When he finally pulled back her face was flushed. “Well, hi to you too.” She threaded her fingers through his, but didn’t lead him down the hall into her flat. “I wondered if you’d like to go out somewhere and grab something to eat?”
You read my mind.“Sounds good.”
“I’ll just get my coat.” She unlaced her fingers and went back up the hall. Didn’t she want him back in her flat? Frowning, he followed her. As he reached her door a tantalizing aroma of chicken and spices hit him. His stomach growled.
“There you are.” Peyton appeared at the door and grinned at him. It was amazing how alike they were, and yet…different. “Piper reckons you won’t want to eat here, but just so you know my chicken soup is thebest.”
“Peyton.” Piper pulled her sister back. She looked flustered. “Wetalkedabout this.”
Her sister looked unrepentant. What the hell was going on?
“Mason,” Peyton said. “Would you like to stay for a very late lunch? I mean I won’t beoffendedif you say no.”
Piper groaned. “Take no notice of her, Mason. I don’t expect you to want to stay in this mad house.”
“If you want me to stay, I will.”
Peyton nudged her sister in the ribs, and Piper gave a pained smile before she took his arm and led him into the living room. “You’d be doing me a favor. She’s made enough soup to feed an army. We’ll be eating it for the next week.”
It wasn’t exactly the invitation of the century. But he’d take it.
A small blond boy stood in the middle of the room staring at him with big blue eyes. “Hey Alfie,” Piper said, crouching down but still holding onto his hand. “Do you want to say hello to my friend, Mason?”
He crouched down as well, since the kid looked as though he was about to burst into tears at the sight of him. “Hey, there.” He’d never talked to such a little kid before and didn’t have a clue what to say to him. “How you doing?”
Alfie backed away and ran for his mother. Piper turned to him. He couldn’t make out the expression on her face. She looked as though he’d just made her day instead of scaring her nephew half to death.
“He’s shy,” she said. “He’s only two.”
Before he could figure out how to respond to that, Peyton brought in a massive tureen and placed it on the table. “Come and get it while it’s hot,” she said, as she scooped up Alfie and strapped him into a highchair.
He couldn’t remember the last time he’d enjoyed a meal so much. And it wasn’t the aromatic soup or warm crusty bread or freshly ground coffee. It was the chaos that reigned around the table.
Was it ever like this at home, when Colton and I were kids?
Probably. He couldn’t remember. And when he’d become a teen he’d been such the polar opposite of his charismatic brother that mealtimes had become a war zone between them.
“Are you okay?” Piper’s whisper and her hand on his knee pulled him back to the present. Her sister was trying to stop Alfie fishing for vegetables in his bowl and wasn’t taking any notice of them.
“Yeah, I’m good.” He slid his hand up her thigh under cover of the table. Her fingers tightened around his knee and her lips parted on a little sigh. He was thrown back to last night, and the sexy gasps she made when she came.
Wrong thing to remember. He shifted on the chair but it didn’t help his inconvenient erection.
Peyton went into the kitchen, saying something about wet wipes.
Piper leaned toward him. “Thanks for fixing my tire. Sorry, I should’ve said that earlier.”
“No problem.” He glided his hand higher between her thighs and she swallowed. “I’ll bring the old ones back when I’ve fixed them. They’ll be fine for spares.”
She pressed her legs together, trapping his finger. It was a crazy kind of torture.
“Spares?” She sounded as though she had no idea what he meant. “You didn’t buy a new tire, did you?”
“I get good discounts.” It was hard, but somehow he managed to tug his hand free, just as Peyton came back in the room and wiped Alfie’s face.
“You’ll have to let me know how much I owe you.”
Alfie chose that moment to tip his bowl over, and under cover of Peyton’s total focus on her son, he brushed his lips against Piper’s ear. “I’ll think up some ways you can pay me back tonight.”
She didn’t rear back in offense or slap his leg. Her breath hitched and a delicate shiver coursed through her. He offered her a filthy leer, and she bit her lip but it wasn’t enough to stop her muffled laughter from escaping.
“You’re so bad,” she whispered. “Do you want to stay here tonight?”
Was she crazy? “Sure.”
