The Copper Valley Bro Code Series: Volume 1, page 72
“But what do you want to do?”
“Stop you from asking annoying questions that are irrelevant to my current life situation.”
I smile, but I don’t feel it. “Okay. How do you like your steak?”
“I don’t know. Medium something? Whatever.”
“You don’t—” I cut myself off, because of course she doesn’t know.
She grew up poor, and I know the Army doesn’t pay shit for the first few years. Maybe more.
She’s probably never had a truly good cut of steak.
“It was always either mooing or super tough whenever I had it at the dining facility and on deployment they boil it first,” she grumbles. “I like chicken. At least I know to expect it to be rubber.”
“One Grady Rock steak special coming up. And if you hate it, there are Cocoa Krispies in the pantry.”
She curls into the chair and gives me a small smile. “Sorry I’m being a butt.”
“Thanks for being comfortable enough to be a butt.”
I tug her hair and kiss her forehead, then head to the kitchen.
Maybe she’ll like dinner.
Maybe she won’t.
But she’s staying.
And that’s all I care about.
32
Annika
My limbs are so heavy, I think someone must’ve put lead weights in my fingers and toes while I was sleeping. But I manage to pull myself out of the massage chair—I am so getting one of those if I ever win the lottery, which I won’t, since I don’t play, but a girl can still dream—and I make my creaky bones move to the kitchen area to dig for forks and knives and plates while Grady steps outside and fires up the gas grill.
Sue comes back inside with him, and I swear the goat is panting like a dog.
I scratch him behind his ear, and he circles the two of us until I’m somehow getting a Grady hug again.
“Why is there a box of cake mix on the counter?”
“Annika-proof cookies.”
I snort.
Sue snorts.
Grady rubs my neck, and oh.
How long has his cannoli been back?
Inspecting the baked goods in his pants seems a much better use of a free evening than baking.
Except it’s not. Because I need to be able to keep the bakery going until we can find a more permanent solution.
The bakery is the only thing Mama gets excited about.
Well, that and Roger.
“You do any of the decorating?” Grady asks.
“I tried. Bailey told me it looked like a small dog pooped on her perfect peanut butter cupcakes, and to please just stand back and look pretty and let her do the heavy lifting.”
He doesn’t answer, but he does trail his hand up my neck until he’s teasing my roots, and this isn’t how Mama told me babies were made, but he’s turning my scalp on and making me want to rip all my clothes off and offer him my whole body for physical inspection.
I wonder if he feels this good when I touch him.
I assume so.
And that cannoli poking my stomach would suggest so.
But I let my hands take a little field trip to the land of Grady’s rock-hard ass and give it a stroke over the denim covering his skin.
His cannoli pushes harder into my belly and his breath catches in his chest.
Pulse is definitely picking up. I can feel it under my ear.
I give his cheeks another test squeeze.
“Annika,” he warns.
“You didn’t invite me just for baking lessons,” I whisper.
“You’re tired and stressed and I’m not going to take advantage of that.”
“But you want to?”
“No. I want you to be happy with everything settled, and for you to still want me to strip you naked and make love to you until the sun comes up. I don’t mind being your stress relief, but I want to be more. I want us to be more.”
“You’re already more.”
I could do without the lying part, and the sneaking out here when my family thinks I’m with Liliana part, and even the part where he wants to talk about what my dream career is, because I don’t know.
And I don’t like that I don’t know.
I’ve been out in the world for a decade.
Shouldn’t I know what I want to do with my life by now?
Not that I currently have much of an option, but if I did…what would I do?
The timer goes off on his phone, and he squeezes me tight for a second before he lets me go. “Time to flip the steaks.”
I finish setting the table while Sue watches.
He’s a friendly goat.
Doesn’t seem prone to leaving messes inside.
I wonder if Grady trained him, or if goats are more domesticated than I thought.
Wait.
Have I ever thought about goats being domesticated?
“Annika? Can you set the oven to three-fifty?” Grady asks through the sliding screen door.
“Afraid to come in and do it yourself?”
“Yep. Also, it’s step one in baking no-fail brownies.”
“You realize you just cursed us by calling them no-fail brownies?”
His dimples pop out—both of them—and why didn’t I let him kiss me on graduation night?
Why didn’t I tell him how much I was going to miss him?
That when I was ready, he’d be the one I wanted?
That I’d be home in four years, that I’d go to college in Copper Valley, that there was no one else I’d want by my side as a partner to deal with anything horrible that ever happened?
“Annika?”
I leap toward the double wall ovens. “Three-fifty. Right.”
Sue trots beside me and maaas at me when I stare dumbly at the controller. “Upper or lower oven?”
“Your choice.”
I don’t want to pick.
If I pick wrong, I’ll ruin his no-fail brownies.
If I’d let him kiss me, I wouldn’t have been able to get on that bus to head off for basic training.
“I’m really mad at you for being a dick when I got home,” I call to him.
“I’m mad at me too.”
It’s not flippant or sarcastic.
