The Sweet Life Read online

  “Hey,” he said.

  “Hey,” I returned. We stood there staring into each other’s eyes and I already wanted to kiss him. The date hadn’t even started, and I already wanted to slam him on the table and kiss his face off.

  I shook the thought from my head and waved toward the booth before I returned to my seat. Levi sat and the waiter came rushing over the moment his ass hit the sit.

  He introduced himself as Gage and read off the specials for the day. But he never took his eyes off of me as he spoke. He was an attractive guy, I could admit that, but he wasn’t my type. No one seemed to be my type when all I could think about these days was a five foot seven inch, black haired, blue eyed, walking wet dream.

  I glanced at Levi who was staring at the waiter with a raised brow. He seemed amused if anything and that made me feel a lot better about this guy’s blatant dismissal of Levi. Even though I couldn’t understand for the life of me how anyone could dismiss him.

  “If you want my opinion, the crab cabs are to die for. You get, juicy succulent meat with every mouthful.” My eyes widened at the very obvious sexual inuendo and Levi chuckled. The guy glanced at Levi then and I saw the moment he realized he had “competition” even if there was no contest if I was the judge and it just so happened that I was.

  “Hmmm, Jax does tend to like things a little sweet, mixed with a bit of savory,” Levi said. He then fried every single braincell left in my head when he met my gaze and licked at his bottom lip. Everything short circuited as I followed the trail of his tongue. I wanted to crawl across the table and devour him. Fuck the food.

  The waiter cleared his throat and I forced my gaze away from Levi. The guy looked at me impatiently and Levi again chuckled. Apparently, I’d been staring for longer than I thought.

  “Right,” I said as I ordered a sampler platter along with a lobster tail. Levi ordered the seafood paella with extra clams. I made a mental note for future reference that he liked clams.

  When the waiter walked away with a huff, Levi sighed, “I really hope he doesn’t hack into my food.” I looked back toward the waiter who did look a bit peeved off, so I pulled out my phone and shot a text to my friend Holt, who worked in the kitchen. He replied with a ton of laughing emoji’s and promised to keep an eye out on the food.

  Levi was looking around the restaurant when I put my phone away and I took a moment to study him. He didn’t seem nervous or uncomfortable which was a good start. I know I said I wanted to see how things went but I was secretly hoping this went well.

  “This place is nice, a little cliché with the décor but I dig it,” he said, and I smiled at how his thoughts were so similar to my own.

  “People could say the same about my place,” I said, and Levi rolled his eyes.

  “There is absolutely nothing cliché about your bakery. Your desserts are not what people would consider conventional. They’re unique and delicious. Besides, no cliché bakery is shipping out goods across the country. To call it cliché is an insult and I know you know better than that.”

  I wasn’t expecting him to respond that way and warmth spread throughout my chest. My bakery was my pride and joy and even with its success, I sometimes still doubted myself and what I was doing. It could have a lot to do with the fact that my father was so sure I’d fail and that a part of me waited for him to be right. But in the two years that I’d been open, it showed no signs of slowing down.

  “Thanks, Levi,” I said, and he nodded, a shy blush creeping up on his cheeks. “So, your mom mentioned you went to college, what did you study?” I said and he jerked in surprise.

  “My mom told you that?” he asked, and I nodded, feeling a bit confused by his reaction.

  “Should she have not told me?”

  “No, no, it’s fine it’s just… sometimes I feel like they were ashamed of admitting I didn’t finish. We don’t ever really talk about it.” He stared down at the table and I could hear the bit of pain laced in his voice. It broke my heart that he thought his parents were ashamed of him. The brief chat I had with Elijah and after the speech Liliana had given me, I knew he had no reason at all to feel that way and I told him so.

  “Your parents love you. They aren’t ashamed of you. In fact your mom basically told me you were a genius. She also made me feel smaller than an ant in the same breath but that isn’t the point,” I said, and a tiny smile appeared on his lips. “Point is, I don’t think they could ever be ashamed of you. They love you and just want what’s best for you.”

