Sugared (Misfit Brides #4) (21 page)

She didn’t stop to think when she fumbled through unbuttoning his jeans, or when he kissed a trail from her chest to her knees while helping her out of her pants, though she did have a moment of apprehension when his full erection popped out of his black boxer shorts. But then his hands were on her skin, his mouth on hers, and wrapping her legs around his hips when he boosted her up onto the counter was the most natural thing in the world.

“Kimmie—”

“Flambéed coconuts,” she gasped.

He smiled at her again—that real smile, the
Josh
smile he didn’t show the rest of the world—and brushed his thumb across her cheek. “Can’t have flambéed coconuts,” he said.

He put his hands to her thighs, and she opened wider for him. His shaft was at her entrance, touching her sensitive, swollen womanhood, but his eyes were intent on hers, that warm smile lingering.

Watching. Waiting. Giving her one last chance to change her mind.

She hooked her ankles around the backs of his knees and pulled, and added another squeeze to his bare rear end. His erection probed her opening, but he still didn’t fully penetrate her, didn’t touch the ache deep inside. Her cheeks were on fire—they had been half the night—but she didn’t care. Having him this close without having him all the way was torture. “I want you.”

He blinked twice, quickly, and then closed his eyes, slanted his mouth against hers, and thrust all the way into her.

She felt the pinch of pain, but more, she felt
him
. Solid, thick, deep, thrusting against that spiraling ache inside that was building higher, sweeter, stronger. She whimpered and moaned into his kiss, her hips bucking instinctively, not smooth, not sophisticated, not experienced, but
sweet buttercream
, this was
right
. He cradled her head, his tongue against hers, rumblings coming from his chest with every thrust.

She couldn’t control herself, and she didn’t want to. She just wanted to
be
. To ride the wave that was building, feel the crash of nerves and feelings and emotions, and let her Josh—
her
Josh—carry her over the crest.

And he did.

Her climax caught her off guard, pulsing thick and hard and new around his shaft, and a cry caught in her throat. “Josh!”

“I’m here.” He shuddered against her and groaned low while he went still. “God, Kimmie. I’m here. I’ve got you.”

He did.

He absolutely did. Completely. Mind, body, soul, and every dimension between them.

She hunched into him, gasping for air, wrapping her arms around his solid body and hanging on tight while she floated back to the world.

Her toes tingled.

So did her fingers.

He was still inside her, thick and foreign but welcome.

“You—” Josh shook his head into her shoulder. “You amaze me. Every day.”

“You don’t see me every day,” she said to his neck.

He shifted, and suddenly silence filled the kitchen.

The cupcakes. She’d forgotten they were making cupcakes. A giggle caught in her throat.

Josh sucked in a breath. “Easy. Sensitive here.”

He straightened and pulled out of her, leaving an odd emptiness behind, along with a sudden realization that she was nearly naked in his kitchen.

“Do you—”

This time when he stopped himself, his brows furrowed. He was looking down.

Kimmie’s skin flushed again. After what they’d done, he could certainly look at her naked. But—

“Kimmie?” His gaze connected with hers, and this time, there was something new.

Concern. Confusion. Questions.

The heat in her cheeks spread over her scalp and down her neck. He was wearing a condom—good
lord
, she hadn’t even thought about birth control—and her blood was on it.

The mark of her lost virginity.

“Kimmie, I’m sorry, I didn’t—”

She held up a hand. She shouldn’t have been embarrassed. There was nothing to be embarrassed
about
. He shouldn’t have been worried. She
chose
this.

Once again, she was the weirdo. Except this time, she was the weirdo without clothes in the sophisticated, experienced, suave Joshanova’s swanky condo.

She slid off the countertop—rubbed herself off it, really, since the cool marble wasn’t conducive to sliding—and hunched into herself. “Boys don’t touch the Queen General’s daughter in Bliss, and I never went to college, and I spout off weird dreams and freaky fortunes when I get nervous, and the only reason most men have ever dated me is because of my mother.
You
only looked twice at me because of my mother. But I wanted this. I did. With you. Don’t say
sorry
. I’m not a victim. I might not be smart or worldly or even
normal
, but I didn’t make a mistake, and even if I did, it wasn’t your fault.”

