“Just give me a minute to put the ingredients together.” Cort pulls what looks like a homemade loaf of bread from the bag. Next, he spins toward a cabinet, retrieving a plastic container of peanut butter and a jar of honey. The glass container with a clasped lid is common enough. Your average kitchen storage jar. But the ribbon around the lip gives it away as something special. Something made with love.
“That’s my honey,” I whisper, staring at the pink and black ribbon I personally tied around the top of the jar.
“I know,” Cort says, his voice low as he pops the lid.
“But how do you have it?” I make jars of honey each year in the fall and distribute them as gratitude for any nicety that’s offered throughout the year. The homegrown honey mainly goes to my family and some book club members, but a few jars get delivered to?—
“Did you steal that jar from your mother?” Every year I remember Mary Haven as well for past kindness.
Cort smiles, unscrewing the lid to the peanut butter container. “She willingly gives me a jar.”
I don’t know whether to be flattered she shared or hurt that she’s regifting my honey.
“She knows it’s my favorite.” He winks.
What?
“And . . .” He pauses to grab a bread knife from the knife holder on his counter. “She knows I love it best on her homemade wheat bread with peanut butter.”
A memory hits me so hard I almost fall over. Mary Haven in her kitchen making sandwiches like she was working an assembly line, going through an entire loaf of her homemade bread, slapping together two pieces for each kid. One side peanut butter; one side honey. I’d never tasted anything so good before or since.
Cort pauses his movements, watching me. “I know it seems like a kid’s meal, but I still love honey on whole wheat.”
And he’s making one of his favorite meals to share with me. He’s making me lunch and he’s using my honey, his mother’s bread and?—
I glance back at the white bakery-style bread bag. “Did your mom make this bread for you?”
“Picked it up this morning. It was still warm in the bag.” He smiles like a kid who’s stolen a cookie before dinner, or bread before it has cooled. The childlike grin along with a giddy gleam in his eyes has me rounding the island and wrapping my arms around his midsection.
Cort stills at the suddenness, before slowly wrapping his arms around me, tugging me tighter to his chest. Silly tears sting my eyes at the memory of his mom and the sweetness of this moment.
He presses a kiss to the top of my head before I pull back and stare up at him.
“Don’t look at me like that.” His voice tight.
“And how am I looking at you?” I bat my eyes.
“Like you want that afternoon delight after all. With me.”
He isn’t wrong. I desperately want to have sex with Cort. But I also want this PB and H on Mary Haven’s homemade whole wheat.
“Feed me first?” I tease, pulling free of his arms. “I need energy for stamina.”
Cort chuckles. “Well, as I’ve already proven I can’t last more than a few minutes with you, I think it’s safe to say, it’d be over quickly.”
“And I think practice makes perfection.” The challenge flag is tossed and Cort stares back at me, gripping the edge of the island countertop and glancing at me over his shoulder.
“Vale,” he warns.
“I’m just saying . . .”
“Stop talking.”
As we’re about to share a kid-like meal, and memories of being a child are fresh in my head, I say something equally childish. “Make me.”
Before I can blink, Cort sweeps the lunch ingredients aside and hoists me onto the countertop by my waist. His hips wedge between my knees and I spread my legs to accommodate him while his hands delve into my hair and tug me to him, kissing me like I’m the first course to our simple meal.
Within minutes, my shirt is removed, and my pants slipped off. Cort presses me back to the countertop and strips me of my underwear. I cry out at the cold surface, but the warmth of his hands has me quiet again. Then he swipes a finger up my seam, parting me and slipping in.