  Levi studied me for a moment as if he was searching for something in my eyes. It took everything in me not to fidget under his intense gaze. His eyes were intense this close up and it felt like I was drowning in them.

  “I wanted to be a communication specialist, you know like for the FBI?” he said, and my brows shot up in surprise. Levi chuckled as he nodded his head. “Yep, Mom signed me up for my first French lesson when I was seven and I picked up on it fairly easy.”

  “You speak French?” I asked in surprised and Levi nodded before he said, “Oui, je parle français.”

  I knew enough French to know he only said he could speak the language, but my dick reacted as if he’d just said he wanted to suck me under the table. He spoke it with such ease. Almost like breathing. I swallowed past the knot in my throat and asked him just how fluent he was.

  “Fluent,” was his answer and suddenly I had very dirty thoughts of him speaking to me in French as I pounded him into a mattress.

  “Oh fuck me,” I grumbled.

  “If you play your cards right I just might,” he said with a wink and I was glad I hadn’t been drinking anything because I would have given a spit take to end all spit takes. Instead I took in a long draw of breath to calm my raging hormones.

  “You are trouble,” I said as I pointed a finger at him. It was a mistake because in the next second he leaned forward and took my finger into his hot, wet mouth. I made a sound between a grunt and a moan as his eyes locked with mine and he slid off my finger.

  I felt as if I was malfunctioning as he sat back in his seat with a smug grin on his face. I couldn’t speak or form a coherent thought as I tried and failed to get images of my dick sliding through those lips out of my head. I was pretty sure I didn’t care how the date went, what I knew was Levi Croft was going to be in my bed by the end of the night.

  Chapter Nine

  Levi

  I was playing with fire and God did I want to feel its burn. Jaxon looked so damn good that I had to stop myself from jumping him the moment I walked into the restaurant. I’d never seen a more perfect specimen in my life, and it was surreal that he wanted me. There was no doubt about that in my head, especially with the way he looked at me as I walked toward him. He was just as attracted to me as I was to him and that was enough for now.

  Our banter was easy as breathing and I found it refreshing. Conversation wasn’t forced and it was easy to talk to him. I was a bit surprised that my mom had brought up my college days and I wanted to ask what sparked that conversation, but I decided it wasn’t important it was what he said after that mattered.

  I did believe my parents were a bit ashamed of me and I honestly wouldn’t have blamed them if they were, but Jaxon had made a good point. There was no way my mother could be ashamed of me with the way she loved me. The two just didn’t fit together and knowing that made me feel a lot better about myself.

  I knew I was hard on myself and I had to remind myself that I was only twenty-two-years old. I had time to figure things out. This was just the first time in my life that I actually wanted to figure things out. I could just quit after I filled my ninety-day obligation at the bakery and just chill until I got my trust fund, but I found myself wanting to do more. I wanted to be more than just a trust fund kid.

  When I mentioned speaking French, I saw the spark flash behind Jaxon’s eyes. He was still a man and we all had our weakness’ for accents. He actually did a full body shiver when I spoke in French. Then he was pointing his finger
at me and I wanted to tip him over the edge. I wanted his thoughts to land where mine were. I wanted to leave this restaurant and find myself in his bed that night. So I took his finger into my mouth. I slid back slowly and swirled the tip with my tongue before I released it, all the while never taking my eyes off of him.

  His chest rose and fell like he was close to losing his mind and for my sake, I hoped it was in the good way.

  “I have to check on some things about an upcoming shipment but tonight… Levi, I want you in my bed.”

  My thighs pressed together as my cock twitched in my shorts. I licked my lips and his heated stare fell to them. I knew what he was thinking. He wanted my mouth on him and I had plans to do just that. If this was my only shot at him, I was going to rock his world.

  He licked his own lips before he cleared his throat. “So, do you speak any other languages?”

  I appreciated him changing the subject. The tension was already thick, and my dick was in the same predicament, so I focused on the question.

