Mal mutes the phone and turns to me with a blazing look in her eye. I’m terrified, actually, and I’m in awe. I commit this look to memory to write about later. “There is no such thing as ‘just a bake sale.’” Her words come out full of grit. She could file down marble with those S’s.
She unmutes again, turns back to Headmistress Moody still on speaker, and continues, “I don’t need a huge space. This is a decent-size campus. What about the theater? We could use the stage.”
Moody replies, “I’m afraid that’s already booked up every day after school between now and the winter musical.”
Mal nods and moves on as if this was not yet another speed bump. “Okay, how about the dining hall?”
Moody tells her that will only work if we have the bake sale right away on Thursday this week. The dining hall is booked for repairs for four weeks after that for a total renovation, including the kitchen.
Mal bites her lip, considering. “Thursday, huh?”
“The best I can do. I’ll understand if that’s too soon,” Moody says.
Mal glances at me.
I lean forward in my chair and clear my throat. I have no idea what I’m about to step into with my brand new friend who I’m not-so-secretly in love with, but I also don’t care. I want her to win, and I want her to beat the shit out of whoever it is that seems to be working against her.
“She has help,” I say.
Mal looks over at me and smiles.
As soon as we hang up the phone with Moody, we devise a plan. “I can get started today while you’re at school. And if you really do want to help, you can come by this afternoon. You can stay as long as you want. Shelby comes home tomorrow after school, and she can help me then.”
“What do you want me to do first, boss?”
It’s after school on Tuesday, and while I should be grading papers, I’m here, back in Mal’s kitchen. As if I could be anywhere else.
Mal taps her finger to her scrumptious bottom lip and thinks. While she does this, I can only fantasize about touching my own finger to that lip, that pillowy piece of heaven. Tasting that sugar. Running my fingertips over those angled cheekbones, furrowed brow, kissing the tip of her prominent nose, her strong chin. Gods in heaven, does she even know how striking she is?
“I’ve already made a few basic cakes today. Let’s move on to cookies and breads. There are a bunch of different cookie doughs chilling in the fridge I can roll out. Why don’t you get started on a sweet bread, those are easy enough.”
Mal rattles off a long list of ingredients and I have to snap my concentration away from the part of her shoulder that peeks out from her scoop-neck shirt, the beginning of the protuberance of collarbone. My desire to give it a gentle nibble fights against my desire to help her do what needs to be done.
I’ll tell you what needs to be done. She needs to be done, and you need to be the one to do her. Thoroughly and completely.
I can see now this is going to be a bad combination for getting any work done. The fire she stokes in my belly just being in her house, close to her, seeing her in that starchy apron. How does she make a starchy apron look sexy? Because she’s a goddess, that’s how.
I nod. “Yes, ma’am.”
My words come out rougher than intended, and she can be in no doubt of what’s going on in my head.
I slide off to the pantry with her rolling kitchen cart to retrieve the list of ingredients while she rolls out her cookie dough. The heat does not dissipate when she’s not under my gaze. If anything it prods some preternatural instinct. I’m sexually frustrated but also protective. I can’t even take my eyes off her for a few minutes without feeling the empty ache in my belly.
I stare blankly at the wall of canisters in her pantry. There’s plain white sugar, light brown sugar, dark brown sugar, raw sugar and a dozen other kinds I never knew existed. “What kind of sugar was it again, sugar?”
Her reply comes after a pause. “Uhm, regular white sugar and light brown. Honey.” The shy smile in her voice is undeniable.
My mind imagines that, within that pause, Mal allowed herself to accept me flirting with her. Maybe it’s easier for her to flirt back while not in the same room as me.
A sly grin spreads across my face as I get back to gathering supplies. She called me honey.
I’ll take it and I’ll float on that all week if I have to.
The honey between her legs will be that much sweeter the longer we wait.
Chapter Seven
Mal