Callie felt his strong hands encircle her back and pull her into him. She felt safe and hot and scared and wet and she wanted to curl up inside Tobey and never come out.
“Ahem.” The bartender cleared his throat. And then again, but louder this time. “I think the bride and groom are trying to get your attention.” Callie heard the bartender from within a deep red fog, but she wanted to ignore it, if hearing him meant leaving heaven.
It was Tobey who finally pulled away from her. With one last heavy look, his devil-may-care grin was back on his face. Everything hit her at once, and Callie felt as if she had been thrown from a hot tub to a cold plunge with no warning. But it was worse than that. Everyone at the wedding had just witnessed her throwing herself at a stranger.
Knowing her thoughts, Tobey leaned in and whispered, “No one could see you behind me. There’s nothing to worry about.”
Callie nodded quickly as tears welled up in her eyes for the hundredth time that day. Unable to meet his eyes, she turned and ran blindly away from the gathering, instinctively heading for the one place that she would feel safe again—the kitchen.
She darted through the swinging door and stepped to the left just in time to avoid a collision with one of the waiters. Her eyes wild, she ran past the prep area, past the stoves, rounded a corner and found refuge in the walk-in refrigerator. Stepping inside, she slumped down onto an upside down milk crate and tried to catch her breath.
She was just going to have to hide in the refrigerator until the reception was over. It was either that or risk running into Tobey again. Which she definitely couldn’t do. One more minute so near to him, and she’d be naked and riding him for sure.
Chapter Two
“May the bride and groom have true love forever!” Tobey raised his champagne glass in a toast to James and Jane, doing his best to act the part of the happy best man, but all he could think about was the little blonde vixen who had just run away from him.
“Has anyone seen Callie?” Jane asked after the endless toasts were through. At her guest’s blank stares, she added, “She made the incredible truffles.” People moaned with remembered pleasure and licked their lips and said things like, “Better than sex,” and “Are there more?”
Tobey smiled. He should have known that Callie had something to do with candy.
Candy was, after all, his specialty. And Callie was so damn sweet, especially her plump lips and the succulent patch of skin at the base of her neck. He couldn’t wait to taste the rest of her. He was going to run his tongue over every inch of her body, from her lush breasts and her taut nipples, which he was guessing were a dusty rose on the light creamy skin of her breasts, to the valley between her thighs, and…
Jane’s voice cut through his X-rated daydream. “Darn. I wish she was here so I could officially thank her for making those incredible truffles that everyone has been raving about.” Jane reached for her new husband’s hand. “Plus, if it weren’t for Callie’s Candies, James and I would have never found each other.” James leaned over and frenched his newly wedded wife. Tobey shifted from one foot to the other in discomfort and looked away. Get a room, he thought, but then, he and Callie had practically been humping at the bar, so who was he to complain?
When his best friend was finally done kissing his bride, he turned towards Tobey with a knowing grin. “Any idea where Callie might be?”
“Not a clue,” Tobey answered truthfully. “But I’d be happy to go find her for you.”“I bet you would,” James said with a wink. “For us.” Finally free of his best man duties, Tobey headed for the door that Callie had run through. He hoped that she hadn’t left the reception altogether. They had some unfinished business to take care of. Preferably while they were naked in a room with a lock.
“The kitchen,” he said to himself, when he walked into the large cooking area.
“That makes sense.”
“Did anyone see a small blonde woman run through here?” One of the waiters nodded towards the hall behind the prep area and the stoves.
“She went back there.”
Tobey nodded his thanks. Once he had walked around the corner into the hidden, back area of the kitchen, he saw two large doors, both big enough for him to step through. Opening the door to his right, he realized it was a commercial freezer, packed full of ice cream containers and huge bags of ice.
He closed the heavy freezer door and turned his gaze to the refrigerator door, a broad grin taking over his face. He almost felt sorry for his hot little candy maker.
She may have intended on cooling off in the fridge, but he was going to make sure that she got hot, hot, hot instead.
* * * * *
Callie heard a noise in the hall and looked up through the thick, frosted glass on the refrigerator door. “Shit,” she whispered. A tall man in a tux was standing just outside the door. It had to be Tobey. She tried to push herself back further into the shelves, hoping that her dark pink dress would help her to blend in with the crates of supplies.
Maybe if she didn’t move, didn’t make a sound, didn’t even breathe, he would go away. And she could be left in peace with her memory of the taste of his skin and the beating of his heart on her lips.
Callie had spent the past ten minutes rubbing the goose bumps on her arms and trying to convince herself that she had had enough of Tobey. She had firmly decided that she was going to be perfectly happy masturbating in the shower to the sexy picture of Tobey that she had fixed in her mind’s eye. She didn’t need to see him, didn’t need to touch him, didn’t need any more of his kisses.
But now that he was standing only feet from her—somehow she had known all along that he would find her and now he had—it was all she could do not to fling the door open, pull him inside the cramped 5’x5’ space with her, and rip all of his clothes from his body.
Who was she kidding? She wasn’t going to be content with just the memory of him, with just her dreams of what it would be like to feel him naked against her, writhing in pleasure.
At the same time, an annoying inner voice of reason was telling Callie that there was no use in giving in to her baser needs. One night of mind-blowing sex wasn’t going to help anything. It wasn’t going to save her business. It wasn’t going to save her pathetic love life.
Although, she thought with a grin, it was guaranteed to be fun.