without any warning, he shocked her with six smart slaps from the spoon. There were three for each cheek. They were harsh, sharp and exactly what she wanted. They left her panting, excited and breathlessly expecting more.

      Bill tossed the wooden spoon into the sink.

      ‘You were going to work on your muffins, weren’t you, Ms McLaughlin?’

      She nodded. She felt momentarily stunned by the size of her unsated craving.

      ‘Get on with your muffins,’ Bill growled gruffly. ‘We can finish playing once you’re done baking them.’

      She nodded obediently, making no attempt to let him know how desperately she wanted him. Pulling herself away from the sink she allowed her skirt to fall back into place. Then she began preparing the muffins as he had instructed.

      Before sifting the flour or measuring out the sugars she needed, Trudy pulled an espresso from the machine in the centre of Bill’s kitchen. She set the drink aside to cool while she began work on the pumpkin-pie spice.

      Carefully following Finlay’s instructions, grinding two teaspoons of cloves with a pestle and mortar and then adding them to two teaspoons of ground ginger, two teaspoons of ground nutmeg and two teaspoons of allspice, she finished the mixture with three tablespoons of ground cinnamon.

      Bill was watching guardedly.

      She liked that he didn’t interfere. Occasionally, when they were in Boui-Boui’s kitchens, he offered helpful suggestions or tips based on his years of experience in professional kitchens. But when they were alone together, he seldom did more than watch.

      ‘I still say that’s a chuff of a lot of cinnamon,’ he mumbled. ‘There’s times when I worry that Finlay might be losing it.’

      Trudy shrugged uneasily.

      She turned on the oven, adjusted the shelf and dropped a dozen dark-brown muffin cases onto a bun tray.

      ‘If it was anyone else I’d share your worries,’ she admitted. ‘It seems like an enormous amount of cinnamon. But this is Finlay West’s recipe for pumpkin-pie spice, and I trust his wisdom.’

      Bill shrugged. ‘Let’s see how it turns out.’

      She placed the mixed spice in an empty jar and labelled it Pumpkin-Pie Spice – Finlay West recipe. She added the date to the label and then put it aside.

      Bill lifted the jar and sniffed warily at the contents. He raised an eyebrow and she saw the quirk of his smile on his upper lip. Was that approval? Did he think the mixture was right this time? Or did he still believe that Finlay West had lost it?

      Trudy said nothing. She began to work on the remainder of the dry ingredients, sifting flour and baking powder into a bowl. She was about to weigh out the turbinado sugar when Bill stopped her.

      ‘What are you doing?’

      ‘What does it look like I’m doing? I’m adding sugar.’

      ‘That’s turbinado.’

      ‘I know. That’s the sugar this needs.’

      ‘Turbinado is too delicate. You’re using coffee and pumpkin-pie spice. This recipe needs a demarara.’

      She considered the suggestion. The differences between turbinado and demerara were negligible. Personally she enjoyed the suggestions of honey that were sometimes found in a turbinado, whereas demerara could be rich with the remnants of its syrupy molasses content. But she supposed, balanced against the coffee and the spices she wanted in the muffins, it would be as well to try Bill’s suggestion.

      ‘Very good, Mr Hart,’ she demurred.

      He laughed as she weighed out the demerara sugar.

      She added the eggs and double cream, along with a dash of sunflower oil and the cooled espresso. After folding wet and dry ingredients together, combining them rather than mixing them, she scooped spoonfuls of mix into the dozen muffin cases. Briskly, she pushed the tray onto the shelf, set the timer app on her smartphone for fourteen minutes, and then turned to grin at him.

      His smile was an eager reflection of her own.

      ‘We have quarter of an hour,’ she told him.

      He kissed her.

      It was the contact her body had needed.

      His lips were firm and strong and surprisingly commanding. He nibbled gently on her lower lip as his hand went to the back of her neck and held her face still for his kisses. If she hadn’t been wet for him before, Trudy knew she would be melting after he had kissed her.

      She could feel herself responding to him. The inner muscles of her sex tingled greedily as though they yearned to have him inside. Every erogenous zone on her body throbbed in anticipation of what she hoped they were about to enjoy.

      ‘I’ve been waiting for this moment since I woke up,’ he whispered.

      She could have said the same thing.

      She rubbed her pelvis against him. The bulge of his arousal was a thinly veiled hardness beneath his dressing gown. She moaned quietly, confident that he was about to satisfy all the broiling urges that he’d awoken in her loins.