Hot Finish (Fast Track #3)(35)
Author: Erin McCarthy

“This is chocolate hazelnut meringue,” Suzanne said, her voice getting a little clipped. She shoved the fourth piece at him.

The chocolate melted in his mouth, and Ryder longed for a glass of milk. Now this was cake. “Two thumbs up. This is rich and moist, and the hazelnut hint keeps it from being pedestrian.”

Suzanne’s eyebrows shot up. “You’ve been watching the Food Network, haven’t you?”

He was busted. “Maybe. Just a little. On Mondays.”

There was a long pause where she just stared at him, then she started laughing. It burst out with a loud crack, and Ryder couldn’t help but laugh, too. She might have been laughing at him, but it was still funny to see her cackling so hard tears were in her eyes and she was doubled over and wheezing.

“What’s so funny?” Nikki asked.

“I’m sorry,” Suzanne managed, trying to rein it in, using her finger to swipe under her eyes. “But the thought of Ryder watching foodie shows just really cracks me up. I mean, he has never cooked that I’m aware of.”

Joyce, who was glancing at her watch, said, “I didn’t realize you knew your clients so well.”

“Oh, they have sex with each other,” Nikki explained, sticking her finger in Jonas’s piece of chocolate cake and lifting it to her mouth before catching herself and wiping it on his napkin with a little growl.

“We . . .” Ryder started, not sure what to say. They did have sex with each other, at least they had until two years ago, then again the week earlier, but he was pretty damn sure Suzanne didn’t want everyone to know, especially not her bakery contact. “We’re married.”

The remnants of Suzanne’s laughter cut out. She gave him an incredulous look and amended, “Were married. We’re divorced.”

Not so much. “Actually, not according to the lawyer—”

The rest of his sentence got stopped in its tracks by a piece of cake being shoved straight into his mouth by his ex-wife, current wife, whatever wife she was. Icing scraped over his teeth and his tongue recoiled from the weight of the cake unexpectedly colliding with it.

“Ahh,” he managed before being forced to swallow. It was the shitty champagne cake, and while he didn’t want it in his stomach, he definitely didn’t want it lingering in his mouth either.

Wishing a beer would miraculously appear in front of him, he looked over at Suzanne as he reached for a napkin. “What the hell did you do that for?”

“To shut you up,” she told him, her eyes sparkling with humor. “Nobody here wants to listen to our business.”

“I do,” Nikki said.

Ryder ignored the bride and licked more icing off his teeth. “You’re not careful, Suz, you’ll wind up taste testing yourself.”

“You wouldn’t dare.”

“Don’t test that theory.” He turned to Jonas. “I’d go with the chocolate hazelnut if I were you, man. That cake rocks.”

The diversionary tactic worked. When he whirled with a piece of lemon cake in his hand, Suzanne was totally unprepared. She didn’t even have time to get a hand up to block before he had squashed the icing into her lips. He didn’t actually want to put it in her mouth because he didn’t want her to choke and have to be Heimliched, but he did want to make a point.

What that point was, he wasn’t exactly sure, but the look on her face when he pulled back the slice of cake, leaving her with a half-inch layer of icing on her lips, was hilarious. Ryder laughed, reaching out and swiping his finger through the white cloud of frosting. “So what do you think of that?” He sucked his finger clean.

Her tongue came out and did a slow slide through the mess. It was meant to clean off her lip, but Ryder couldn’t help but look at the tongue and have erotic thoughts that had nothing to do with cake and everything to do with dessert.

“I think”—she said, reaching for a napkin, the corner of her mouth trying to swing up into a smile she was desperately fighting—“that the lemon makes the cut. We should do the chocolate hazelnut and the lemon. Nikki and Jonas, is that agreeable with you?”

“Sure, if that’s what you think,” Nikki said, making it the easiest she had probably ever capitulated to anything in her life. “Jonas?”

“Whatever you want, baby. The chocolate was pretty damn good.”

“Excellent.” While Suzanne slipped back into professional mode, she nudged his leg with hers under the table.

He gave her a questioning look, wishing that Nikki and Jonas and Mrs. Fondant would just disappear, leaving the two of them alone with sugary icing that Ryder could smear on Suzanne’s ni**les and suck off, slowly and thoroughly.

Suzanne put her finger between her lips and licked it deliberately, her eyes darkening. When she dropped it back down, she mouthed to him, Later.

That was the second time she’d said that since he’d walked in the door, which meant it had to mean she was serious. Ryder could only hope she had managed to read his mind and later would start oh, say, now, and involved lots of licking and sucking on both their parts. She gave him a sly smile, like she knew the direction his thoughts were taking and she approved.

Now somebody needed to just sign off on this damn Cinderella cake so they could get the hell out of there.

“IS later now?” Ryder murmured to Suzanne after another thirty minutes. Joyce had run to answer the phone and Nikki and Jonas were making out on the other side of the table, so they were alone.

“No.” Damn it. “In fact, you and Jonas can leave if you want after he gets done cramming his tongue down Nikki’s throat. We’re just about done here now that we’ve ironed out having twelve mini-cakes of Nikki in a Cinderella gown for each table, but then the bride and I are on to the florist.” Where she arguably might pass out from lack of sleep, but maybe she’d land on a bed of roses. No one could say she didn’t think positively.

“No private cake tasting?” Ryder looked crushed, which made her happy.

“Not unless you want it at about two A.M., because that’s probably when I can break away. I’m sorry, I was thinking with my girl bits instead of my brain.”

“You should do that more often,” Ryder told her.

Suzanne laughed. “I’m sure you would like that, but my bank account wouldn’t.”

“Alright, I understand, but make sure you get some sleep at some point, okay? You’re going to get sick if you don’t slow down.”