Opening the pantry, I grab the pancake mix and a mixing bowl. Cole loves blueberry pancakes. He likes chocolate chip even more, but I’m fresh out because I’m a thirty-five-year-old bachelor.
A door down the hall to the right shuts, which means Jordan’s up. Cole’s room is off the living room on the other side.
One good thing about being here in Chicago is that she can’t parade around half naked outside our bedroom.
She rounds the corner looking hot as hell in that bedhead, freshly fucked kind of way that drives me crazy—wild hair, jacket half zipped over her tank and slipping off one shoulder, leggings that make her ass look incredible.
Christ.
“Morning,” she says with a smile. “How’d you sleep?”
How’d I sleep?
She clearly forgot about our little argument last night.
I didn’t.
I stared at the ceiling, all kinds of thoughts I shouldn’t be having running through my head, Jordan’s breath skimming my shoulder. Hell, it took me thirty minutes just to talk my dick down. Almost had to get up and rub one out.
“Slept great,” I lie. “You?”
“Like a rock.” She opens the cupboard where I keep her kettle, then pauses, confused, until she spots it on the stove. “You started my tea? That was sweet. Thank you.”
She scoops her tea leaves into the infuser, my eyes drifting to her ass.
“Of course. You want pancakes?” I ask, forcing my focus back to the bowl as I whisk the batter.
“No thanks. I’ll just have some eggs. Do you want any?”
“Yeah, but I’ll make them. I want you to sit and relax. Didn’t I say I’d serve you breakfast in bed if you were my wife?”
Her tea kettle whistles, and she grins as she reaches for it. “You did. And apparently you make tea, too.”
“I just heated the water.”
Cole’s door creaks open, and I stifle a laugh as he slumps into the kitchen. His hair’s a mess, one half matted down and the other sticking straight up. He slides onto a stool, folds his arms on the counter, then plops his forehead onto them.
“Good morning,” Jordan says.
Cole mumbles something that half resembles “Morning.”
“You want some pancakes, bud?”
He flips his head up and blinks. “Yeah. Do you have chocolate chips?”
“I don’t. Sorry, dude. I’ve got blueberries, though,” I offer.
“Okay. That’s cool.”
I step up behind Jordan, slide a hand around her waist, and pull her into me. Pressing a quick kiss to her cheek, I murmur, “Just go with it.”
Her smiles stretches wide as she shakes her head.
I chuckle and resume my position as chef, taking a sip of my coffee before heating another pan for eggs and pouring batter onto the griddle.
Cole’s twelve. Old enough to see what a normal relationship looks like. How a woman should be treated.
Jordan picks up her mug and turns toward Cole. “It’s supposed to be warm today. Do we want to go down to the lake? Hit the pier, walk around, grab some lunch?”
