Darren moans a little. “I want it all.”
The ice cream is soft enough for me to get a decent spoonful when I stretch toward the table, and I bring it so close to Darren’sopen mouth before I change direction and feed myself, sucking on the spoon for good measure.
“Mmmm, this is great,” I say, my mouth still full.
“That was so fucking mean,” Darren whines, and he wants so badly to come after me, but we both have wine in our hands and there are better ways to ruin my couch than to spill everything now. I watch as he unceremoniously empties his glass down his throat instead and sets it aside, his eyes wide and needy when he turns to me again. “Chugging that was the least sexy thing I’ve done in a while, and I’ll bet every sommelier I’ve ever been with just shuddered without knowing why.”
I push ice cream past his lips before the words are fully out of his mouth. “Well, my apologies to that entire subsection of suffering suitors.”
Darren kisses me then, his tongue still cold when it finds mine. I take eagerly for as long as he’s willing to give, and when he finally pulls away, I hurry to finish my wine, too. We make a classy pair, but when we both get the giggles about it, I can’t possibly care. I’m still laughing and trying to put my glass down and wipe my eyes and fumble my way back to anything resembling control, but it’s too late to do anything about Darren and how easily he takes the spoon from me after swiping the ice cream from the table. He digs into the carton and taunts me with a messy bite, climbing onto my lap until he can straddle me and hold the spoon just far enough away.
“Say please, baby.”
“Please, baby.”
He snorts and feeds it to me, his gaze more unfocused and his smile a mile wide. “Okay, so who do you think’s gonna fuck at the party?”
“Why does anyone have to fuck at the party?” I ask.
“Have you seen our guest list? Hell, Beau and Adrian are right there.”
“Oh, come on,” I argue after another bite. “Beau will not fuck at my house.”
Darren snorts again, amused by wine, ice cream, and how smoothly his favorite word keeps slipping off my tongue. “Beau will fuck anywhere. And given how they started, I’m gonna guess Adrian isn’t all that shy.”
“Fine. They can do whatever they want. Drew absolutely cannot.”
“I love that you’re shutting downmyfather beforeyourdaughter.”
“Whoa, no. Nope. Uh-uh,” I sputter. “Lucy doesnotneed to be part of this conversation.”
I steal the spoon from Darren and shove ice cream into his mouth before taking more for myself. I’m tempted to have another glass of wine too, especially if we’re going to be on this subject for long, but I have a beautiful man on top of me, and moving away from him is unfathomable.
“Hey, if she wants to entertain herself tomorrow night, she could do a lot worse than Noah,” he says. “AlthoughI’venever been able to figure Noah out, so—oh, what about someone from Supine?”
“Maxwell and Banjo both wear wedding bands.”
Darren tilts his head, charmed somehow. “Someone’s been paying close attention, hmmm? And I guess that leaves Layla and Sebastian.”
“For Lucy?” I ask. “I don’t think Layla’s her type, and I’m pretty sure Sebastian is off limits.”
“Because of Riley?”
“Because of Riley.”
“Not sure I’ve figured out what’s going on there, either. Those two seemed to hit it off really, really well at first, but Riley barely looks at him now.”
“Maybe whatever might’ve happened between them already did,” I suggest. “And the ice cream is melting.”
“You’re the one holding the spoon.”
I shut him up by keeping his mouth full, then silence myself the same way, the two of us going back and forth until most of the pint is gone. When I shake my head and leave the spoon in the carton, Darren leans backward to slide it onto the table and returns to press a cold hand to my beard. My eyes flutter closed for a moment, but I don’t want to miss a thing, and I find myself staring at him again.
“What about us? At the party?”
Darren brushes his thumb over my lips and shrugs from my lap. “Kinda figured we’d get the fucking out of our system tonight.”
“We’ve been doing this since the gallery opening, and it’s not out of our system yet.”