It’s quiet and regretful.
“I’m mad at me for being afraid of leaping and trusting you,” I add quietly.
“Leaving took more courage than staying stuck in high school. You needed to go. I needed to go. We needed each other to go.”
“If I was home just to help my mama open a bakery, and she hadn’t gone blind, would you still be helping me?”
He doesn’t answer right away, but instead watches me through the screen door while I watch him right back.
“I missed you,” he finally says, “and I’d like to think I would’ve pulled my head out of my ass, but I don’t know. I’m glad you’re here though. And I appreciate the second chance.”
“I never had another best friend.”
“I never wanted another best friend.”
His alarm goes off again.
“Three-fifty. Just pick an oven.”
I pick the top one, but I think I accidentally hit the buttons to turn on the bottom one.
That’s basically how I roll in kitchens.
But Grady’s going to help me.
He’s not the enemy.
He’s my friend. He cares. And he knows how to fix this.
He knows how to fix me.
“I shouldn’t make relationship decisions when I’m tired and hungry and worn down,” I tell Sue.
He rolls his eyes like duh, lady, stick with the people who love you when you’re at your lowest, because they won’t let you down.
“You’re very wise for a goat.”
He snorts and licks up his own nose again.
“And also a little gross. But I’ll forgive you, because you’re a goat. Like the GOAT of goats.”
He tilts his head.
“That’s the Greatest Of All Time of goats,” I explain. “It’s an acronym—and you’re a goat. And probably don’t care. If I don’t like my steak, do you get to eat it?”
“He’d eat toilet paper and think it was foie gras,” Grady tells me as he slides open the screen door and steps inside with two perfectly grilled steaks and two aluminum foil packets in the shape of corn on the cob.
My belly suddenly gives a rumble, and I realize I haven’t eaten since breakfast.
That was probably a mistake.
“C’mon,” Grady says with a grin. “It’s time to eat.”
33
Grady
While we eat, we tell each other stories about things we’ve done and seen the last ten years, falling back into those easy patterns of listening, teasing, and sharing, no judgment, just curiosity.
We pretend we’re not playing footsie under the kitchen table, and Annika finishes every last bite of her steak, and then eats four more bites of mine before she finally leans back in her seat with a contented sigh. “Okay. I’m sold. Steak is delicious when it’s cooked right, and I’m positive the only reason I’ve never been able to bake is because I’ve never had a meal that delicious to warm me up. Watch out, ovens. I’m coming for you now.”
“That’s the spirit.”
We clean up quickly, shoulders bumping, hands touching, with Sue trying to push us into each other at every opportunity until I finally kick him out of the house.
I turn back around and find Annika at the island, staring down the flour, butter, and cake mix box. “I will own you,” she growls to it.
I stifle a laugh. “I see where the first problem is. Here. Watch.”
I stop behind her and press her body to the countertop, then guide one of her hands to the cake mix box, which we pet like it’s a dog. Or a goat. “Repeat after me. Hello, lover. Let’s make some music.”
“Are you talking to me or the cake mix?”
“You’re not repeating. Let’s try again. I can’t wait to sink my fingers into your silky depths.”
“Okay, hot flash in the hooha, but is cake mix really silky?”
If I weren’t already hard as one of her normal baked creations, that would’ve done it. But I ignore my needy cock and slide a finger under the box lid to pop it open, then pull out the bag inside and slice it open with a knife out of the knife block. “Here. Feel.”
She twists her head to look at me.
“Feel,” I repeat.
I dip my hand into the bag and crumble the fine powder between my fingers. After a moment of hesitation, she does the same.
“Soft,” she says.
“Don’t tell me. Tell the mix.”
She giggles.
Home fucking run.
“You’re so soft,” she says shyly to the cake mix. “I kinda want to just keep fingering you.”
“That’s it,” I murmur while my cock pulses.
“This is so wrong,” she whispers.
“But it does feel good.”
“Silky,” she agrees. “And powdery. I better not get pulled over with powder all over me on the way home.”
“And I’m going to stir you until you give me all the good stuff,” I say to the mix.
She snort-giggles this time. “I am not saying that while my mama and sister are listening, so I don’t know how this is going to help me bake anywhere else.”
“It can hear your thoughts.”
“It’s cake mix.”
“Annika. You’re right. You have to bake. Do you want to do it the easy way, or do you want to do it the flaming brick of moon rock way?”
“Okay, okay. You’re so beautiful and powdery and not at all drug-like, and I want to make you wet.”
My aching cock surges against her, and she goes still.
“Did I do that?” she asks.
If I answer her, we’re not getting our baking lesson done. “Pour the mix into the bowl and tell it that it’s about to meet its soulmates.”
“Oh, baby, you get to have a seven-some for life,” she croons while she tips the bag into the Pyrex mixing bowl.
I swallow hard. “Threesome,” I correct. “But it’ll be good.”
“Seriously? Only three?”
“Cake mix, eggs, and oil.”
