Page 103 of Astrid Parker Doesn't Fail

“Hey, now, that was a two-way street.”

Jordan hooked an arm around her bare waist and yanked her close. “It certainly was.”

Astrid went in for another kiss, sort of ready to go for orgasm number eleven, if she was being honest—shit, maybe shewasobsessed with sex—but then Jordan released her and angled away.

“Nope, nope, we have other plans this morning,” she said.

“We do?” Astrid eyed the counter covered in flour, vanilla extract, white and brown sugar, eggs, baking chocolate, and myriad other sundry items, all of which looked brand-new. Astrid had a lot of baking supplies in her pantry, but she was pretty sure most of it was expired.

“Did you go out and buy all of this?” she asked.

Jordan nodded, chewing at one corner of her lip. “I might have gone a little overboard.”

Astrid blinked. “But... why?”

Jordan smiled shyly. “I want you to bake something for me.”

“Bake something.”

Jordan nodded. “You told me baking used to be your dream.”

Astrid thought back to that conversation at Iris’s. She scanned the ingredients Jordan had collected, her heart suddenly in her throat, her fingertips tingling.

“If I bake you a cake, will you sing for me?” she asked, collecting on the promise Jordan had made her in front of Iris’s rainbow shelves.

Jordan narrowed her eyes. “You remember that, huh?”

“I’m not one to forget.”

Jordan laughed. “No, you’re not. Okay. You bake me a cake, I’ll sing you a love song.”

Astrid’s brows lifted, a picture taking shape in her mind. Jordan Everwood holding her close, her husky voice in her ear, singing a melody.

A love song.

She really wanted that love song.

“Deal,” she said.

THE MORNING SPILLEDinto the afternoon, light brightening, then fading, and by four o’clock Astrid’s kitchen counters were covered in confections.

She’d baked Jordan her cake. A simple yellow cake with chocolate icing, which apparently was Jordan’s favorite. But then, once Jordan had tasted it and proceeded to pretend to pass out from how good it was, Astrid sort of... bloomed.

That’s what it felt like. A closed-up flower that the sun had finally found. It was as though she forgot everything that came before this weekend—she forgot about her mother’s expectations, she forgot about the Everwood, she forgot aboutInnside America, she forgot about the rolling sense of dread she’d felt lately when she did think about all of those things.

Instead, she remembered what it felt like to work hard on something she truly loved. There’d been glimpses of this at Bright Designs—a particularly creative accent wall, or that feeling of satisfaction she got when a client really loved the end result, but all of those moments were nothing compared to this... thisblissthat zinged through her veins as she dipped her hands into a knot of dough, as she measured the right amount of sugar and butter and yeast and then watched it all come together into this brand-new creation.

It felt like magic.

Jordan was her dutiful taste-tester and assistant that afternoon, wearing a green-and-white gingham apron and passing her ingredients and washing out bowls and measuring cups, pressing kisses to her temple with her hands on Astrid’s waist while Astrid whipped egg whites into a French meringue.

Soon, her kitchen was covered in three whole cakes, a dozen pumpkin-apple muffins—the flavor of which had Jordan emitting orgasmic sounds that made Astrid feel like she could fly—a batch of dark chocolate–cinnamon brownies, and two dozen oatmeal-butterscotch cookies.

“Shit,” Jordan said, polishing off a cookie. “I’d say you definitely earned yourself a love song.”

Astrid grinned at her, aching hands on her hips. Flour dusted her arms, her cheeks, and every muscle in her body felt like it wanted to curl into a cramp, butshitwas right. She surveyed her work and took a bite of a cookie.

“We should take some of these to Claire and Iris,” she said, chewing and tapping her finger against the cookie’s golden-brown edge. “We used to make these as kids.”