She nodded.
“I’m thirty-six.I’m nine years older than you.Is that gross?”
“That old?”She laughed when he scowled and squeezed her.“No, for some reason, that doesn’t sound as weird.Maybe it’s because, in this case, the man’s older.Or we’re just older?”She shrugged.
They stared at each other for a moment before Grant bent and pressed his lips against hers.When she didn’t pull back from him, he deepened the kiss.He slid one hand under the weight of her hair to cup the back of her head.The kiss steadily grew heated.
Jennifer’s eyes slowly closed as streaks of lava raced through her veins and made it hard to breathe.Her world condensed to just Grant and how he was making her feel.
He pulled back and studied the woman in his arms.She lay against him so sweetly, so trustingly.He was all hard needs and ice, while she was pure softness and warmth.
Was he doing her a disservice if he took her for himself?he wondered.She slowly opened her beautiful blue eyes to stare at him in dazed fascination.Oh, hell.He didn’t care.He knew himself to be a selfish bastard, and he wouldn’t apologize for it.There was no way he was giving her up.He’d do whatever was necessary to keep her with him and make her happy.
“We still have things to discuss, especially your little rebellion, letting that kid in, but our food’s getting cold.”
“What food?”
“I hope you like Chinese,” he said, indicating the bag on the small wooden table by the door.
“I love Chinese, but why did you bring me food?”
Grant looked toward the ceiling and sighed heavily.
“We’re having our date,” he said like she should have known that.
“But I thought...”
Grant rolled his eyes.
“You thought wrong.Show me where the plates are.I’m starving.”His voice was soft but rough with authority.
She watched him take off his coat and toss it over the sofa before he walked into her tiny kitchen.He started opening cabinets when she didn’t move fast enough.She cringed when he closed a cabinet door a little too hard.
“Here, Grant.They’re in here.”She pulled out two plates and then some silverware.“We’ll have to eat in the living room.As you can see, this room is too small to have a table.”
He’d never seen a kitchen just big enough for a small fridge and stove, about two feet of counter space, and six cabinets.She’d been able to fit a small microwave on top of the refrigerator.Although she kept her apartment clean, its age showed.
Grant looked around her home as he snatched up the sack.He took a seat on the old, fake leather sofa.He took carton after carton out of the bag and spread them on the sofa table.
The only pieces of furniture were the brown sofa they sat on, the wooden sofa table they ate at, a multicolored striped chair she had shoved into a corner, and a small table she used as a TV stand.The wood floors looked beaten and scarred, but she kept them clean and shiny.The walls were a bland beige, marred by tiny cracks and what had once been holes earlier tenants had made for wall décor, then filled with putty.Besides the limited amount of furniture, there was no other color, no pictures, just a stack of books on the floor by the chair.
“Good Lord.How much do you think we’ll eat?”she said and laughed as she sat beside him.
Grant shrugged.“I wanted to make sure I got what you liked, and we had enough.”
Jennifer snorted out a laugh.“Oh, we’ll have enough.I’ll be able to get several lunches out of this, too.”
He stopped and looked slightly horrified.“You would eat this every day until it was gone?”
She chuckled and nodded.
“Why?”he asked.
Jennifer paused as she arranged their dinnerware.“Why what?”
“Why would you eat the same thing every day?”
“Because it’s there, and it would save a lot of money not having to buy lunches for a few days.”
