TWENTY-SEVEN
Joey
I openmy mouth to answer, even though I don’t know what the hell I’m going to say.
What the hellcanI say to something as wonderful as that?—
And I’m interrupted by a knock at the door.
Damon goes still, eyes slicing toward the heavy panel as though he has lasers in those bright blue irises, lasers that can cut through the material and disintegrate whoever’s dared to interrupt this conversation.
But—
“My sundae!” I exclaim.
His head jerks, and heat floods my cheeks.
Thankfully, he’s smiling as he leans in, brushes his thumb over the pink I presume is spreading on my face. “Your sundae,” he murmurs, tugging me close and pressing his lips to my forehead.
Then he stands and moves to the door, answering it, and coming back while I’m still reeling from that soft touch of hismouth. He’s holding my dessert and I watch as he lifts his free hand, dips a finger into the whipped cream—myextrawhipped cream!—and brings it to his mouth.
“That’s mine!” I cry.
His mouth quirks, eyes dancing. “Is this you telling me that your extra whipped cream is more important than what we were talking about?”
Horror whips through me.
But then he comes closer and I get a good look at his face, see that he’s teasing me, and my always present sass (at least with Damon) makes itself known. “Maybe not the whipped cream”—I lean in, pluck up one of the maraschino cherries—“but the cherries aredefinitelymore important than what we were talking about.”
I pop it into my mouth and chew, the explosion of sweetness hitting my tongue. But when I reach for the second one, he swings it out of reach.
“Damon!”
A wicked smile, but there’s an edge of seriousness in his blue eyes that has me dropping my obsession with the sundae and focusing back on what’s important.
Only, I don’t have fancy words. I don’t have anything eloquent, anything that could possibly equate to what he said before the knock at the door.
All I have is…
“I feel the same way.”
The transformation in his eyes takes my breath away.
His reaction does too.
But mostly because it’s freezing cold.
“Whoops,” he says, upending the sundae on me.
I shriek in surprise, but it’s cut off by his mouth coming down on mine, the remnants of the sundae squished between us, soaking into our clothes. His tongue slips between myparted lips, tangling with mine at the same time he starts in on my buttons.
I gasp as the sundae slops down the open front of my shirt, drips into my bra.
Then gasp again when his mouth lifts from mine and?—
I moan, head dropping back as his tongue trails along my skin, lapping up the remains of— “My sundae!”
He chuckles, the heat of his breath on my flesh, tangling with the cold, making me shiver and arch against him, hold him close. “Don’t worry, baby,” he murmurs, tongue and lips working. “I’ll order you another one.”
