Was she giving Cesar another chance or herself? Sofia wondered as they headed off to the cookhouse together.
For the first time he could remember, no one teased them when he and Sofia finally sat down in the cookhouse to eat their meal.
‘Okay?’ He took hold of her hand in full sight of everyone present and brought it to his lips. There was a moment of complete stillness, but no one commented, and after a moment or two the buzz of conversation started up again. He wouldn’t have cared whether or not they were accepted as a couple, but it felt good to have the acknowledgement of those closest to them that he was taking his wooing plans forward.
‘Getting there,’ Sofia whispered back with an intimate smile. ‘You’ve given me something to think about,’ she admitted. ‘A lot to think about, in fact.’
‘Like another date night?’ he suggested.
‘Only if it comes with pizza and a bottle of beer.’
‘I can sort that,’ he confirmed. ‘Whatever your heart desires.’
‘My heart isn’t as sophisticated as yours’—’
‘No doubts,’ he interrupted. ‘We’re in this together, remember?’
She thought about this for all of two seconds before adding chocolate ice cream to her list of requirements for their second date.
‘Deal.’ He held out his hand across the table to shake hers. And never wanted to let go.
Now they got catcalls. ‘Find a room,’ one of Sofia’s brothers bellowed.
They shut him out. The amused glance they shared said it all. Sofia couldn’t have been happier to be teased by her brothers. When’d she first arrived at the training camp the relationship between Sofia and her brothers had been strained, to put it mildly, but now she was elated to find it back to normal. They should expect more of this, he accepted wryly as they rose as one from the table. Fingers linked, they walked out of the cookhouse without a backward glance.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
THE FACT THAT chocolate and pizza could taste so good on a dish called Sofia would bring a smile to his face for the rest of his life. Date night had started innocently enough with Sofia cutting pizza into slices while he wedged lime into bottles of beer. They talked, relaxed, laughed, and talked some more.
But the more they laughed, the more sexual tension soared between them. Fingers brushed, eyes met, gazes steadied, lingered, until something had to give. Drawing Sofia into his arms, he meshed his fingers through her hair and kissed her as tenderly as if this was the first time they’d touched.
‘Why are you always so impatient?’ he growled against her mouth when she moved her body seductively against his.
‘Have you looked in a mirror recently?’
‘So you only want me for my body?’
‘We can start with that,’ she teased. ‘But actually,’ she added, turning serious, ‘I want all of you, every bit of you, even the bits you didn’t know you had. I want to hold your secrets in my heart and laugh with you as we’ve laughed tonight. I want to grow old with you.’
‘You don’t want to know all my secrets,’ he assured her.
‘Yes, I do,’ she argued in a whisper, ‘but you’ll tell me in your own time. There are things you don’t know about me, and a lot I don’t know about you, but we can find out together. And sorry to ask but do you think we could stop talking now?’
‘You are a shameless hussy.’
‘Thank goodness you made me that way.’
‘As you’re naked in my kitchen, I guess it would be rude to ignore—’
‘Ice cream?’ she interrupted. ‘But I don’t have a dish.’
‘Won’t you catch cold?’
‘Not if you warm me. Lick it off...’
‘I intend to.’
From there it was a rough and tumble that saw them end up on the floor, with pizza scattered everywhere and rapidly melting ice cream coating parts of them urgently needing attention.
