Time stop and we floated in endless bliss.
He sat up, not breaking our connection, and kissed me. We melted into one another, not ready to be apart. Luke stroked me and pressed his forehead into mine. “You are a very special woman, Clara. You make me happy in a way I didn’t even know I could be.”
I smiled and looked into his eyes. “You make me feel things I didn’t know I could feel. So I guess we’re even.”
He chuckled and kissed me. “You’re welcome to get even with me anytime you want.”
“Good to know.”
He pulled away gently and got rid of the condom. Then he slid back into bed with me and put his arm around me, snugglingme up to his chest. His heartbeat was loud in my ear, still beating quickly.
“Thank you for tonight,” I said sleepily.
“Anything for you.”
I drifted off like that, and when I woke in the morning, neither one of us had moved at all.
I took a shower, and when I came back to the bedroom, Luke was gone. I threw on some yoga pants and a sweater and went looking for him. The smell of something burning led me to the kitchen.
“Everything all right in here?” I asked.
He stood in front of the stove and he spun around at the sound of my voice like I had just busted him doing something wrong. “Everything’s fine. Just don’t come over here.”
Obviously, I did the opposite and strode over to the stove. A couple pieces of bread were simmering in a frying pan.
“I’m making French toast,” he said. “Ignore those.”
I saw the stack of charred bread slices he’d piled off to the side on a plate. “What happened there?”
“It’s been a while since I made this.” He shrugged. “This batch ought to be all right. But I can make you something else if you’d prefer?”
I smiled and patted his shoulder. “French toast sounds great. Thank you. I’m just surprised you know how to cook at all.”
He laughed. “Mom insisted we all knew how to cook the basics before we went off to college.”
“That’s smart.”
“But I have to be honest, I rarely cook anymore.” He shot me a dazzling smile. “Don’t tell my mother, though. She worries about me.”
“Your secret is safe with me.”
While he tended to the stove, I made us each a cup of espresso. The machine no longer fought me, as if it had finallyaccepted me as a member of the household. It was starting to feel that way for me too.
That was a problem because this wasn’t my home.
I would almost certainly be moving out to the city at some point. The chance to work on Broadway was too good to pass up, and I would have the money from Luke’s arrangement to get a decent apartment and keep myself afloat for a while.
But even if I moved out here, I couldn’t just move in with Luke. We weren’t even boyfriend and girlfriend. That was all fake. Now, something real was happening between us, but that didn’t mean we could just jump into living together.
Clearly, Luke and I liked moving fast with each other, but even for us, that would be jumping way ahead.
I knew the smart thing would be to have a conversation with Luke about what we were and where this was going, but we were having such a nice morning that I didn’t want to spoil the mood. We could have the conversation some other time, probably after Christmas.
Our arrangement ended on Christmas, and I would have fulfilled my obligations as his fake girlfriend. At that point, we could sit down and discuss if we wanted to move forward as the real thing.
Right then, I was going to devour some mildly scorched French toast and enjoy the company of the sexy man who’d made it for me.
CHAPTER 27
