“I don’t think you’re quite human, Josie,” Madge declared. “Look at that plate of delicious new desserts Caleb made. How can someone sit here and have that in front of their face and ignore it?”
Josie’s eyes narrowed, making Alex laugh. She was so suspicious, and he knew her cranky outer shell just hid a soft, tender underbelly of vulnerability. “What are these? They look like little lobster cakes.”
“They are!” Madge cracked in a South Boston accent, the words coming out sound like she’d said “They ah!”
“Red cake with…”
“It’s pureed strawberries in a rich white cake, baked in little lobster molds, then filled with a vanilla amaretto cream.” “Lobster” sounded like “lobstah” coming from her mouth.
“What’s the glaze in the little cup next to it?” Alex asked. Each lobster cake had a little Boston Red Sox flag stabbed into the head.
“Toffee-caramel sauce—see how it looks like drawn butter?” Madge demonstrated for them, picking up a lobster and dunking its head in the sauce, then munching happily. The cake was headless, one claw hanging by a thin thread of confection.
Josie imitated Madge, and as her tongue poked out between her lips, mouth stretching into a smile of anticipation, Alex felt something in him harden and soften at the same time.
God, he loved her.
She moaned. “This is so good!” As she bit down, a rush of cream from the cake’s center coated her lip, making the hard part of him even harder as she licked it away.
God, he wanted her.
Instead of reaching across the table and f**king her right there next to the little jukebox screwed into the wall above the salt and pepper shakers, he grabbed a cake, dipped the entire damn thing in sauce, and shoved it into his mouth, chewing furiously, hoping the blood that would be diverted to his digestive tract would lessen his raging erection.
Then his taste buds kicked in. The combination of thick, lush cake, the almond flavor of the amaretto, and the viscous toffee assaulted the pleasure centers in his brain, stomach engaged, salivary enzymes kicked into overdrive, the groan of gustatory ecstasy as involuntary as his hard-on.
“Jesus, tell Caleb he’s outdone himself,” Alex muttered as he and Josie both reached for the only remaining lobster on the plate.
Oh, no.
This would not end well. He normally deferred to her, but this was primal. His stomach growled; he’d come to the diner hungry and ready for lunch, and, unlike Josie, he couldn’t eat a few bites of something and be temporarily sated. Once his stomach had a single bite of food in it he needed to have enough for a full meal immediately.
There was no turning back. Her eyes flashed as she reached for the lobster, but he beat her to it.
And then she snatched the ramekin of toffee-caramel sauce.
They were at an impasse.
And neither would back down.
Madge cackled. “He’s got another tray of them in the back, you two. No need to launch World War III over a stupid piece of cake.” She popped the other half of her piece into her mouth and munched happily.
“We’d like a dozen for here, and a dozen to go,” Alex said, not moving, eyes tracking Josie, who lifted the cup of sauce to her lips and pretended to suck at it. She became increasingly X-rated in her movements and he shifted uncomfortably in his seat, his blood obviously tormenting him. It did not cooperate and flee his groin for his stomach, but instead filed in an orderly fashion from root to tip, making his shaft throb with unmet need.
Two nights now of overnight shifts at the hospital. This was the first time he’d seen Josie for nearly three days.
And they had to spend it talking with other people about their sex lives. Threesome sex lives. Josie had spelled it out clearly: he would “facilitate” the conversation between Mike, Dylan, Trevor, and Asshole.
Er, Joe.
A tray of these cakes would make it easier. Maybe if he sank into a sugar coma he could get through it. He didn’t relish being shoved into the role of group therapy leader for a bunch of guys who were about as interested in being there as Josie was in becoming a submissive wife some day.
But he would do it because she had asked him—pleaded and cajoled—and sweetly explained that she was so worried about Laura and Darla that this was the only option she could think of. It was a rare flash of emotional intimacy that he craved, and as she’d unfolded before him, pure and true, he couldn’t say no.
The front door creaked open, and in walked the only man he knew who was as tall as himself, followed by a flash of blond hair at his armpit, then a darker man in between their heights. The first threesome was here, and he let out a huge sigh of relief, surprised by his own reaction. For whatever reason, it was easier to talk first to Mike, Dylan, and Laura than to the younger group.
“Younger” made him cringe inside, because they were only seven years his junior, and yet Trevor, Darla and Ass—er, Joe—were a generation away, it seemed sometimes.
“Hey,” Mike said in that casual, nearly stoic way he had, wearing the Zen of calmness so well.
Alex stood up to shake hands and realized he was still holding the lobster cake. Josie plucked it from his fingers in the split second he was distracted, then shoved it down the front of her shirt.
“Hah! Mine now.”
He leaned down and murmured in her ear, “If we weren’t in public I’d retrieve that with my teeth.”
“Oh, really?” She took the cake out of her shirt and pretended to slip it in the front of her pants, making him belly-laugh.
Laura looked at them with an expression of curiosity and pure happiness, so pleased, he knew, that her best friend had found what he hoped was enough. Sometimes the relationship seemed a little too easy. He liked all of her friends, got along well with Darla, and Josie didn’t mind living the life of a partner to a doctor who was gone most of the time.
Other than her asking him to play Dr. Phil to a group of men who didn’t want to be there, his life with Josie was pretty damn perfect these days. The moving-in-together business had a few bumps—mostly Josie’s ego and her weird wall of fear that he would somehow smother her with love—but otherwise it was just fine.
Better than fine.
He thought that was how Laura, Mike, and Dylan lived. Fine. Better than fine. If he and Josie had an annual income bigger than that of the starting lineup for the Boston Celtics, they’d be waaaay better than fine. Aside from a mountain of student loan debt, though, their financial future looked solid enough, and he wasn’t complaining.