But he was watching her with all that worry, and
pity
, and if she’d had her pants on, she would’ve fled the condo.

Instead, she did the next best thing.

She dashed out of the kitchen, found an open bedroom door, and she locked herself inside.

N
ever would
it have crossed Josh’s mind that Kimmie was a virgin. Quirky, yes. Awkward, yes. Unique, yes.

Completely and utterly inexperienced?

No.

She should’ve had flowers. Candles. Chocolates.

He pushed his hefty Italian leather sofa and grunted. Maybe he didn’t deserve Kimmie, but the thought of another man looking at her, touching her, making love to her—

He shoved the damn couch harder, and it inched down the hallway. Another two feet, and he’d have it exactly where he wanted it.

Blocking the door.

Hell if he’d let Kimmie sneak out of here in the middle of the night without talking to him. She wanted to lock herself in his bedroom? Fine. But she wasn’t disappearing until she gave him a chance to tell her exactly how he felt about her.

Josh dropped his arms and head on the couch.

They’d be here until eternity with his track record of being able to tell people how he felt about them.

But Kimmie deserved to know that Josh thought she was funny. And nice. Smart, too.

He punched the couch cushion.

That wasn’t what a girl wanted to hear after she slept with a guy.

She wanted to hear that she was amazing. Sexy. Delicious. That he wanted to grab the chocolate syrup and whipped cream and do it again.

Fuck, now he was half-hard again.

Because she was sexy, in a raw, unguarded, natural way. And he wasn’t just thinking about chocolate syrup and whipped cream. He had thoughts of honey and frosting and—God help him—peanut butter and jelly too.

He’d already been half turned on from having Kimmie here. For that smile. For the way her eyes narrowed and her cheeks went that spectacularly unusual crimson pattern when she was embarrassed. For her being Kimmie.

But damned if he hadn’t gone stiff as a lead pipe when she mentioned grilled cheese.

He’d severely underestimated how much he could be turned on by laughing with a woman who had snuck under his skin.

He also had no clue how to get her out of his skin. She’d been on his mind all day. All week. If this had been only about the sex, he could’ve walked away.

But he
liked
Kimmie.

He couldn’t marry her. He
wouldn’t
marry her. But she deserved a real explanation from him. She’d been his friend. Tonight—he hadn’t had to put on a show. He hadn’t had to impress her. He hadn’t been rich, he hadn’t been a former street kid, he hadn’t been the adopted son of a businessman who was in danger of losing his empire.

He’d just been
Josh
.

Because that was all she’d ever asked of him. The least he could do was to be honest with her in return.

He finished shoving the couch against the condo door. Comfortable a place as any to sleep tonight, and he didn’t have to worry about Kimmie sneaking out. He returned to the kitchen and finished mixing the cupcake batter. Once the cupcakes were in the oven, he knocked softly on his bedroom door.

No answer.

“Kimmie?” he said.

Still no answer.

If she’d pulled a Spiderman and climbed out his balcony and scaled the building to get down, he was going to wring her oranges.

He retrieved a wire hanger from his guest room, bent the hook straight, and stuck it into the little hole in the doorknob until he triggered the lock to open. “Kimmie? I’m coming in.”

When she still didn’t answer, he cautiously pushed the door open.

The light was on in his master bath, illuminating her sleeping figure curled in the center of his king-size bed. She didn’t belong on the black bedspread—she was far too bright and happy for his décor. Her thick, curly hair was spread over his pillow. She was wearing a pair of his sweatpants and his favorite Cubs jersey, and her rib cage moved up and down with each slow breath.

His groin tightened.

So did his gut.

He didn’t deserve this girl.

But that didn’t stop him from wanting her.

He pulled a light blanket from his closet and covered her. She stirred, then snuggled deeper under the blanket, murmured, “Get those eggrolls off my goat,” and then sighed peacefully.

A foreign warmth lit inside Josh’s chest. It wasn’t unpleasant, but it wasn’t welcome either. His gut and his groin, he could handle.

His heart, not so much.

