Free Sweet as Sin by Inez Kelley Page A

bossy.” He chuckled.
    Her brow arched. “I’m the boss. That’s what I do. I boss and bake.”
    “Always?”
    “Pretty much. You could say I grew into it.
    Mom and Daddy…they didn’t have the best
    marriage. And my mother was not the world’s greatest cook. More than once we had Cheerios for dinner. I hung out in the kitchen to stay out of their way. After a while, I started reading cookbooks. Cooking kept me busy, kept me from feeling too much. I just kept doing it until I was doing it all the time, every meal.”
    “Sucks having to be a grownup when you’re still a kid, doesn’t it?”
    “Yeah, it does.” They shared an understanding smile. “You too?”
    He nodded. “Worked under the table from the time I was thirteen. Started with picking fruit crops, moved to stocking grocery stores, then…
    Yeah, it sucked. But money was tight so every bit helped.”
    “Same here, especially after my father died.”
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    “Sorry. When was that?”
    “I was fourteen. Mom just…she’d never
    worked outside the house and suddenly, there she was with four kids and a mortgage. She panicked for a while but finally calmed down and decided we were going to shoestring it out on Daddy’s life insurance while she went to school. She became a CPA and I played stand-in Mommy until I was old enough to get a part-time job at a bakery. I found out I loved it and was good at it. So I went into a mountain of student-loan debt and the Culinary Institute. And here I am. Boring, huh?”
    “Nothing about you bores me, Livvy. You use the kitchen like I do my stories, a place to escape, be your own lord and master.”
    John had framed her feelings so perfectly, she smiled. “Yeah, I do. The kitchen has always been my safe place, where I find my grounding when life gets messy.” Her smile slid off her face. “I just hate when the messy seeps into the business.”
    “Problems?”
    One shoulder shrugged to hide her discomfort.
    He made it feel so right to just pour out her troubles to him, she hadn’t censored her mouth.
    “Just the economy and business is a little slow right now. I mean, the Shack is doing okay. I’ve got regular restaurant clients who are the backbone. I just wish the sidelines were doing better. I guess those lean years at home hit too 88
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    close. I like a blacker bottom line than I have right now.”
    John angled his head, looking under the table.
    “Your bottom line looks fine to me.”
    She scowled and he laughed. She rose for more tea, her hand automatically stroking his shoulder.
    The memory of his cringe stilled her walk.
    “Murphy, when I touched you in your st—”
    John held his hand out. It sank slowly to the table. Eyes transfixed on his now empty plate, he spoke to the marinara smear, not to her.
    “You have to understand, Livvy. I write some dark stuff, a magical world that only exists between my ears until I pull it out. To do that, sometimes I get pretty deep inside my monsters’
    heads. Listening to them isn’t enough. I have to feel what they feel, see what they see. Sometimes, I have to become the monster. You just walked in on a tense moment, that’s all.”
    He was lying. The certainty fell on Livvy like a rock. But the lie was so convincing she wanted to believe it. Stepping behind him, she wrapped her arms around his neck and hugged. He stroked her forearm with one hand. His damp hair tickled her cheek and her eyes squeezed shut. If he needed to lie, then the lie she would allow.
    For now.
    The mood changed like the flip of a switch. He pulled her around to sit on his lap. The burn of Inez Kelley
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    peppers burst into her mouth as his tongue stroked hers. She lost track of time or perhaps it stood still.
    All that existed was John’s mouth on hers, their tongues married in an erotic foreplay dance, and the increasing staccato of her heart.
    Strong hands slid down her arms to cradle her braless breast and pull her snugly to him. The scent of minty shaving