone fashion that I had to bite back a laugh, and I wrote “I saved you some blueberry pound cake” on the notepad where I was writing Mrs. Montgomery’s order. Delight crept over his face like a sunrise. So easy was this guy. I held up a finger, indicating I just needed another minute, and he nodded.

He peered inside the dessert carousel and saw the crumbs and icing remnants, and a few errant blueberries. With his body balancing on one arm, which the pommel horse judges would have given him fill marks for demonstrating his innate strength, he popped the door open and plucked up the crumbs, smiling wickedly while he did it. He began to press sugary crumbly kisses along my collarbone, causing me to inhale rather quickly, almost gasping into the receiver.

“What, Mrs. Montgomery? Yes, I was listening, sorry. There was . . . something.”

He grinned, pulled himself up and over the counter, and now sat right in front of me as I attempted to carry on a conversation. He was determined to keep kissing on me. He snickered and nipped, licked, and sucked his way across my shoulder into the hollow of my clavicle, before his hand slowly traced down my stomach. Wide-eyed, I shook my head no. Wide-eyed, he nodded yes. He leaned in and down, and began kissing a path straight to my tummy, deftly slipping under my apron, unzipping my shorts, and had his hand inside before I could even gasp. And he was now inserting himself right into the conversation, by inserting himself right into my drawers, and—oh!

I dropped the phone. Right on his head. “Serves you right!” I mouthed, trying not to laugh as I watched him rub the goose egg.

He bounded away with the supplies he’d brought, still smiling as he disappeared into the kitchen.

As I brought the receiver back up to my ear, Mrs. Montgomery was asking what time she should pick up the cupcakes, and what in the world was making me sound so out of breath?

“Sorry, I just dropped the phone. And come pick them up the morning; we’re closing early for the holiday. Good-bye to you too.”

Revved up and ready to go beyond belief, I took off in the direction Leo had gone, pushing him up against the ice machine and kissing him until he was breathless too.

I also rubbed his goose egg.

Ten minutes later I was still breathless, and decidedly glowing. Our quickie had come to a screaming (me) end just before the front door dinged open, announcing the first arrival for Zombie Class Number Two. You’ve never seen someone straighten out an apron faster in your life—trust me.

And the door kept on dinging as more and more people poured in: some I recognized and some I didn’t. What in the world?

It seemed my class was a sleeper hit; everyone wanted in on it. And as I started counting how many people were here, I felt a weird sensation in my stomach.

I was carving out a niche. In the town I swore I’d never niche in again. And worst of all, it felt . . .

Strange? Not entirely.

Familiar? Not really. Though the setting was familiar, this summer was anything but.

Nice? Perhaps.

Too much? Perhaps.

Quickly getting away from me? Oh, perhaps!

I sighed. It didn’t help that my mind was still a bit scrambled by the ice machine boning.

Misinterpreting my sigh, Leo kissed the tip of my nose. “It’s totally normal to have butterflies, Sugar Snap.”

From the kitchen, we were peeping through the window in the swinging door. We’d needed an extra moment to collect ourselves. After all, he’d been inside not two minutes before. Even thinking these words made me clench. Mmm . . . aftershock.