“I can be prideful,” I admitted.
He wisely kept those lips closed.
I took my hand from them. “It still makes me a bit uncomfortable, but I’ll get over it.”
“Good,” he murmured.
“And I’m sorry I threw your generosity in your face,” I carried on. “That wasn’t cool.”
“Darling.”
That was all he said, sweet and tender, and as it was so much of both, that was all he had to say.
I grinned at him. “Do I get a kiss for giving in about dinner?”
“Only if you wish me to close that door and not see my sisters until I deposit you back at The Downs tomorrow evening,” he paused, “Or Saturday morning.”
“Tease,” I accused jovially.
He shrugged.
I rolled my eyes.
He touched his lips to mine as I did it, so I stopped halfway through.
When he lifted away, he asked, “Are you ready to go down?”
“Just need to put on my lippie and get my bag.”
With two big hands smoothing along the satin of my dress across my back and down my hips, leaving fire in their wake, he stepped away from me.
Total tease.
I successfully avoided the dog on the way back to the bathroom.
Battle lounged in the doorway watching me slick on lipstick.
“And you call me a tease,” he said while I did it.
I took the tube away, looking at him in the mirror. “What?”
“Darling, your ass in that dress?”
I twisted, like I could see my ass.
“Unless you’re so inclined,” he began, “which thankfully, I just discovered you’re not, I don’t believe you’ll react to it the same way I do even if you could contort yourself to see it.”
This hot man thought I was hot.
God, I loved that.
I grinned at him and went back to my lipstick.
It was highly erotic, doing that with him watching me. Even dropping the tube in my bag and walking to him as I finished.
But it was only sweet when he took my hand and led me to the door, Bartholomew lugging himself along with us, as we went to join his sisters.
Hot and sweet.
