Fifty Shades of Cake
By Kay Keaton
I smoothed my hands down over my
apron, which I’d tied snugly round my trim waist. I saw, in my reflection in
the gleaming oven door, that my hands had left two floury trails, leading
suggestively over my hips to the unfolding lily at the centre of the Cath
Kidston print. I laughed sexily and tossed my hair, conker-shiny from my
Babyliss Big Hair, back from my sloping shoulders. I’d used the product placement
fee from Babyliss Big Hair to have a really good blow-dry that morning, and
when your hair is that silky, you toss it a lot.
Nigel
appeared in the kitchen doorway, his six-foot-six frame lean and lithe and clad
elegantly in a dark three-piece suit, with a shirt so gleaming white and
crisply starched I knew it wasn’t one I’d washed or ironed. There’s just
something indefinably attractive about a man in a really smart shirt whose
laundering you’ve had nothing to do with. A tiny smile played on my lightly-glossed
lips, but I continued my work.
“Still
at it?” Nigel moved behind me and placed a hand on each of my shoulders. “You’re
always at it, aren’t you?”
“Still
baking, if that’s what you mean. Two lemon drizzles and twenty-four cupcakes
for the tearooms, and three private order birthday cakes, all to be ready for
delivery by five, so I have my hands full.”
My buzzer
started to go off as Nigel’s fingers crept down my chest.
“So
have I,” he murmured. “Shall I help you weigh those eggs?”
“No
thank you, darling,” I replied swiftly, turning off the buzzer just in time to
hear the doorbell. “Why not answer the door?”
He
loped off, only to reappear a minute later.
“Do
you want to investigate this package? It’s such a thick, warm package, so full
of promise. I think it will be in your interest to unwrap it.”
By now I was bent double, my jeans stretched
over the rounded contours of my bottom, as I rummaged in the cupboard under the
oven.
“Oh, you do it.
I’m looking for my paddle attachment.”
There
was a strange grunt from behind me, and as I backed out of the cupboard Nigel
grabbed me by the hips.
“It
was a box of brownies,” he muttered. “From that Scottish bird who does them by
post.”
“Oh,
you’ve already – “ But he silenced me with a hand over my mouth.
“Yes,
I have.” His stern voice was gravelly. “And now I think we’ve heard quite
enough from you.” His gravelly voice was stern. “Let’s give your mouth
something else to do, eh?”
And before I
knew what was happening he’d forced my jaw open and thrust into it a great,
solid chunk of brownie. I couldn’t speak. I was breathless, alarmed but
excited. It was more brownie than I could handle. Or was it? I was alarmed, but
excited, breathless. He turned me round and bent me over the kitchen table,
pressing his hips into the twin globes of my bottom. A crumb of brownie had
actually gone into my windpipe and I was trying to cough, but I think he
thought I was panting with pleasure. Funny, this close up, I could see streak
marks on the oilcloth, and that Bolognese stain from Friday. If I could think
of a really good product for cleaning oilcloth I’d write to them about product
placement.
“You want it,
don’t you?” Nigel’s breath was hot in my ear as he struggled with the button on
my jeans, and if I’m to come completely clean, it had been a bit of a struggle
getting it done up in the first place, so good luck with that, I thought.
I bucked against
him, but he had me easily pinned down under his powerful body. Nigel likes to
take the lead. In fact, once he actually tied my hands behind my back with the
dog’s lead, but he had to untie me because our dog has a terrible drooling
problem and to be honest the lead was a bit manky and neither of us really
fancied it.
I’d
managed to swallow a bit of the brownie now, and not without effort was able to
cough the last chunk out across the table.
“Christ,
Nigel,” I gasped, elbowing him in the ribs and getting off the table. “You have
no fecking respect for those brownies. They’re far too rich and moist to eat in
one go. And I always like a cup of tea to wash them down. You know that.”
Nigel
ran his fingers seductively through his hair.
“Rich, like me,”
he pointed out, slowly licking a speck of brownie off his middle finger, “and
moist, like – “
But I had an eye on the clock
and was fixing the paddle attachment to my electric mixer.
Nigel seized me
roughly round the waist. “I prefer the hand-held paddle myself. Or sometimes I
find the whisk remarkably effective.”
“My orders won’t
fill themselves,” I pointed out, pulling away and snapping the lid on the
mixer.
“You’d like
that, wouldn’t you, if they… filled themselves…?”
“What?”
“I’m not sure,
it just sounded dirty.”
I flicked my
hair over my shoulder again, and unfortunately one gleaming lock whipped Nigel
right across one contact lens.
“Jesus, watch
it!” He felt gingerly for the lens, which seemed to be still in place. “That
really fucking hurt.”
“Sorry,
darling.”
“You’re no fun
today, anyway.”
I kissed his injured
eye and as I pulled away I noticed how beautifully shaped his cheekbones were,
how closely shaven his face. A subtle hint of Penhaligon’s Blenheim Bouquet rose
from his warm skin. Suddenly, my insides felt like a lemon drizzle cake with
slightly too much drizzle, and it was far from unpleasant.
“Sorry,” I said
again. “Look - I still have to make the buttercream. Help me. You like
buttercream, don’t you? So silky, so creamy. We have to beat it, you know. Whip
it. Till it’s all mixed up, and creamier than ever. Then you can dip your
finger into it, and taste how creamy it is. You can eat as much as you want.”
He brightened
visibly. I kissed him again, on the lips this time. It’s always worth giving
time to a really good kiss. We broke apart slowly.
“Tell me again
how rich you are,” I suggested in a soft voice. “I mean, really break it down
this time. Assets. Savings and current accounts. Credits, debits. In, out. In,
out. In. Well, you get the gist. And while you’re talking I’ll let you operate
the Kitchen Aid paddle attachment. There are variable speeds. Each gives a slightly
different result.” I loosened the bow of my apron. “I think you know where the
power button is.”
