When we entered I let her go first, keeping a footstep behind as I followed her through to the kitchen. The lights were set to low, controlled by some app Simone had on her phone. My house wasn’t complicated enough to need one, although I was pretty sure Lauren would disagree.
“Coffee?” she said.
The spell between us had been broken. The artificial lights acting like midnight for Cinderella.
“I’ll make it.”
“I think you’re only here for the kitchen.”
I abandoned the coffee and went to her, pulling her into me. My cock was wondering what the fuck was happening and why I was playing so hard and lose with his mojo, but he wasn’t the priority right now.
“I’m here for the breakfast you’re making tomorrow. See if it’s as good as mine was last week.”
Her hands went to my back, imprinting themselves there. “You’re very presumptions.”
“Maybe. How was our first date?”
“Date?” The innocent look made her appear younger. “That was a date?”
“I took you dancing. We kissed. I think that passes as a date. A first date.”
“Presumptuous again. What makes you think there will be a second?”
I traced her lips with the tip of a finger. She pretended to bite. “Because I think you liked my dancing. And I think you liked the kisses even more.”
“Maybe. Maybe I’ll have to try one more just to check.”
It took more than one.
I didn’t complain.
Chapter 7
Simone
Coffee was probably the only thing that was going to keep me sane through Thursday. I found my best beans, the ones I’d spent a small fortune on and I only had when I knew I needed that extra treat.
There could’ve been an extra treat last night.
We hadn’t gone much beyond kissing, even when we’d been lying on the sofa like two teenagers, neither of us seeming to know quite how to move it on. I was pretty sure that Jack hadn’t spent the last few years – five, I think – being celibate. My skills, if I’d ever had any, were rusty and I although I wasn’t self-conscious of my body, I wasn’t sure if what I knew was still how it was done, as ridiculous as it sounded.
I figured Jack had picked up on that. Fucking each other senseless when a casual relationship wasn’t something I’d ever had probably wasn’t a wise idea and I was pretty sure he’d come to that conclusion. Plus, we had a lot to lose.
I had a lot to lose.
He was my best chef and a good employee. Jack was Mr Solid and the more time I spent getting to know my teams in Blue and Mount Street, the more I realised how even with his quiet steadiness, he was a leader. Fucking this up for a fuck was not on my agenda. And I couldn’t do that.
Casual sex had never been an option for me. I’d had the grand total of two partners, both of whom I’d married. But right now, any type of sex with Jack sounded like something I could cope with. He’d awakened a flame that I thought that been extinguished a long time before.
But was I ready for any form of relationship? I wanted to be.
I listened to the shower, clearly on full blast and tried not to think of Jack being in there, doing who knows what. I’d felt the hardness of his cock last night when we’d been lying on the sofa, had pressed my hand against him and made him groan.
Images of him naked and hard in the shower flickered into my mind. I wondered if he’d touch himself while he was showering, whether he was thinking about us last night and how my breasts felt in his hands, how my hands had felt on him. He’d been like toughened steel under my fingertips and the idea of joining him right now wasn’t one I could easily dismiss.
The water stopped. I poured my coffee, waiting – hoping – to see if he’d emerge in just a towel. Maybe I was a little desperate. Maybe I shouldn’t have let it go on for this long, this drought where I’d forgotten that anything other than work actually existed.
I found my phone and started to message Sophie.