  I told him that I was fluent in French, Spanish and Italian. I explained how I spoke a bit of mandarin as well as Japanese and Korean. He looked stunned which would have been offensive if it wasn’t expected. Learning languages was easy for me.

  “ I didn’t think being able to learn other languages so easily was a gift or that it was anything special but then I realized that there was a job out there for someone with my skills. I thought it would be cool to be a translator, but it wasn’t something I was passionate about, just something I was good at. If I’m being honest, I don’t really know if I have any passions.” I hadn’t meant to go that deep, but Jaxon made it so easy to talk to him.

  He nodded and tapped his finger on the table as he spoke. “I started making desserts when I was nine years old. We had a chef who would bake, and I’d just sit in the kitchen and watch him, fascinated by how everything was made. My father would kick me out of the kitchen, saying things about how women should be the only ones in the kitchen. He was smart enough not to say that sort of shit when my mom was around, or she would have ripped him a new asshole.” We both chuckled before his face turned serious again.

  “I hated when he said it though. I just didn’t think what he was saying was true. I knew there had to be men who liked to be in the kitchen and bake. So one night when he was away on business, I’d turned on the TV and there was Ace of Cakes. It had shocked me to see this big bald guy baking and creating all of these amazing cakes. I remember feeling elated and angry. Elated because I knew it was okay for me to want to bake and angry at my dad for lying to me. The next morning I told my mom I wanted to be a baker. She didn’t think I was serious; I was ten. Three days prior to that I’d been obsessed with the color green and on that day, it was red. I was indecisive.”

  I grinned as he told his story, appreciative of how open he was being.

  “Weren’t we all,” I said, and he laughed before he scratched at his scruffy beard.

  “Yeah, but I was a bit worse than others. Anyway, after a few weeks of me not letting up, Mom hired a culinary artist to teach me the art of baking. Levi, I fell in love on my first day. I knew at nine years old this was the path I wanted to take. I knew this was what I wanted to do with my life, and I was good. My teacher called me a prodigy, she even tried to convince my mom to let me compete on some of the kid cooking shows, she was convinced I’d win. But my mom didn’t think my dad was ready for the world to see my talent. I knew she was saying he didn’t want people to know his son wanted to bake cakes for a living.

  “He tried to force it out of me. He’d block the cooking channels; he stopped my teacher from coming to the house. He’d ripped away a part of my identity and hadn’t even blinked.”

  I was reaching across the table and taking his hand in mine before I could even think twice about it. Jaxon didn’t seem to notice at first, lost in his past. I couldn’t imagine my dad doing something like that to me. He didn’t agree with a lot of the decisions I’d made, like coming out in the newspaper but he never once tried to silence me. I hated Jaxon’s father had done that to him. It seemed cruel to crush your kids’ dream like that without a second thought. I didn’t personally know Henry Archibald and I was grateful for it because I’d heard stories. Stories that said he was a homophobic, dickhead which had to suck if you were his homosexual son.

  I squeezed his fingers and he shook his head slightly before his eyes cleared. He took in our clasped hands and a small smile appeared before he squeezed my fingers in return.

  “Sorry, I’ve never told the story out loud before,” he said, and I gave him a genuine smile.

  “I’m glad you trusted me enough to share it. Obviously, you didn’t let your father’s idiocy stop you,” I said, and it was his turn to give me a genuine smile. A smile where his dimple popped up.

  “Nope. Mom had been livid and started taking me to lessons outside the house. My dad was pissed but he never went against her. He was scary but my mom was like a bear when it came to me and she’d bite off the head of anyone who hurt her cub. My dad included.”

  I laughed and Jaxon laughed along with me. “He still tried to push his expectations of me into my head, but I knew I didn’t want to be the CEO of his company. I wanted no part of his business. He hated it. Things only got worse when I came out. My dad has never hidden that he’s a true conservative, so he didn’t react well when I came out as gay. He doesn’t even go to church but suddenly he was quoting scripture and damning my soul to hell. Mom had told him if he ever spewed that shit at me again that she’d file for divorce. She wasn’t joking around either. She had papers drawn up and everything. Had them framed and sat them on his desk as a reminder of what would happen if he ever tried to make me feel bad about being who I am.”

