Page 87 of Mixed Signals
I lean up onto my elbows and drag my hand over my face. The shuffling in the kitchen stops.
“Hey,” she says, a smile in her voice as she pops her head into my line of sight. “You’re awake.”
“Am I?”
My voice sounds like sandpaper. It doesn’t feel like I’m awake. It feels like I'm still caught in a dream. I sit up and yawn so wide my jaw cracks.
Layla’s laugh is warm and easy as she moves around the tall counter that separates her kitchen from the living room. She must have changed while I was asleep. Tiny, soft-looking shorts and an oversized t-shirt that falls off of one shoulder. Some flour on her elbow and something that looks like strawberry jam on her jaw. My heart hits double-time.
“You are, in fact, awake,” she tells me. She stops right in front of my slightly parted legs, one of her bare feet tapping at my shin. “Do you want your pie now?”
It’s the temptation of all her bare skin—maybe the mention of pie. I don’t know. I don’t want the pie at all. I only want Layla and her laugh and her smile and her hazel eyes shining bright with happiness in this cozy little house. I want the flour on her hands streaking through my hair, maybe that strawberry jam on my tongue.
She sways further into me and my hands find the warm skin behind her knees, fingertips tracing twin figure eights. One of her legs buckles and she grips my shoulders.
“Caleb.”
“Hm?”
“What are you doing?”
I’m trying to hold myself together, but I’m fraying in the middle. Every moment I spend in her space, I only want her more. I onlylikeher more. I run my hands up and down the back of her legs, a little higher with every pass. How haven’t I been touching her every moment of every day? My restraint deserves an award. My name in lights above the back counter at the bakehouse. Maybe one of those little golden plaques they sell down at the pawn shop.
I drop my head against her chest and she cards her fingers through my hair in that way I love so much.
“Were you baking?” I ask, my voice muffled by the material of her shirt. She smells like clean detergent and brown sugar. I want to live in this exact spot for the rest of my life.
She hedges. “Maybe.”
“Do you get tired of baking things?” I rub the hem of her shorts between my thumb and forefinger. Gray. Some sort of sweatshirt material. I want to sink my teeth into the waistband and tug.
“Not really.” She pauses and considers. “Well, sometimes. If it’s just for myself, I can’t muster the motivation.” She makes a small, interested sound in the back of her throat as I curl my hand around her thigh, my knuckles edging under the hem of her shorts. I squeeze possessively. “But you’re here,” she breathes on an exhale.
I nod. I still haven’t moved my face from her chest. I nuzzle at the curve of her breast through her shirt and she shifts on her feet. I can’t figure out if she’s wearing a bra.
“What were you making?”
“What?”
“Just now, what were you working on?” I drag my chin down her sternum, teeth barely grazing the soft swell of her.
Nope. She’s not wearing a bra.
“Oh.” Her back arches towards my mouth. “Jelly thumbprint cookies.”
I groan. I can’t help it. Something about Layla and cookies. Her laugh is husky and knowing.
She tips her head down until her mouth is right at my ear. “Marmalade,” she whispers. Goosebumps erupt along my arms. I shiver. “Shortbread,” she says, slower.
She makes a high-pitched squeaking sound as I stand from the couch, my hands just below the curve of her ass and her legs high around my hips. I consider the wall by her window, then the countertop still covered with flour and a little jar of orange marmalade. Neither option will work for what I want with her, but there’s an interesting idea on the tip of my tongue for the spoon resting across the half-open lid. I want more space than the countertop will give me. I want to take my time.
“Can I make you come again?” The question slips out of me, more blunt than I like to be. But need has me frantic, hands shaking and mouth working at her neck in between every gasped word. Layla drops her head back with a pant and I give into temptation, pressing her up against the wall at the start of her short hallway. One of her frames rattles, and she grabs my jaw with her hand to guide my mouth to hers. Our kiss is messy. Hot and wet and desperate. There’s nothing else I want more than to sink to my knees on this colorful, plush rug and hook her thigh over my shoulder. I want to know what she tastes like, what she sounds like, what she looks like completely bare in the glow of the late afternoon sun.
Layla still has so many secrets that I haven’t uncovered.
I nose at her oversized t-shirt and bracket her hips with my hands. She keeps wiggling against me and I can’t—I can’t think. I can only remember the last time I had her this close to me. The sounds she made with my body between her legs. The color in her cheeks as she got closer and closer to what she needed.
We only have one week left together, and I intend to make the most of it.