A
whirring motor
stirred Josh out of his slumber Sunday morning. His neck was stiff and his left foot was asleep. He blinked, and the modest chandelier in his entryway gradually came into focus.

He bolted upright.
Kimmie
.

As if she’d heard her name, she suddenly stepped out of the kitchen and looked down on him with wide, wary eyes.

His gut took a sucker punch.

So did his heart.

He scrubbed a hand over his face. “I had a dream you were playing on these trampoline mushrooms made out of butter, but then a cake batter tsunami swallowed you up and carried you to this industrial complex in Detroit where you had to make car parts out of spaghetti,” he said.

Her eyes went impossibly round, her mouth too. She dropped the towel she’d been holding, and the color drained from her smooth cheeks. “Oh, no.” She backtracked toward the kitchen. “Oh, no, no, no.”

A creepy sense of déjà vu gave Josh goose bumps. “Kimmie?” He flung his blanket off and stood, then almost fell on his numb foot.

“I gave you an STD,” she whisper-shrieked. “That’s my Bliss curse. STDs!”

Josh instinctively checked his junk before common sense kicked in. He limped into the kitchen. “An ST—”

“A sexually transmitted dream!”

The KitchenAid mixer was humming on the counter. Kimmie stood beside it, furiously whipping melted chocolate in a glass bowl.

He padded across the kitchen. He wanted to hug her.

He wanted to kiss her.

He wanted to boost her up on the counter and love her again. “Kimmie—”

“Did you know there’s a hex on the Golden Bouquet? If a single person from The Aisle finds it, they’re doomed to seven years of bad luck in love. And you can’t put it back and hope for the best either. You’re doomed.
Doomed
. Elmer Flatly found it one year, and do you know what happened to him?”

“What?” Josh asked before he thought better of it.

“He was left at the altar
three times
. His parents gave their catering company to his cousin, and Elmer ended up moving to Arizona. He died when a mechanical bull malfunctioned at the saloon near the tourist dude ranch where he worked.”

“Kimmie—”

“And you remember Max from last weekend?
He
found it four years ago, and even though he turned around and walked away, he’s had two girlfriends cheat on him, a third one left him to join the Peace Corps, and his last girlfriend? She disappeared. She was here one day, gone the next.” Kimmie lowered her voice. “She just
poofed
.”

“I think I saw that movie,” Josh said.

She dropped her whisk and clapped her hands over her ears. “Don’t tell me. I haven’t finished the book. I
shouldn’t
finish the book. But don’t spoil it for me.”

She’d smeared chocolate across her temple. White powder dotted her pink jeans and his Cubs jersey. Flour or sugar, he didn’t know, but his groin pulsed again. He brushed his thumb over the chocolate, revealing the scar marring her otherwise smooth skin.

She swung another wary gaze up at him, hands still covering her ears.

God
, he wanted to kiss her.

“Have you ever been to the zoo?” he heard himself say.

“Not since I was in grade school.”

“Want to go today?” Josh said.

Kimmie turned back to whipping her chocolate. “You don’t have to do this.”

“Do what?”

“Act like you’re dating me.”

“I—”

She cocked her head. She wasn’t glaring like her mother, but she didn’t have any of the happy-go-lucky Kimmie-ness to her either.

She almost seemed to have arrived in the land of full reality.

Which, he was startled to realize, didn’t suit her in the least.

“We’re friends,” he said. “Why wouldn’t I want to take you to the zoo?”

But he’d never had sex with a friend on his kitchen counter before. Actually, he wasn’t sure he’d ever had sex with a
friend
. Or a virgin.

And he refused to acknowledge the peculiar mix of not unpleasant feelings both gave him. Especially with Kimmie here in his kitchen this morning.

She yanked the bowl out of the mixer, then scraped the melted chocolate into it and went to work beating the new mixture by hand. “Are we breaking up soon?” she asked the bowl.

An unwelcome fear swelled in his chest. “Is that what you want?”

“I want a coconut cream pie.”

Panic skittered through Josh’s veins. “Kimmie, about last night—”

“Don’t Joshanova me.” Her jagged flush crept up her cheeks.

“You were way better than coconut cream pie.” He swallowed. “I—I’m sorry if I wasn’t.” He reached out to touch her hair again, but stopped himself.

