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I weighed and measured the ingredients for the butter icing and ordered Dean to mix the icing sugar, butter and chocolate until it was smooth. With my thumb easing with pain, I had a solid thirty seconds before it set itself on fire and I needed to plunge it back into the icy water. The butter icing went on quickly and covered Mollie’s personal bespoke cake. We were finished within half an hour.
Dean covered the entire surface with chocolate buttons because I kept melting them with my hot as hell thumb. Once he was satisfied that all the buttons were equidistant, he carried it to the refrigerator for me and finally I could relax.
I had two days until the wedding, well technically one full day tomorrow and then the wedding was the next day. That was plenty of time to decorate and assemble the main wedding cake. I could finish it off tomorrow morning. I wanted to head to bed and get some rest.
“Do you want some painkillers for your thumb?” Dean asked when he came back into the kitchen.
“You’re asking this now? After four sodding hours?”
He took a whole step back, eyes wide for a moment followed by a crestfallen sigh. He raked his hands through his hair, blowing air like a whistle out of his mouth.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t think. I’m used to trying to cope in third world countries with first world problems.”
I held up my good hand in apology. It was the tiredness that was making me snappy, and Dean had been fantastic since I’d burned myself.
“I’m the one that should be sorry. I appreciate the help you’ve given me, and I'm a whiny bitch.”
“Burns are horrible, sweetheart, the pain must be excruciating. Can I have another look?”
He’d edged his way towards me as we spoke, testing out the prospect of me lurching at him with a serving spoon. For some reason, that was what I was holding when I yelled at him for offering me pain relief. He took it from my hand, laid it on the tabletop and took my hand by the wrist. He shook the water from my fingers and held up the offending thumb and forefinger, bulbous with blisters.
It was an ugly sight, and I hoped it would have burst by the time the wedding arrived.
“Whatever you do, don’t be tempted to burst this,” Dean said, appearing to read my mind.
“I can’t be the ugly bridesmaid, with podgy, swollen fingers.”
“No chance of that, I don’t care who your competition is. The skin is already healing under the blister. The liquid from the blister is keeping the skin moist as it heals.”
I smiled wide, chuffed at his compliment. Dean tried to hide his mirroring smirk and squinted at my thumb.
“How many seconds?” He asked.
“Forty, forty-one, forty-two,” I said.
“Good, getting better. Your nerve endings will wear out soon. Within the hour, you won’t feel any pain at all.”
“Maybe I will take some painkillers, should take the edge off enough for me to get some sleep. Which bedroom is mine?”
I needed to get far away from this handsome man that could kiss like a champion. Thinking of bed led me to sex and sex, led me to his bare arse when I first arrived.
“When I get up in the morning, will I see your bare arse again?”
“That depends if I’ve finished the piece for my editor. If I haven’t, I can’t guarantee I’ll be clothed.”
“I hope for temporary writer’s block,” I said before thinking.
Dean yanked me closer before making sure my thumb was safely in the bowl on the table next to us. He’d trapped me against the welsh dresser, the crockery clinking as he rocked against me.
“Is that right?”
“Yeah, best man, that’s right.”
He kissed me again, soft and gentle, warm tongues and heavy breathing once again. I felt so content, stranded in the large mansion of a house, with this stranger.
“I’ll try my best but no promises,” he said and let me go.
We cleared the used utensils to be washed up and left the kitchen in darkness. The air had turned frigid in the rooms we travelled through to get back to the living room. The fire had all but gone out while we were messing about in the kitchen.
“It’s freezing now, do you think it’s still snowing?”
I moved to the window, my bowl replaced with a mug of cold water. With my good hand, I pulled back the curtain a few inches to look outside.
The silence was deafening, there was nothing but snow as far as I could see. An animal had made its way through the snow, a trench was visible, which was probably why the outside light had come on. A moment later, my view was shrouded in darkness. Once again wondering where my car was.
“I don’t think I have ever seen snow this deep before, it’s quite something isn’t it?” Dean said over my shoulder.
I hadn’t either. In all the years I’d lived in West Wales, I had never seen more than a foot of snow. This was a storm coming in from who knew where and was already at window ledge height. How the hell Mollie and the rest of the wedding guests were going to get here was anyone’s guess.
That was a problem for tomorrow.
“Your lips are blue,” Dean said.
“Then tuck me into bed and kiss them pink again.”