Page 21 of The Gingerbread Bakery (Dream Harbor #5)

Chapter Nineteen

Then

A nnie was making out with Mac. There was no other way to describe it. His mouth was on hers, his fingers raking through her hair. They were making out. And Mac was really damn good at it.

Annie pulled back a little so she could see him in the soft glow of the Christmas lights.

She’d strung several strings over his bed for ambiance, and now they were curled up together just like they had been that first night she stayed over, except this time Mac was not keeping his hands to himself.

And Annie liked it just a little too much.

He smiled at her, the skin crinkling at the corner of his eyes.

‘Hey,’ he said. ‘Everything okay?’ He’d been doing that all night.

Checking in when he kissed her, when his hands found their way to her ass and squeezed.

He’d asked all along the way if she liked it, if she was okay, if she was comfortable.

It was unexpected and thoughtful. Apparently, she was still underestimating Macaulay Sullivan.

‘Yeah, everything’s great,’ she said with a dopey smile she couldn’t seem to stop.

She’d done a lot of dopey smiling today as she and Mac had scoured the mall for a gift.

They’d found quite a few contenders, but Mac had vetoed them all.

She was starting to get the feeling that he was rejecting gifts just so they could keep looking.

‘Good,’ he said. ‘Everything is good for me, too.’ His smile turned mischievous as his hands roamed over the curve of her hip and back again.

Annie scooched closer to him on the bed, marveling at the fact that only a few weeks ago she had fantasized about doing this, and now she got to.

She laid a hand on his chest, feeling the strong beat of his heart beneath her palm.

He was firm and solid, and she liked touching him. His smile grew.

‘I’m glad you were bored enough to hang out with me this month,’ he said.

‘Now that I know you better, I might even consider hanging out with you when I'm not bored.’

‘Wow,’ Mac raised his eyebrows in mock surprise. ‘That is a high compliment coming from you.’ He leaned forward and pressed another kiss to her lips. Annie couldn’t help the curve of her smile against his mouth.

‘Well, I do have very high standards,’ she said with a soft laugh.

‘I'll try my best to live up to them.’ He used the arm he had draped over her to pull her closer, tucking her tight against his body as he deepened the kiss. His tongue slid against hers and she found herself making needy little moaning sounds and arching against him. Things she had never done in her entire life but that felt right with Mac. She wanted more. More kissing, more pressure, more everything. His hands were moving faster now. Firmer. Never dipping beneath her clothes but tracing every curve and inch of her. Their kissing became more frantic, sloppier. Their hands, grasping and groping. Annie was burning , wanting things she had never really wanted in any concrete way before, wanting this man in ways she had never wanted anyone else, and she felt like she might actually combust if he didn’t do something to fix it, to ease the ache inside of her.

She was counting on Mac here because she felt completely out of her element.

Unmoored by the intensity of her feelings.

For the first time in her life, Annie’s body didn’t feel like her own.

She didn’t recognize it like this. And it was both exhilarating and terrifying.

‘Wait,’ Mac gasped, pulling back.

His hands were on either side of her face holding her in place. His eyes were dark, his lips swollen from kissing her.

‘What's the matter?’ she asked, her breath still coming in short spurts. Had she done something wrong? Judging by the erection pressed against her belly she’d assumed she was doing okay but, again, she was out of her element.

A few hurried orgasms alone in her shower with one or two siblings banging on the door hadn’t exactly made her an expert.

Mac squeezed his eyes shut and then opened them like he was trying to get his bearings. He tucked a piece of her hair behind her ear, brushing his knuckles along her cheek. ‘Nothing’s the matter. I just thought maybe now would be a good time to make some cookies.’

Annie blinked. Had all the kissing given her some sort of brain injury? ‘You want to make cookies?’

Mac swallowed hard, clearly still trying to regroup. ‘Yeah, I thought you could teach me how to make those little gingerbread men.’

‘Right now?’ Annie didn’t understand what was happening. Her thoughts were still filled with want and need and Mac .

‘Yeah.’

‘You want to stop what we’re doing and go make cookies?’

Mac nodded, his hair crackling with static against the pillow. ‘I thought it might be a good time for a break.’

‘Oh,’ Annie cringed at the sound of disappointment in her own voice. He wanted to stop.

