Emma hesitated, looking at various trays dotted over the table. Her eyes glazed over, rosebud lips parting with a soft exhalation. Yearning and lust all rolled up into one. Like that, I was turned on.

Jesus. Would this coffee ever end?

“Oh, I don’t . . .” Emma stalled, clearly at war with the desire for sweets. I got it. During the season and in training, we were hounded about what we put into our bodies. Fitness was everything, and trainers had particular ideas about how to achieve it. I was under no illusions: Hollywood had a shitty and exacting standard, especially for women.

Mamie put her hand on Emma’s slim wrist. “I used to be a model; did you know this?”

“Really?” Emma shook her head slightly. “I’m not surprised. You’re beautiful.”

Mamie always had been and was not the least bit humble about it, but she was good at acting the part. “How sweet you are.”

“Only stating a fact.”

From one stunning woman to another, I supposed.

“This was in the sixties and seventies.” Mamie selected a cardamom cake and gently placed it on the center of her plate like it was art. “Everyone had to be as thin as a stick. One was expected to live off water and cigarettes,” Mamie said with some asperity, but there was a teasing note as well.

Exaggeration was part of her lexicon. It threw some people off because they never knew when she was being serious. Those people never got a second invite.

Emma, however, grinned. “I haven’t tried the cigarette diet. I’m not certain my lungs could take it.”

“Most certainly not. Keep them pink and healthy, darling.”

“I’ll try.”

I didn’t want to think about anything pink or healthy on Emma. With a grunt, I reached for a vanilla-cherry macaron. Emma noticed—seemed she was as aware of me as I was of her—and then looked quickly away. Like me, she was trying to ignore the problem. Somehow, that only made it worse.

“But what is life without food?” Mamie continued with a shrug. “Not one I want to live in. So . . .” She slapped her hand down on the table. “This is what you do. Pick one thing to try, and you savor it. Eat your treat slowly, letting the flavors play over your tongue. And tomorrow?” Her shrug was insouciant. “If you feel you absolutely must do something, go for an extralong run up the hill. Or perhaps simply imagine doing it, and go on about your day, which is what I would do.”

Emma laughed. And every hair on my body lifted. Jesus, her laugh got to me every time I heard it. A bedroom laugh. The kind you expected to hear after a good long morning of lazy fucking, when everything was languid and warm, and you laughed for the simple fun of it.

I swallowed down a mouthful of macaron, and it nearly got stuck. I didn’t know why that particular analogy came to mind; I certainly never had mornings like that. I never relaxed enough with anyone to get there.

But the image remained. I saw her in the sunlight, golden hair spread over my rumpled pillow, her lips swollen and soft. Rubbing a hand over my face, I tried to get it together. I was not doing this. Sal’s gaze clashed with mine, and he looked about two seconds away from laughing his ass off. Yep. He knew exactly how badly I was affected.

“Imagine it, huh?” Emma said, still smiling.

I knew she was talking about exercising, but my randy newfound sex drive heard it differently and kept on imagining us in bed. Hell.

Mamie shrugged again. “As with life, food is meant to be enjoyed. Never go to war with it, for we rarely win.”

Emma’s smile held the brilliance of the sun.

I turned away and focused on Mamie. She was encouraging Emma to pick a pastry. For the first time in, well, ever, a tangle of nerves besieged my gut. I’d had people eat my food for years. I didn’t care one way or another what they thought of it. Baking and cooking were hobbies I did for myself—no one else. And yet here I was, wanting to impress this woman with what I had made.

Emma bit the inside of her cheek, pulling a little dimple in. She might as well have been a kid with that excited expression. “Mmm. I don’t know. They all look so good.” She tore her gaze away from the treats and looked around at the rest of us. “What do you suggest?”

Sal started in on the cookies. Mamie began to offer cake.

“The brest.” It came out of my mouth in a growled command.

Shit.

Emma’s eyes widened. “I’m sorry? Breasts?”

Sal snickered.

Shifting in my seat, I fought the urge to get up and flee.

Do not, under any circumstances, think of her bare breasts, asshole.

Yeah, too late.

“The paris-brest.” With a jerk of my head, I nodded toward the pastry shaped like a wheel. “It’s a dessert named in honor of a bicycle race at the turn of the nineteenth century.”

“Ah.” She flushed pink. It was cute. “Right. The brest.”

“It is most delicious,” Mamie said, doing an excellent job of hiding her amusement. “A pâte à choux pastry—you know, like you have in an éclair. Filled with praline cream and topped with fresh raspberries.”

“Oh, yes please.”

Before Mamie could reach for the serving knife, I did. I couldn’t help my-damn-self. If Emma was going to eat something I’d created, I was going to serve her.

Even if watching her eat would eventually kill me.

She gripped the sides of the table, as though trying to hold back from prematurely reaching for her plate. Greedy girl.

My dick approved. Far too much.

Calmly as I could, I served her a slice, adding some raspberries, and then served Sal so I’d have something to do with my hands. They felt too big and unwieldy as it was, made clumsy by a five-foot-six slip of a woman.

All my efforts to ignore Emma were a sham. The second she lifted the spoon, I sucked in a breath, watching her pink lips part, and caught a glimpse of her tongue. The whipped-cream confection slipped into her mouth, and she moaned.

The sound coiled around my cock, palmed my balls with hot hands. I nearly moaned too. I knew the taste in her mouth, how smooth that cream was on her tongue. That was my cream. I made it. My hands gave her that pleasure, whether she knew it or not. Her moans were because of me.

The rush of it washed over me, and I was a little dizzy.

She slid another dollop in her mouth. Slowly. Savoring it. Her lids dipped down. Lashes fluttered as she sighed.