He could’ve loved this woman. Quirks and oddities and inexperience and all.

But he had no right to lead her on.

“Why didn’t you want to marry your old girlfriend?”

Josh retreated two steps before he stopped himself. He couldn’t keep up with wherever her brain was flying, and he didn’t want to.

In fact, he wanted to kiss her until she couldn’t think straight enough to fling random questions at him. “Does it matter?” he said cautiously.

“We’re fake engaged and having dinner with your parents this afternoon, and if we’re not breaking up soon, then I need to know so I don’t look like an idiot.” A world of complications he didn’t want to understand flashed in her perplexed blue eyes. “I’m not sophisticated, and I’m not
normal
, but I’m also not a fool. You don’t date girls like me. Do your parents know we’re fake engaged? Or do they really think a socially awkward misfit could honestly snare Chicago’s hottest bachelor?”

He raked a hand through his hair. “You have too many friends to be a
socially awkward misfit
.” And she had completely snared him.

“Friends, but not boyfriends. The last time I had a real boyfriend, I was in sixth grade. He made me a paper fortune teller to ask me out, and we held hands at recess, but then my mother found out and was so displeased his family had to move away from Bliss.”

Josh had a moment of wanting to put his fist through that sixth-grader’s face. And then a bigger moment of wanting to put his fist through his own face. Kimmie wasn’t
his
.

But hell if he could tolerate the thought of another man touching her. Tasting her.

Being inside her.

She whipped a plastic storage bag out of her pocket and scooped chocolate frosting into it. “I’m almost thirty years old, and the most action I’ve gotten is from a fake relationship. There’s something wrong with me.”

“There is nothing wrong with you,” Josh growled.

“Says the man who only wants me for my cupcakes,” Kimmie grumbled.

“Fuck the cupcakes.” He snatched the frosting bag from her hands, backed her against the counter, took her cheeks in his palms, and slammed his mouth down on hers.

Sweet, juicy, perfect Kimmie. On his lips, on his tongue, seeping into his soul.

She could’ve pushed him away. She was strong enough—
God
, the way those legs had wrapped around him last night—and despite her pacifist tendencies, he didn’t believe she’d let him get away with anything.

Unflavored cake batter
, she’d called him.
With potential
.

He was black licorice pound cake with burnt coffee frosting to her lemon chiffon cupcake with raspberry buttercream.

He shouldn’t kiss her. He wasn’t the settling down, husband-and-father type. He couldn’t give her the life, the family she deserved.

The thought of all that responsibility—of trusting another soul not to abandon him again—put acid in his stomach and triggered an overwhelming desire to flee.

But he wanted her anyway.

And she was kissing him back, her tongue tangling with his—not awkward, as he’d thought last night, but inexperienced—her fingers digging into his shoulders, her hips pushing against his stiff rod, her inner thigh rubbing his leg.

She smelled like him.

She tasted like
his
.

And God help him, he wanted her again. On the counter. Again.

Because when he was touching Kimmie, kissing Kimmie,
inside
Kimmie, he almost believed he
could
be husband and father material.

He ripped his mouth away. “There is
nothing
wrong with you,” he repeated. “All those other assholes stay away because they know they’re not good enough for you.”

Her chest heaved against his—those beautiful breasts, heavy and full and perfect—her rosy lips parted and swollen, her baby blues wide and this side of unfocused.

She blinked quickly. “Are you?” she said, breathy and hot and sexier than she could’ve possibly known.

“Not even close, sugar. But I’m not the kind to let that stop me.”

Her gaze darted to his lips. “We’re not getting married at Knot Fest.”

His stomach iced over.

“You’ll still own half of Heaven’s Bakery, and I still owe you some cupcake recipes,” she said. “But we’re not getting married. Will we stay friends?”

Logic was battling his raging hard-on, and losing. They’d crossed lines they couldn’t uncross, and Josh knew how this ended.

Badly. “As long as you want to put up with me.”

Her lips pursed and her eyes tightened. “You’re not the devil, Josh Kincaid. You should quit pretending to be.”

“I’m not an angel, and I never will be.” He gripped her curvy hips. “But I’m having very devilish thoughts.”

