Sugarlips (Beefcakes Book 2) by Katana Collins (best love novels of all time TXT) 📗

“You’re worried about me.” It wasn’t a question.

“Of course I am,” she laughed as she spoke. A breathy chuckle that raced across my skin.

I wanted to kiss her. I wanted to claim her lips once and for all before anyone else had the chance. Instead, I took a deep breath and a step back, handing her a spatula. I had to play this right if I was going to succeed. I had to make sure the next time I kissed her that there was no way she’d say no or push me away.

The next time I kissed her, it would be because she wanted me to.

“Well then,” I managed to say. “Let’s get baking.

22 Chloe

By six a.m., I had learned half the menu… the easy items, at least. I knew how to prepare the mac and cheese balls, and the cookies for the ice cream sandwiches. Okay, maybe that wasn’t half of the menu. But it was a start. And within two and a half hours, we were done with most of the baking—for both Beefcakes and The Dump Truck.

I washed my hands, looking over my shoulder at Liam triumphantly. “What time did you say you usually finish your baking for the day?”

He rolled his eyes. “You know I’m not usually done until after Finn or Neil has come in to open the bakery to customers around seven.”

Raising my brows, I grinned. “So maybe with both of us working together each morning, we can start a little later… and you can get more sleep?”

He crossed toward me, reaching around my hips to grab a tea towel. His sharp citrus and cedar scent twisted around me, fogging my thoughts. God, he smelled good. “You want to do this again?”

His words knocked into me, sending me off-balance. “I said I was going to help bake from now on… and I meant that.” Anger suddenly boiled inside of me. Did he not take me seriously either? After all we had been through together? “I’ll be here tomorrow. And the day after that. Every day you have to be here at three-thirty, I will be here at three-thirty. And I think we should have at least one designated day off for the truck. To give us both a much-needed break.”

He nodded, then fell back, leaning against the counter. “Maybe… Wednesdays?”

“Wednesday it is,” I repeated. Still, I was annoyed. And tears stung the backs of my eyes. Why did it hurt so damn much that Liam didn’t take me seriously? I was used to this feeling with other people. Almost everyone in my life saw me as flighty … I guess I just thought Liam would be different. That Liam would think I was different.

I grabbed a metal sheet pan, poured some dish soap onto a sponge, and started scrubbing dishes furiously in the sink, dropping pan after pan into the sudsy water.

The silence was tense for a long minute, and I nearly scratched the pan with how hard I scrubbed. Finally, Liam said, “You’re angry.”

“Well deduced, Hardy Boy,” I said, my voice cutting sharply through the sound of running water.

“Chloe,” he admonished. “Why the hell are you mad?”

I balanced the clean cupcake pan on the drying rack and whirled around to face him. He was standing close to me—closer than I expected—and I lost my balance, my lower back pressing against the edge of the sink as I caught myself. “Because… you don’t take me seriously. Just like everyone else in my life, you thought I’d be here for a day and then gone tomorrow. You saw Tasmanian Chloe with her latest flight of fancy… this week: Baking!” I held up jazz hands to emphasize the point.

I moved to storm off, but Liam quickly stepped in my way, not letting me pass. “Don’t tell me what I see when I look at you,” he said, his voice eerily calm. “Don’t pretend you know anything that I’m thinking.” His voice held a quiet calm, but I could hear the warning growl within it.

“And look!” I threw my hands up, interrupting him. “Now I’m a bitch. I’m irrationally angry, and even though it’s stupid and I shouldn’t even be mad, I am and I’m not the quiet kind of girl who can sit silently by to let my anger diffuse on its own, okay?” I huffed an exhale and crossed my arms.

There was a spark in his eyes; a flaming ember that both excited and scared me as he took yet another predatory step closer. “I’m not asking you to change. I didn’t ask you to hold your anger in. All I asked was why you were angry.”

I licked my lips and felt the moisture brimming in my eyes against my blink. “I know,” I whispered. “But most people ask me to change in one way or another. I figured it was just a matter of time.”

He shook his head. “Never.”

A burning breath stalled in my chest as all of the oxygen was sucked out of the room. “You say that now.”

“I’m sorry.” He searched my upturned face and even though he was standing intensely close to me, he didn’t touch me. And thank God for that. I was so desperate for the feel of his hands or lips on my body that one skim of a knuckle or brush of an elbow would have done me in. My body trembled underneath the scrutiny of his gaze. “I didn’t mean to insult you by insinuating you weren’t serious about helping me. I just know from experience that this life—a life of waking up hours before sunrise—it’s not fun. You won’t have a social life. You’re going to be falling asleep and taking naps at all hours of the day. And… this isn’t your dream.” He gestured around the kitchen. “You don’t want to be a baker. You love marketing. Do you really think you’re going to have time to grow your consulting