Regan shook her head. “No, no. None of that. I didn’t do what I did so I’d get something in return. I did it because you’re gorgeous and I’m stupidly attracted to you. Always have been.”
Ava pushed up onto one arm so she could look down at Regan’s face. “You have?”
Regan laughed softly at the shock clearly etched on Ava’s face. “Um, yeah. Have you seen yourself?”
At that, Ava flushed a pretty pink that Regan could see even in thedim lighting that shone through their open window. “Thank you,” she said softly.
“You seem…surprised. How come? Do you really not understand how beautiful you are?”
Ava’s swallow was audible, and she looked away for a beat before saying, “It’s not really something I was ever focused on. My childhood was…hard. I did my best to keep my head down, get good grades, and keep quiet.” Her gaze met Regan’s. “My dad. He was…hard.”
“I’m sorry,” Regan said, as she tried to imagine her sweet, kind, jovial dad making life hard for her. She couldn’t do it. “That sounds rough.”
Ava lay back down, and Regan got the impression it was so she could speak without Regan’s eyes on hers. “He had some issues. He’d get mad”—Ava snapped her fingers—“like that, so my mom and I just did our best not to piss him off. We weren’t always successful.”
“Did he…hit you?” Regan shook her head then. “You don’t have to tell me that.” She really wanted to know, but because she wanted to know everything about Ava. Everything. She also knew it was none of her business.
“No, he was never physical. But he could be mean.” Ava’s voice had gone very quiet. “My mom was too fat or too skinny or she wore too much makeup or she never wore enough or she didn’t make enough money or she made too much and he felt emasculated. He was never satisfied.” She cleared her throat. “It was the same with me. I dressed like a spinster and nobody would ever look at me or I showed too much skin and how did he raise such a slut. I didn’t get involved in enough extracurricular stuff at school, but then I tried out for softball and got on the team and suddenly I was too masculine and I’d end up a bull dyke. His words, not mine.” She sighed. “I walked on a lot of eggshells growing up.”
“God, it sounds like it. I’m so sorry.” Regan pulled her closer, slightly alarmed by how badly she wanted to protect this woman, to wrap her up and keep her away from all harm. Unrealistic, and alsowaytoo soon for that, but she couldn’t help it. She felt it.
She felt Ava’s shrug under her hand. “He’s gone now, so…”
“Gone as in…?”
“He died a few years ago. Heart attack. Not a surprise given howmuch anxiety he had around everybody and everything in his life.” Her tone was interesting to Regan, like she was trying to shrug it off and act like it was no big deal, but also like that wasn’t the case at all.
“I’m sorry.”
“No need.” Ava blew out a breath and glanced up at her. “The past is the past, right?” And before Regan could answer, Ava kissed her, hard and with purpose, and that was the end of conversation.
Regan was all right with that.
Chapter Thirteen
For the next week, the two of them couldn’t wait until the day was over and they could get back to their room. Ava was trying hard to be super conscious of appearances. Would she rather go to happy hour with the other attendees and assistants or go back to their room and rip Regan’s clothes off with her teeth?
I mean, it’s no contest. Teeth-ripping of clothes will win every time.
But they couldn’t just not go to stuff with the others. They were there for a baking retreat, not to fuck every chance they got. Much as she wanted to.
That thought sent a rush of heat through her body as she patiently added a tablespoon of sugar at a time to the egg whites being beaten in her mixer. They were making meringues today, and Liza Bennett-Schmidt was walking around observing. Across the aisle, she was at Regan’s station.
“You look tired,” Chef said to Regan. “Not enough sleep?”
“Probably not,” Regan said with a smile that, when Ava glanced over, seemed slightly guilty and a lot sexy.
“Maybe you need to tell Chef Prescott over there to let you up for air every now and then.” Without missing a beat or seeming to notice Regan’s wide eyes or the horror on Ava’s face, she pointed to Regan’s mixer. “Don’t overbeat that. You’ll ruin the cookies.”
She walked on back to Madison’s station.
Ava met Regan’s eyes across the aisle and watched as she rolled her lips in and bit down on them, then refocused on her mixer.
What?How did she know? How could Liza possibly know whatwas going on? And judging by the soft chuckles and smiles around the kitchen, others knew as well.
She reined in the panic she felt suddenly building and clenched her teeth hard until it eased up. It wasn’t like they weren’t grown-ass women and consenting adults. They weren’t doing anything wrong. That being said, Ava really didn’t love the idea of everybody there knowing her business, especially when it came to sex. With a shake of her head, she turned her concentration to her mixer and tried her best to put the rest out of her mind.
It was a drawback she hadn’t considered when she’d decided to add “sex with her roommate” to her list of things she worked on at the Bennett-Schmidt Baking Retreat: a slight lapse in focus. She was there to learn everything she could from a world-renowned pastry chef. But when she looked down at the fluffy meringue in her mixing bowl, with its glossy finish and stiff peaks, all she could think about were Regan’s breasts, how they felt in her hands, in her mouth. She felt a surge of dampness in her underwear, a lump in her throat, and a steady throbbing between her legs. The same thing had happened yesterday when she was kneading dough and the day before that when she was filling cream puffs. Everything reminded her of Regan’s body. Everything took her back to their room, to her bed or to Regan’s bed—’cause they’d mixed it up and used both beds, as well as the floor and the shower, both desks, and also the vanity in the bathroom. There really wasn’t anyplace left in their enormous room that they hadn’t christened. Ava was sore in muscles she didn’t know she had. She was drinking so much water because she was dehydrated. She wondered if she’d lost any weight due to all the calories they were burning. It made her smile. She couldn’t help it.