“Sometimes I eat a chocolate cupcake because it’s there, even when I really want a coconut cream cake pop.”

“You are not
convenient
, Kimmie,” he growled.

Her wide, open Kimmie smile burst out. “A devil wouldn’t say that.” She touched the tip of his nose. “Okay. You can take me to the zoo today.”

Then, still smiling, she turned in his arms, picked up her frosting bag, rubbed her ass into his groin, and returned to her task.

She was either ridiculously innocent, or she was far more devious than he would’ve given her credit for.

Either way, he’d keep her.

Today.

G
oing
to the zoo was like discovering there was a whole other planet that existed within the Earth.

Kimmie knew, obviously, that the world outside of Bliss didn’t revolve around cake and weddings and Knot Fest. But it had been years since she’d looked an ape in the eye and watched harbor seals eat. When she’d come to the zoo as a child, she hadn’t cared to simply sit on a bench, eating ice cream and watching families pass by. Strollers and wagons, teenagers and toddlers. In Bliss, she saw couples at the start of their relationships. Even then, despite the number of weddings in Bliss, Kimmie rarely attended them. Little girls would come into the bakery for a cupcake after a flower girl fitting next door at Bliss Bridal, or she’d spot families gathered for a wedding at one of the many gazebos around town in the summer, and she’d seen her friends and their families while she was growing up, but she’d never noticed this many families having fun in one place without a wedding before.

The people were more fascinating than the animals.

And then there was Josh.

He turned heads all morning, but if he noticed, he didn’t let on. He held Kimmie’s hand, ordered her to ride the carousel and the zoo train, and told her stories of his childhood trips to the zoo, both with his biological mom and his adopted parents.

But best of all, he smiled at her. Real, warm, eye-crinkling, cheek-splitting smiles, as though he were enjoying watching her rediscover the zoo as much as she was enjoying her morning with him.

As though they were in a real relationship.

She wasn’t naïve enough to believe that having sex with Josh meant that he’d never look at another woman again, or that she’d one day bear his children, or that it wouldn’t hurt when he moved on, but she was optimistic enough to believe they
could
stay friends after their fake engagement ended.

And that maybe they’d have sex again first.

They stayed at the zoo until they were almost late to dinner. Early afternoon, Josh pulled his car into a driveway on a picturesque street in a stately neighborhood.

Butterflies fluttered in Kimmie’s belly. “Why
did
your ex-girlfriend break up with you?” she blurted.

He turned on the curved driveway and parked the car on the large parking surface outside the garage, then gave her a cautious side-eye. “I refused to marry her.”

It was the same answer he’d given last week, but it wasn’t enough. “Why?”

He shifted in the seat until he was looking at her straight on. No fidgeting, no squirming, no hesitation. “I like my space and I don’t share well.”

He was lying.

Perhaps not outright lying, but not telling the whole truth. “Was she clingy?”

“No.”

“Demanding?”

“Not outlandishly so.”

“Perfect?”

He arched a brow. “She couldn’t bake.”

“Did you give her the
it’s not you, it’s me
speech?”

His lips quirked in a half-hearted grin. “What do you know about the
it’s not you
speech?”

“I read lots of romance novels. And a lot of my friends have used the line. Or complained about having it used on them.”

“It was definitely me,” Josh said.

“You have an overdeveloped sense of responsibility.”

His brows shot up, his cheeks went pink, and he seemed to choke on a laugh. “I’m sure your mother would agree.”

“My mother thinks you’re a bug to be impaled by her stilettos.”

“Jesus. Don’t ever mention your mother and stilettos together again.” He shuddered.

“She scares you?”

“Stilettos are supposed to be sexy.”

“You know, I wouldn’t be here if she hadn’t—”

“Oh, look, there’s
my
mother. Who would also be horrified by this conversation.”

Sure enough, Esme stepped out of the stately front door and waved. She was in a classic navy blue dress and ivory pumps, with pearls around her neck and her dark hair tucked up demurely. Kimmie eyed her own orange pants, then Josh’s khaki slacks.

“She told me the other day she envies your ability to wear color,” Josh said.