When the waitress had walked away, Kasey leaned forward on his elbows across the table and whispered, “Limp bacon, huh? I got the impression last night you liked your meat a little…firmer.”
“You are a menace,” Shaun hissed through her teeth, her cheeks roaring into flames to match the fireplace that blazed across the room. Kasey laughed out loud and leaned back into his seat, picking up his coffee cup and bringing it to his lips.
His hair was still messily tousled, his jaw shadowed with a days’ worth of growth, and he wore a plain white long-sleeved shirt, and she’d noticed he’d pulled on a similar pair of gray sweatpants. His feet had been shoved into what looked like a beat-up pair of crocs, which made her grin. She kept his gaze, staring into those gray-blue eyes that always seemed to look like they were bringing a storm with them.
“Text your parents,” he murmured, motioning with his chin toward her phone that she’d placed on the table off to the side.
“Why?” she asked, raising an eyebrow at him. “Are you keeping me hostage?”
“A willing one, yes,” he drawled, setting his coffee cup down and wrapping the fingers of both hands around the mug.
“You’re so unbelievably conceited,” she scoffed, a sardonic laugh escaping her. “Just because—just because we—”
“Don’t.”
“Don’t what?” she hissed, leaning over her tightly clenched hands that rested on the top of the table in front of her.
“Don’t open that smart mouth of yours and try to come up with some half-cocked excuse as to why last night was a mistake, or that it wasn’t absolutely mind-blowing,” he murmured quietly, though she sensed the tension rolling off of him in waves.
“Why, you arrogant ass—”
Reaching across the table quick as a viper strike, he clasped the point of her chin between his finger and thumb, holding her still as he ground out, “Lie to yourself all you want, but don’t lie to me, darlin’.” His fingers slackened and then rubbed his thumb over the fullness of her bottom lip. “Stay with me, Shaun. Just for a little while. Let’s just pretend for a moment that nothing outside of this place matters.”
Well, damn. How was she supposed to say no to that?
TWENTY-FOUR
“I need to get back to the rental, Kasey,” she whispered weakly in protest, but he saw the submission in her eyes. She wanted to stay. Wanted to be his, at least for a little longer. He’d take it. “My parents are going to wonder where I am. What am I supposed to say? ‘Sorry to bail on family vacay, I’m busy getting dicked down’?”
Slipping out of his seat of the booth, he shushed her when she protested as he slid in beside her, pressing his thigh against hers and draping his arm around her shoulders.
“That fucking mouth,” he drawled on a chuckle, then silenced her with his mouth on hers. “You’re going to be a handful.”
“Good thing you have two hands,” she snapped dryly, but he recognized the breathlessness in her voice. The fight had gone out of her sometime in the last twelve hours. She fought valiantly to maintain it, but he knew it was rapidly disintegrating.
“What’s your favorite color?” he asked, and nearly chuckled at the confusion that crossed her beautiful face.
“Excuse me?” she asked, her eyebrows drawing close together in a V.
Tapping her on the tip of the nose, he quipped, “Come on now, I know you know English. What is your favorite color?”
“What does that matter?” Leaning away from him slightly, she shook her head.
He shrugged. “I can guess if you’d like. See how close I am.”
She laughed and rolled her eyes, tossing her braid over her shoulder as she reached for her coffee. Bringing it to her lips, she took a long drink, then turned those stunning sapphire eyes on him again. Defiance, a taunt, hung in the air. “Go right ahead, big guy.”
Taking a drink of his own coffee, he studied her. “Blue.” Her face went blank and he grinned. “Am I correct?”
Her eyes narrowed on him. “That wasn’t even a fair question, half the world’s population’s favorite color is blue. That’s just a lucky guess. You won’t get that lucky twice.”
“Try me,” he murmured, sitting back in the booth next to her, his thigh still pressed close against the length of hers under the table. The waitress arrived then with their plates of food, and they each said a quiet thank you before she turned back to him. “You choose the question.”
Stabbing her fork into the decadent, strawberry cream cheese stuffed French toast, she stuck a bite into her mouth and moaned, the sound going straight to Kasey’s dick, making it thicken in his sweatpants. Not great timing.
“What’s my favorite movie?”
Slathering his omelet with the sausage gravy, he used his fork to cut a bite before sticking it into his mouth. “That’s a very broad question. Narrow it down a bit. Are we talking favorite overall, favorite comfort movie, or what?”