‘If we don’t take a break now,’ he said, pressing his forehead to hers, his fingers still playing in her hair. ‘Then we might make decisions we’ll regret, and I really don't want to do anything that you'll regret, Annie.’

The reality of the last few minutes slowly started to seep into Annie's kiss-addled brain. In the heat of the moment, she had definitely been on the edge of making decisions she wasn’t sure she would make when Mac’s tongue was not in her mouth.

‘Right, good idea,’ she said, still marveling at his restraint.

She had been about two rolls of his hips against her from giving it all up and maybe she still wanted to.

But Mac was right. She didn’t want to do anything she would regret later.

Sure, she fully believed that virginity was only a social construct, but her first time was still her first time . It was still a big deal.

‘But for the record,’ he said. ‘I don’t regret any of that.’

Annie smiled. ‘Me neither.’

Mac pressed one more kiss to her lips before rolling over and staring at the ceiling. ‘I’m going to need a minute or two to think about baseball, or that time I reached into my cereal box and pulled out a dead mouse.’

‘Ew, God.’

‘I know, very traumatic. But it works. You can feel free to head up to the kitchen and rummage around for ingredients. My mom’s on the night shift tonight, and Dad’s at the pub so we’ll have the kitchen to ourselves.’

Annie didn’t think thinking about baseball would do much to help her and she certainly wasn’t going to think about dead mice in her cereal, but a few minutes away from Mac would probably be a good idea.

She hurried upstairs leaving him on his bed with an arm draped over his eyes.

The bottom of his T-shirt had ridden up just enough to give her a glimpse of tan stomach before she left. That definitely didn’t help.

Alone in Mac's kitchen, she took some deep breaths, pressing the back of her hand to her cheek. She was still burning hot. What had that boy done to her? Whatever it was, she didn’t hate it.

But she needed to calm down. It was time to bake cookies, not tackle Mac onto his kitchen floor.

She took the opportunity to snoop around the kitchen a bit.

It was a decent size with honey-colored cabinets from the nineties just like her parents had before they’d finally redone it last year.

Plenty of counter space with a table tucked in the corner where she and Mac had had breakfast a couple of weeks ago.

From the window over the sink, Annie could look out at the driveway and the neighbor’s house.

To her surprise, she found Mr. Prescott, the mailman, at his sink waving to her.

She had the bizarre impulse to duck down, like she needed to hide this visit to Mac’s house, but it was probably safe for the mailman to know.

She gave him a little wave back before stepping away from the window, making a note to herself that if she was going to jump Mac’s bones, she probably shouldn't do it there.

The old linoleum creaked under her feet as she opened a few cabinets trying to figure out where the baking supplies were kept. Instead, she found a cupboard full of souvenir mugs and an alarming amount of potato chips in every flavor imaginable.

‘Big chip fan?’ she asked, hearing Mac’s footsteps behind her.

He chuckled. ‘No, but my mom is. It’s her only vice. She gets home from a long shift and can devour an entire bag of those things by herself.’

‘Wow, that's impressive for such a tiny lady.’

‘She really packs them away.’

‘Your mom’s a nurse, right?’

‘Yep. NICU nurse. She basically saves little babies.’ The pride on Mac’s face when he talked about his mom was too adorable to face head-on, so Annie continued browsing his cupboards.

‘Where do you guys keep the baking supplies?’ she asked.

‘That's an excellent question, Annie, and one that I feel I should have the answer to. However…’

‘It's your own house, Mac. How do you not know where the baking supplies are?’

‘This might surprise you,’ he said, ‘but I’m not exactly a big baker. Which,’ he continued with a grin, ‘is why I need these lessons.’

‘It’s a good thing I’m here, then,’ Annie said, turning to face him.

He grinned. ‘It’s a very good thing.’

The look on his face sent a multitude of inappropriate thoughts racing through her head. She turned abruptly and opened the freezer, sticking her head inside, desperate for anything that would cool her down.

‘I don't know if you’re going to find what you’re looking for in there,’ Mac said with a laugh. She felt him come up behind her, his head joining hers inside the freezer. ‘I’m pretty sure we don’t keep the baking supplies in here.’

‘It was worth a look,’ Annie said. ‘And I was feeling a bit overheated,’ she admitted.

‘Did you try thinking about dead rodents in your breakfast?’

She grimaced. ‘I most certainly did not. And I will be spending a lot of time erasing that image from my mind, actually.’