Antonia hesitated before parting her lips. The tip of her tongue was tentative as it grazed his thumb. She tasted the rich chocolate and moved forward to savor more of it. As Antonia closed her lips around him, she watched him fight to keep his breathing under control. He swallowed hard as he stared at her mouth. She was going lightheaded from the thrill of this blatantly sexual action. Her tongue whorled around him, licking the remainder of the chocolate away. When he slowly pulled his thumb out, he ran it along her bottom lip again.

“How is it?” he asked, his voice hoarse.

Antonia leaned into his touch, finding it difficult to keep her eyes open. “Sweet,” she breathed.

“I think you should make more cakes in a piss-poor mood,” he said. Did she detect a slight shake in his voice? Aiden pulled the soggy cake away from her and set it on the table behind her. He wrapped an arm around her wet waist, resting his hand on the small of her back, and slowly backed her against the table. The back of her thighs touched the wooden surface as he eased his own leg between hers.

Her face flushed with heat as she let him lead her body. “Actually, I don’t think I should cook in anger anymore...” Aiden’s face was only a scant breath from her own.

“Does that mean you’re not mad at me anymore?”

His hand slid down her bottom to the hem of her dress. He slipped under the wet fabric, easing it up her thigh. One strong leg parted hers and stepped in between them. Antonia shivered as the hot junction of her thighs rested against his denim.

“I don’t know,” she said, breathing in quick, shallow gasps. With her dress now hitched to her hips, she couldn’t think. She hardly had the strength to stand on her feet. The dizzying pleasure of his fingertips against her feverish skin forced her to sit on the table behind her. Antonia experienced the familiar suffocating haze that Aiden’s body emanated. It mesmerized her into babbling incoherence.

“How can I make it up to you, Antonia?” he whispered in her ear.

“I don’t know.”

He knelt to the floor before her, pushing her knees apart. He glanced up at her as he planted a feathery kiss on the inside of her thigh. The scruff of his beard grazed her skin, leaving goosebumps in its wake. “There’s nothing you can think of?”

Antonia shook her head. Her legs hung on either side of his body, spread scandalously. The exposure made her face burn. But she leaned back against the wood surface, waiting in trepidation as he slid his hands along the backs of her calves.

He turned his head to kiss her other thigh, the bristle of his cheek arousing her senses in the same way. She let out a soft sigh of pleasure when his lips locked to her thigh; his cheeks concaved as he sucked her flesh. When he released her, he looked up. “Do you have anything else I can taste?”