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“Nice buns.”
Jon looked to his right, where the pretty silver-haired contestant sat perched on a stool at her station. Daenerys, the hosts had called her, though she’d personally introduced herself to him as Dany, while they were getting set up and before the cameras started rolling.
Now, they were waiting for the judges to begin their assessments on the second bake of the day. At the sight of her smile, his brain completely short-circuited. What had she said? Nice buns. Bewildered, Jon glanced over his shoulder. He hadn’t thought his jeans were any tighter than usual, but… “Ah. Thank you?” he said, unsure, meeting her gaze again.
Her eyes widened, and she shook her head, pointing to his counter. “I meant your hot cross buns. They look perfect.”
His face flooded with heat as he followed her finger to the basket of buns he’d made for the technical challenge. Of course, she meant the bloody hot cross buns. “Oh. Right, yeah. Thanks,” he stammered, horrified. Dany looked away, trying to suppress a grin and failing.
Jon dropped his face into his hands. You bloody moron.
After that, he couldn’t seem to keep his mind out of the gutter when it came to one Daenerys Targaryen.
“I can help if you need an extra hand with your balls,” she offered the following week, having finished her signature bake early. Jon nearly dropped the cake ball he was rolling, immediately thinking of another set of balls he’d much prefer her help with.
“I’m good,” he said instead and studiously avoided looking at her, sure his face was beet-red.
“Let me know if you change your mind,” she sing-songed over his shoulder. Gods, she smelled pretty. “I’m pretty good with my hands.”
She was going to kill him, and she had absolutely no idea.
“Do you want to put your loaf in my oven?”
“What?” he asked, flustered and slick with flop sweat. Only week four, and he was very much on the razor-sharp edge of a mental breakdown. He’d only just realized his oven was on the fritz, and he had three baguettes to bake in less than an hour.
Smiling, Dany crouched to open the oven door at her station. “I’ve got room.”
Right, of course, she only meant to help him. Because that’s just the kind of person she was. “You’re a lifesaver,” he said gratefully.
She winked at him. “It's a tight squeeze, but go on and stick it in.”
He almost burned himself on the rack with that one.
“Your peaks are so stiff,” Jon marveled, eyeing Dany’s lemon meringue pie. “I can’t believe you did that with just a whisk.” Like everyone else, he’d used a hand mixer, but now, seeing the hand-crafted beauty of her pie, he almost felt as if he’d cheated.
Dany smiled proudly. “It’s all in the wrist. I’m very fast.” She demonstrated for him, miming her lightning-quick use of the whisk. “I can show you sometime, if you want?” She lifted her eyebrows in a way Jon was certain she meant nothing by, but he still couldn’t help himself.
Suddenly, her meringue wasn’t the only thing that was stiff. Mercifully, the hosts called time on the challenge right then, saving him from making a complete arse of himself.
For once, Jon wasn’t floundering in a challenge. So when he saw Dany struggling with her signature bake, he wandered over to her station. “Need a hand?” he asked.
She glanced at him. “Yes. Can you pinch my bottom?”
He stared at her, uncomprehending. “Pardon?” She was bent over her counter, working intently on her savory tart, and, desperately, he tried not to let his eyes stray to her perfectly rounded arse.
“The bottom seam, it’s trying to split apart. Can you pinch it for me?” she begged, near tears. She looked positively stressed, her face streaked with flour and gravy. Immediately, Jon felt like a cad and leaped to her aid, pinching the dough together.
“Of course,” he said hurriedly. Despite her current state of despair, she gave him the sweetest smile he’d ever seen.
He knew then that he was quite possibly in love with her.
Jon lingered on the field, just beyond the edge of admirers and well-wishers that surrounded Dany. When he caught her eye, she whispered something to a tall man with long, silver hair before she broke away from the crowd. Her brother, he guessed. There were quite a few people around her with the same moon-spun hair as her.
Jon’s own family had come for the finale, too. His mother stood off to the side with his cousins, talking animatedly to the judges. Once the hubbub around him had finally begun to ebb, Jon had taken the chance to quietly slip away and find her.
Dany approached him then, still clutching the first-place trophy to her chest. He smiled at her, his heart thumping wildly. “Well deserved,” he said, nodding to her trophy. And he meant it, truly. It didn’t bother him in the slightest he’d only come in second. Her final show-stopper, a biscuit sculpture of a towering three-headed dragon, had been awe-inspiring. Everything a show-stopper was meant to be.
She wrinkled her nose, but her eyes were shining. “Thank you. I still can’t believe it.”
“I can.”
She looked away, then back again. “You were always the one baker I was the most nervous going up against,” she admitted.
He laughed in a self-deprecating manner. “Intimidated by my consistently soggy bottoms, were you?”
Amused, Dany shook her head. “I think your bottom looks just fine.” Abruptly, he stopped laughing. Had he heard her right? Unfortunately, he didn’t have much time to consider it as Dany continued, “No, I just didn’t know if you’d still like me if I won. Some guys don’t like being shown up by girls.”
He stared at her, weighing her words. Eventually, he said, “Well, those guys are wankers.”
She laughed. “Too right. I’m very glad you’re not a wanker.”
“Well, I probably am, but for different reasons.” He winced. Fuck. Had that sounded as suggestive as he thought it did?
If she thought so, Dany didn’t let on. “Speaking of,” she said casually. “Now that the show is done, maybe you want to stop by my place sometime, and I can show you how I beat it?”
He gaped at her like a gormless twit. Then it hit him, and he huffed out a breathless laugh. “Oh, right. You mean your trick with the hand whisk, yeah?”
She stared at him silently, and his smile slipped. She really meant what he thought she meant, didn’t she? “Oh—you mean—you want to—?”
Dany finally burst out laughing. “I’m sorry, that was mean, wasn’t it? I just couldn’t resist.”
Jon didn’t understand what was happening anymore. “That was a come-on, wasn’t it?” he asked, desperately.
“Maybe,” she conceded, smiling. “I do hope you’ll come home with me. But I promise I won’t try to crank your prick off—not the first night, anyway.”
He raked a hand through his hair. “Bloody hell,” he blurted, then laughed, his relief palpable. “I’m not mad. This whole time—”
“Yes, I like you, Jon Snow.” She was still smiling as she slowly backed away. “I’ve got some more people to say hello to, but hopefully I’ll see you afterward?”
“Aye,” he agreed stupidly, because what else could he do? Dazed, he started to turn away, but he looked back when he heard her calling out to him again.
Dany grinned at him. “You really do have nice buns.”