Chocolate Bites by Vic Winter Page B

encourage them to do the same, to buy more than what they’d come in for.
    If Connor didn’t have a good first day it was going to make him unhappy and worried and Dayton didn’t like it when his mate was unhappy and worried. It made him cranky. Of course, Connor always fed him hot chocolate when he was cranky, so there was a bit of a silver lining there.
    Still, he wanted Connor’s bakery to be a success. His lover had worked hard for this.
    He went back into the storefront and looked out the windows. The sun was up now; Connor would be opening soon, but there was no one outside yet. Dayton supposed it was too much to hope that there would be a line-up at opening on Connor’s first day. He checked his watch. Yeah, it was almost seven.
    Dayton went to the door, and then back over to the counter, checking out the goodies. It smelled great in here. Like a bakery, yeasty and sweet, bready and chocolaty, and also like him and his mate. It was good.
    Connor came out of the kitchen and set a bunch of apple tarts on the counter with a little sign proclaiming them to be two dollars apiece. Then he looked up and shook his head.
    “You have to stop that, you know?”
    Dayton frowned. “Stop what?”
    “The pacing. The growling. You’re going to scare my customers away.”
    “There aren’t any,” Dayton pointed out.
    Connor rolled his eyes and came around the counter. “And there won’t be if you don’t stop putting out ‘mine, back off’ vibes.”
    Dayton opened his mouth to protest that Connor was his, when he noticed the lurid mark just above Connor’s collar. A love bite. His love bite. Everyone would know that Connor was taken. Of course the place wasn’t a sprawling metropolis and pretty much everyone no doubt knew that already, but still, that bite mark was the cherry on top of the whipped cream.
    Connor came up to him, adjusting his t-shirt, tucking the side back into his jeans. “What are you grinning at?”
    He reached out and touched the mark. “You’re mine.”
    Hand going to his neck, Connor rolled his eyes. “You left a hickey!”
    “You weren’t complaining when I did it.”
    That earned him another eye roll, and then Connor laughed. “You’re very possessive.” It certainly didn’t sound like a complaint.
    “It goes with the territory.” He growled a little. That went with the territory, too, along with the seemingly perpetual five o’clock shadow.
    “I know.” Connor checked the door and then leaned in and kissed him softly. “It’s kind of hot.”
    He would have grabbed Connor and kissed him properly, but his lover stepped back. “We’re open. You really do need to stop pacing. How about a hot chocolate and something gooey to eat?”
    “Yes, please.” For the right incentive, he could be very good indeed.
    “Okay, but that means you have to sit. In that corner table there, and promise me you won’t glower at my customers.”
    “I won’t glower if I have hot chocolate.” It was a physical impossibility.
    “Okay, then.” Connor gave him another kiss, this one only half on his mouth, and headed back for the kitchen again.
    Dayton sighed and made for the out of the way table Connor’d assigned him. It was going to be a long day.
    ***
    It was nearly eight before the first customer came in, but after that it got busy and Connor barely had time to breathe. Now it was nearly eleven and he wasn’t out of anything but the apple tarts yet, but if things kept up at this pace, he should be ready to close up around four with pretty much every case empty.
    He’d gotten a lot of compliments, too. A lot of folks, it seemed, were happy to have an actual bakery in town rather than having to go out to the diner for his baked goods.
    Bill Deans wasn’t so happy. In fact the man had grumbled loudly during the last few months about how opening a bakery was going to hurt his business, especially as it meant Connor was pulling the breads and goodies out of The Silver Kitchen Diner, but