I open the cover, start flicking through the pages.
“What are you going to have? Something boring like rice and chicken breasts?”
His laugh is low and sexy. “I was thinking more like steak and mashed potatoes.”
“Oh, man, really living the life.”
He shakes his head, but his eyes are gentle when he says, “Yeah, I think I finally am.”
My heart starts thudding in my chest, hard and fast and somehow…soft.
For this man.
I stretch up and kiss him again, something softening further in me when the hand on my hip tightens, drawing me flush against him, when his other hand slides into my hair, tilting my head back, deepening the contact, giving me a taste—just a taste—of the fury of his need.
A fury that doesn’t scare me.
Eventually, he pulls back and we’re both breathing hard.
So hard that it takes me a minute to catch my breath.
But I do.
And because I’m me, because I’m finding my way back to the me that I used to be, the me I can be with him, right on the heels of sucking wind, I say,
“Then you’re definitely getting dessert.”
Twenty-Two
Colt
“What did Damon say to you?”
I set my spoon down, put the bowl that holds the remnants of the sundae Kylie ordered for me to the side, and debate on what to tell her.
She snorts, fixing the strap of the tank top she put on when we changed into pajamas. It’s silky blue, almost matching the sexy as fuck dress she’d had on earlier, but she’s paired it with something fucking adorable—flannel pants patterned with hula-hooping wombats. “Nope. No way.” She narrows her eyes at me. “No prevaricating. I’m not going to give you time to come up with a plausible lie.”
“Would it be plausible if I said we discussed the team?”
Another snort. “No.” A beat. “Don’t even try it.”
Grinning, liking this sassy side of her, the lack of fear on her face, in her body, that she feels comfortable giving me shit, I lean back against the headboard. “I think you know that brothers will always have conversations with their little sister’s boyfriends.”
She scowls. “That’s barbaric.” Then she sighs. “And it’s also Damon.”
“I don’t know if I’d call your brother barbaric, per se.”
“No.” She sets the empty bowl of her sundae aside then moves to the bed, mirroring my position against the headboard. “He’s not. But I just mean I wouldn’t put it past him to have a conversation with a man who calls himself my boyfriend.”
“Calls myself?” My lips twitch again. “What? I haven’t convinced you yet?”
Her nose wrinkles. “You haven’t even taken me on an official date yet, buster. How can you be my boyfriend?”
“I’ll have to fix that.”
“Yes, you will.” She gives me a pert smile then shifts in a rush of movement. One second, she’s mock-glaring at me. The next, her smile is making me hard, and I’m barely able to ignore that as I try to stay charming and funny, even as the need to touch her, hold her, take her is eating me up inside.
And then…she’s sitting on my lap.
