Hot Finish (Fast Track #3)(34)
Author: Erin McCarthy

“Probably. But you’d better not. You’ll get fat before Nikki’s wedding.”

He snorted. Then he leaned close in to her and whispered, “OMG, get that cake out of my face, I’ll be faaattt!” His voice was a ridiculous masculine mockery of Nikki’s shrill tone.

She refused to laugh. “One of her is annoying enough. I don’t need a second bride.”

“You don’t think I make a good diva?”

“No. You’re too hairy.” Feeling devilish, she pointed to a pair of candy apples, sitting next to each other on their paper doilies, and said, “Those are nice and smooth, shiny.”

“What’s that supposed to mean? I am not hairy,” he protested. “Especially not down there.”

“Where?” she asked with mock innocence. “Down where? I was talking about candy apples.”

“Come on, you have to admit I keep my manscape tidy. No moss growing under my—”

Suzanne smacked his arm to shut him up when she realized the bakery consultant had stepped up in front of him. “Hi!” she said to her brightly. “I’m Suzanne Jefferson, we have an appointment.”

“Oh, right.” The woman frowned in disapproval. “I’m Joyce. Is this the groom?”

“Best man,” Ryder told her with a charming smile, sticking his hand out. “Nice to meet you.”

Joyce ignored his hand and came out from behind the counter. “Do you have an idea of what you’d like for a cake? How many guests?”

Ryder made a face at Suzanne as Joyce gave them their back. “Wow. A battle-ax baker. She’s as scary as Nikki in a whole new way.”

Suzanne rolled her eyes at him. “Maybe it’s because you were talking about your mossy balls in front of her edible art.”

“They are not mossy. They’re”—Ryder held his hands up like he was cupping his own testicles—“nice.”

Oh, God, she was going to laugh. She just couldn’t help it. He was such an idiot, in such a cute, sexy, adorable way. “Friendly, too.”

“Damn straight.”

A little laugh did escape, but Suzanne covered it up with a cough. “Now use your lips for cake tasting instead of talking,” she told him in a stern voice.

“Is that all?” he asked, his eyebrows going up and down.

“For now.”

Her answer clearly shocked him because his look instantly shifted from teasing to lustful. “Later?”

She shouldn’t, she really shouldn’t go there again with him, but she was afraid she knew herself all too well and it wouldn’t take a whole lot to convince her to sheet dive again, especially after the last few days of nonstop stress. There was something really appealing about just rolling around naked and laughing with Ryder.

Suzanne couldn’t help but smile, even as she evaded the question. “Shut up and eat your cake.”

NORMALLY sitting around a bakery while other people rambled on and on about the construction of a Cinderella wedding cake would have put Ryder to sleep in under sixty seconds, but he wasn’t bored. Not watching Suzanne work. He had tuned out what they were saying a while ago, but just staring at Suzanne as she took charge and directed the conversation with class and efficiency was sexy as hell.

Content to just sit back and wait for his cake, Ryder wondered if Suz had been serious when she’d hinted about them hooking up later. She’d never been a tease. Usually if she threw something on the table, she followed through with it. Then again, she had bailed on him in the bar after they had kissed, so maybe she’d retreat on this one, too.

While he was perfectly willing and eager for another night with her, if that wasn’t her intention, he would live. He was cool with just hanging with her, getting the opportunity to spend time with her and make her laugh. He had never stopped loving her, not even when he had tried to tell himself he had, and it was a happy relief to be able to let that out a little, to indulge himself in his feelings and in spending time with Suz.

Now there was even actual cake involved. He’d lost track of the flavors they had been discussing because they were nothing Ryder had ever heard of, but there was now a whole tray of little cake pieces in front of him and he was being urged to eat them. No one needed to ask him twice.

“That’s lemon Maurice,” Suzanne told him, pointing to the first piece. “A chiffon cake with a lemon mousse filling. What do you both think?”

He thought Suzanne had originally intended to sample the flavors herself, but now wasn’t as a result of Nikki’s stupid comment. Annoyed by that, and the whole ridiculous unearned pretentiousness Nikki was displaying, studying the baker’s sketches and dimensions, he shoved a huge bite in his mouth. It was good. Not rocking his world, but tasty cake.

Jonas shrugged. “It’s good.” He swiped a crumb off his lip with the paper napkin he’d been handed by the saleslady.

“I think it’s a little bourgeois,” Ryder said, not sure what possessed him to assume the role of arrogant food critic, but quite confident the cake was just good, not great. “The flavor explodes too quickly, with no secondary undercurrent of flavor. You might want to tell Maurice that, whoever the hell he is.”

Suzanne stared at him, Joyce the baker glared at him, and Nikki looked up from her papers. “Oh,” she said. “That’s bad, isn’t it?”

“Just try the second one,” Suzanne said, shoving the next sample in his direction from her seat next to him.

“White with a raspberry filling and a buttercream icing.”

Hmm. Ryder chewed thoughtfully. “Well, I appreciate the excitement the raspberry brings to the white cake but it’s missing a certain mass appeal.”

Joyce frowned. Nikki frowned. Suzanne frowned. There seemed to have been a tent sale on sour expressions, because they’d all picked one up.

“This is a peach champagne filling in a traditional white cake.”

That didn’t even sound good. Ryder put it in his mouth. Blech. It didn’t taste good either. Dropping the role of verbose food critic, he just said straight out, “This is like eating bubble bath.”

Jonas was shuddering, too, and looking like he wanted to spit the remnants in his mouth back into his napkin, but resisted. Swallowing hard, he thumped his chest and coughed. “Can I have a glass of water?”

“Shush,” Nikki told him, but she did pull a water bottle out of her giant handbag and hand it to him.