  “I love your mom,” I said, and Jaxon smiled fondly. He smile reminded me of the one I wore whenever I thought of my own mom.

  “Yeah, I kind of love her too,” he said and we both laughed just as our food arrived. The flirty waiter glared at me as he sat my steaming hot plate down. I inspected it for anything that looked out of place and all seemed well.

  Jaxon chuckled and I glanced at him as the waiter walked away.

  “What?” I asked and then he told me about his text to his friend in the kitchen. I busted out laughing which sent Jaxon into another fit of laughter. It probably wouldn’t be funny to anyone else, but it really did feel good to have friends in high places, even if that place was in a kitchen where you could watch haughty waiters.

  “So, where is your dad, I haven’t seen him around.” I said and Jax sighed.

  “Yeah, you probably won’t. He and my mom are separated right now. He had a complete freak out when I opened the bakery in town. He’d wanted me to open it somewhere his clients couldn’t see it. It was enough to have a gay son but a gay son who owned a bakery. Forget about it.”

  Jaxon shook his head and took a bite of his crab cake. “He tried to interfere with my business loans, threatening the banks if they helped me. Mom found out and she told him to get out. He left and I haven’t seen or heard from him sense. I’m pretty sure my mom is going to go through with the divorce. She loves me too much to keep thinking he’ll come around. We’re better off without him.”

  The rest of the meal was pleasant. We talked more about the bakery and all of Jaxon’s meetings with celebrities and the celebrity cakes he designed. He told me about some new recipes he was working on and that he’d love help with perfecting them. I’d been happy to volunteer my time. Not only because it meant more time with Jaxon but also because I liked baking. Two birds one stone.

  The food was delicious and the conversation with Jaxon was amazing. He was honestly the most laid-back person I’d ever met. Talking to him was like talking to an old friend. I’d even told him about my newspaper article. He had laughed long and loud and I’d felt a bit embarrassed until he said it was the most epic and bold thing he’d ever heard, and he was proud of me for loving myself enough to stand in my trut
h the way I did. I may have fought back tears.

  When lunch ended, Jaxon walked me over to my car. My skin was buzzing, and I shook in anticipation. When we got to my car, I was turned so that my back was against the door. Jaxon loomed over me and my heart started racing.

  “Tell me not to kiss you,” he said, almost begging me to say it. As if he knew things were about to change significantly between us. I knew they were, and I couldn’t make myself tell him no. I wanted it, wanted it more than I wanted my trust fund and that said a lot.

  When he realized I wasn’t going to be the smart one here, he groaned and leaned down. I moved up on the tips of my toes and then I was floating as his lips pressed against mine. I moaned at the soft press of his full lips. My arms went around his neck and he pulled me closer, his arms wrapped around my waist as he explored my mouth. He licked and nibbled at my lips while I nipped and sucked at his. It was the best first kiss I’d ever experienced, and I didn’t want it to end.

  Jaxon’s hand pressed against my lower back pulling flush against his skin. His hardon pressed against my belly and I whimpered into his mouth as I felt it. His tongue dipped inside, and I was lost to him. Our tongues dueled and my fingers found their way into his hair. I held it tight in my fist and Jaxon grunted, making the kiss harder.

  I yanked my mouth away and panted, “You like it rough?” Jaxon’s answer was to growl and shove me harder against the door. I moaned and he buried his face in my neck.

  “I’ll text you my address. Be there tomorrow night at eight and bring a change of clothes Levi, I want you for the entire night.”

  I swallowed thickly and nodded as he placed kisses up my neck and jaw. “See you then,” he whispered before he kissed my lips one last time and walked away.

  With him not holding me up, my knees turned to jelly and I slid down the door of my car. I was breathless and every nerve in my body was firing off like a rocket. If kissing him left me this dazed, I didn’t know how I was going to survive the sex. I was in so much trouble.