“What about butter?”
“You master this first, and we’ll talk about what you and I can do with butter.”
“I feel very turned on right now.”
“Tell it to the eggs, baby. Tell it to the eggs.”
I could get addicted to that giggle.
“Crack the eggs, but promise them it’ll be worth the pain,” I tell her.
“I can’t crack eggs.”
“They’re eggs.”
“But you’re watching. And I saw you do that one-handed egg thing the other night and if I tried that, I’d explode egg all over the kitchen.”
“Baking is a lot like sex. The messier, the better. And I’ll never object if you use both hands.”
“Hoo, boy, did you know nipples can have orgasms?”
Shit. My pirate mast just tried to raise another flag, and based on the way she’s rubbing her ass against it, she knows exactly what she’s doing. “You can’t say orgasm.”
“You mean when you’re denying both of us orgasms?”
“Crack the eggs, Annika. The cake mix needs some love.”
“It’s not the only thing in need of some love. Is steak an aphrodisiac?”
“Eating is an aphrodisiac.”
I reach around her and grab an egg, and I crack it single-handedly into the bowl.
“That’s really sexy. Do it again.”
“Annika—”
“The cookies will feel the love if we both feel the love, right? Do you work out, or are your arms this incredible because you spend all day working with your hands?”
“Both.”
My voice is strangled, and having her so close isn’t helping.
Nor is her mouth.
It’s like someone has turned off her filter and she’s either legitimately into me, or she’s trying to drive me crazy and she’s going to bury me in this bakery war.
I don’t care if she buries me.
Hell, I want her to bury me.
So long as I get to bury myself in her along the way.
Show her I can be what she deserves.
What she needs.
Finally convince her she can’t live without me. Because now that she’s back, I don’t know if I can live without her.
I swallow hard and crack the second egg.
“I could watch you do that all day long,” she whispers.
I palm her belly and pull her closer against me. “Grab the measuring cup and oil. We need a third of a cup.”
“Mm, oil. So slick and lubey.”
“Are you trying to torture me?” I murmur into her hair.
“Like you can talk, Mr. Food Porn. You feed me things that make my mouth happier than it’s been since the dining facility fixed their soft serve machine, and then you go and put those hands that bake so well on me, and you think I can resist?”
“The oil, Annika.” I’m holding on by a thread.
Do I want to boost her up on the counter and sprinkle cake mix all over her breasts and lick it off her?
Yes.
But she needs to learn to bake, and I’m trying to do the noble thing here, and it fucking sucks, but she needs this.
“Are you this bossy when you’re naked?” she murmurs while she pours the oil.
Christ. “Are you talking to me or the cake mix?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe one of you. Maybe both of you. Is baking like getting involved in BDSM? Because I don’t know much about the lifestyle, but I know I’m about to beat this cake mix until it begs for mercy.”
And now I’m picturing her in assless leather chaps, bent over the island while I slap her cheeks, and that’s never really done it for me before, but I’m having to concentrate damn hard on just breathing to keep from blowing my load in my pants.
“Is there a magic trick to stirring the dough?” she asks.
“Batter,” I rasp out, momentarily confused, because she’s short-circuiting my brain.
“Butter? You smear it with butter?”
“Annika.”
“I’m not a cock tease, you know,” she says. “I’m just enjoying the foreplay.”
“We don’t have to—”
“But don’t you want to?”
“I want to earn you. To deserve you. And since you’ve been home, I’ve done a piss-poor job of it.”
She frowns up at me, studying me like she’s looking for the real me, the kid who used to wait for her by her locker in the morning, or maybe the me who almost kissed her at our sophomore homecoming dance when she showed up in a second-hand dress that some of the rich girls were whispering about because it was one of their hand-me-downs, or maybe the me who used to compete with everyone for everything until the first time she tried one of my cookies, when she looked at me and said, you need to quit trying to beat your brother in baseball and put your heart into doing what you LOVE. And by that, I mean bake, because this is almost as good as my mama’s.
Or maybe she’s looking for the guy who learned his lesson about pushing too hard, too fast, and who would wait for years so long as he knew he had a chance.
I fell.
I fell hard at fourteen.
And I never got up.
“We need to mix the dough,” I tell her.
She breaks eye contact and reaches for a wooden spoon, and I cover her mixing hand with mine and guide her through the strokes.
My pulse is whipping like a KitchenAid dialed up to ten. I can’t smell the cake mix, because I’m consumed with the scent of her shampoo. My hands are shaking, and my cock has never been this hard.
“Is it supposed to be this thick?” she asks, and I don’t know if she’s talking about the dough or my raging hard-on poking her back.
So I just say, “Yes,” and we keep mixing.
While my hand drifts lower on her belly.
Her breath is coming faster too now. “Are you a two spoons guy, or a scoop guy?”
“I’m a you guy.” I pull open the drawer to the right of us and feel blindly for the cookie scoop I saw earlier while I press my lips to the side of her neck. “But here. This’ll work for the dough.”
