More shameless foodie fluff! Can't wait till Christmas and baking my own gingerbreads *wink wink*
WARNING: This chapter gets a bit... naughty...
"Can I take a peek?"
"No, I've told you already."
"Just a teeny tiny little peek?"
"No."
"Mou… How about a whiff then? I'll close my eyes and just get a bit of the smell?"
"You do realize you're behaving like a child now?" A throaty chuckle and head shaking. "Nope, not even a whiff. Not yet."
"Not yet." A quiet humming. "How about now then?"
"Shizuru!"
Shizuru huffed and pouted but eventually gave up and sauntered closer to Natsuki who was currently browsing through their music CDs collection. Looping her arms around the other woman's waist, the brunette propped her chin on Natsuki's shoulder.
"What are you looking for?"
Natsuki went through a couple more albums before answering.
"We need to set the right mood for that. Got to make it perfect for your first time." The bluenette winked at her lover and finally picked up two CD cases. "TSO or Ella?"
Shizuru looked closer at the two albums.
"Much as I love Trans-Siberians, The Ghosts are a bit all over the place."
"Too random, you say?" Natsuki shrugged and put the CD back. "You might be right. Ella it is then." She placed the other disc in the player and started it. Smooth, jazzy tunes filled their small apartment, complemented with Ella Fitzgerald's silvery voice.
"Later on, we'll conspire," crooned Natsuki, pulling Shizuru closer and catching her soft lips in a quick, gentle kiss. "As we dream by the fire…" Holding her partner close, she swayed them round the room, pulling the shades down and turning the lights off. "To face… unafraid… the plans…" Shizuru seemed adamant on kissing the words away from her lover's lips. "...we made…"
Eventually, the two of them stumbled into the kitchen, breathless from laughing and making out.
"Are you ready, love?" asked Natsuki looking Shizuru in the eye. Having got an eager nod, she went into the pantry and retrieved a cloth covered ceramic bowl. She set it on the kitchen island and motioned for Shizuru to sit down.
While Ella dreamt about white Christmas, Natsuki smiled enigmatically like an illusionist about to perform a trick and raised the cloth barely enough to peek under it. She touched the bowl contents with her forefinger and frowned as if deep in thought.
Shizuru sat straighter in her chair, barely restraining her giddiness. The only thing keeping her from uncovering the bowl herself was a pretty solid premonition that Natsuki would never let her live with showing that kind of impatience.
"Ta da!" Just as she was about to burst out, Natsuki winked at her captivated audience and removed the cloth with a flourish. "What do you think?"
Shizuru took a deep breath in and the enchanting smell of matured gingerbread dough filled her nose so she sighed happily.
"Smells lovely. Looks like it might have been worth the three month wait after all." She nibbled on a bit of raw dough fed to her by Natsuki. For a moment, Shizuru revelled in the gentle sweetness of honey and when the spicey afternotes hit her tongue she actually moaned in delight. "Yesh. Defin'ly worth't."
"Stop it, you!" Natsuki let out a throaty chuckle when Shizuru licked at her fingers, apparently trying to gather the sticky bits of dough from them. Fighting with her own barely-restrained desire to continue, she pushed her lover toward the kettle. "Go, make yourself some tea while I prepare the cookie cutters."
A cup and a half of green tea, seven quick kisses and two deep ones, one pair of floured hands leaving prints on a shapely bottom and some twenty minutes later, the first tray of gingerbread cookies was already baking in the oven.
"All those shapes are so boring," pouted Shizuru. She was currently trying to decide which cutter she should use next. "I already made enough love-filled hearts to feed my Natsuki for the rest of her life…"
"You're predicting me an awfully short life, dear," Natsuki commented jokingly and bumped her hip against Shizuruwhile carrying another tray closer to the oven. "How about some one-bite-sized stars? We could use them to fill the treats bowl for when we're playing."
Shizuru put the cutters away and with a theatrically heavy sigh refilled her tea. Hiding her face behind a porcelain rim, the brunette complained:
"But I wanted to make something special just for you."
"Then don't use the cutters." Fighting the blush slowly rising on her cheeks, Natsuki resumed her place at the flour-dusted counter top. She was fully aware of a silly smile gracing her lips but there were moments like this, with Shizuru at her cutest, when she just didn't mind. "Just play with the dough like you would with clay."
Seeing that Shizuru followed her advice and was currently kneading a lump of dough with one hand, Natsuki set about making the tiny stars she mentioned earlier.
The task consumed her so completely that it took her a while to hear her partner asking a question.
"Come again?"
"I asked…" Shizuru paused, concentrated on giving her cookie the desired shape. "If you can put icing…" Another focused moment. "On gingerbreads."
"Probably. Glaze is much more popular, though. Or chocolate…" Natsuki hummed and grinned dreamily. "Why?"
"Ara, I wanted to make a dog-shaped cookie for my Natsuki but decided I need some practice first. So I made this for myself and it turned out better than expected." She took a half-step back to better assess her creation. "Looks so good, in fact, that it makes want to slather it with loads of icing just to lick it off."
"Lick it off? What are you…?" Natsuki glanced at her lover's cookie. It took all of three seconds for the image to register in her mind and for her to do a double take. "Is this what I think it is?"
"Of course it is!" Shizuru beamed, proud of herself for recreating Natsuki's womanly parts so faithfully. "I made it from memory but daresay it looks exactly like the real thing, down to that tiny button that makes Natsuki melt." A quiet gasp tickled her ears. "So I want to lick the icing off just to see if it would taste at least partially as good as my Natsuki."
"How old are you, Shizuru?" Natsuki couldn't help an embarrassed chuckle. She took another quick look and had to force herself to focus on the dough in her own hands lest she'd give in to the temptation to do some licking herself. "You behave like some horny adolescent guy."
Shizuru only hummed and opened the second drawer. She rummaged in it for a bit without a word.
"What are you looking for?"
"Chocolate drops. What else would you like to use to finish your," Shizuru cleared her throat, "your perfectly decent gingerbread cookie?"
"Perfectly dece~~," Natsuki trailed away when she looked down at what she unconsciously made.
At the cookie shaped like Shizuru's boobs.
Natsuki opened her mouth to say something but gave up with a sigh.
Right at that moment, the oven timer went off and saved her from having to make up some shoddy excuse.
"You know what?" Natsuki hastily took the tray out from the oven and almost threw it onto the stove top. "Screw the gingerbreads." She grabbed all the dough from the counter and put it back into the bowl. "Come with me."
She pulled Shizuru out of the kitchen and toward their bedroom, stealing kisses on the way.
They only stopped for a moment, to turn the music up.
Jazz might not've been created for baking but there was no better soundtrack to what they were about to do.
As long as you love me so
Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow…