An arched doorway led to the kitchen-slash-den. Glass-fronted cabinets, open shelving, and lantern-style lighting above a small island gave the kitchen a modern vibe. The adjoining den was dominated by an enormous flat screen TV and a sectional sofa. A bank of sliding glass doors led to a pristine deck with more outdoor seating and a well-tended lawn.
It was kind of…perfect. Like a gingerbread house for a giant.
Impression: Viggo was extremely neat and tidy, he had great taste, and he?—
“Are you still snooping?” he snarked, pulling at the sleeves of a maroon University of Minnesota tee. The fabric was a tad snugger than his usual plaid shirt ensemble and accentuated his beefy muscles and yeah…that chest.
My cock twitched behind my zipper on cue. Not okay. I didn’t know what was going on with me. Yeah, it had been a wicked dry spell sex-wise, but this guy wasn’t on the menu. In fact, he’d probably snap me in half if he caught me drooling over his muscular quads or Lord help me, the thick bulge in the worn jeans he’d changed into.
“Uh…no.” I licked my lips and joined him in the kitchen. “Well…yes. You have a lovely home.”
“Thanks.” He plucked eggs, milk, and butter from the fridge. “Do you want coffee?”
“I’d love some. Let me make it.” I held up a hand. “I hereby certify that I, Dexter Navarro, am a coffee specialist. You can count on me not to fuck it up.”
Viggo’s lips quirked at one corner. “The coffee bar is behind that cabinet.”
We worked in companionable silence, Viggo mixing pancake batter while I made coffee.
“Did you do a lot of remodeling?” I asked, grabbing two mugs from the open shelves.
“Some. The dining room was where the TV is now. I have no need for a dining room, so I knocked the wall down and redid the kitchen cabinetry. The floors were covered in orange shag carpet. Terrible. I stripped them, hoping the subflooring wasn’t shot…only to find oak flooring. I couldn’t believe it. Do you like scrambled eggs?”
Huh.Viggo was downright chatty now, and I was charmed. “Love ’em. You like your coffee black, right?”
“Yes. Thanks.”
I poured coffee into the mugs and slid one toward him. “Did you make the furniture too?”
“Anything made from wood is my work. Cabinetry, bookshelves, coffee tables, chairs, tables. I made those Adirondack chairs on the deck as well.”
“That’s incredible,” I gushed. “What about the chess set in the living room?”
Viggo flipped a pancake and smiled. A real, honest-to-God smile. “Yes. Do you play?”
“A little bit.”
“I look forward to beating you,” he teased.
I scoffed. “It wouldn’t take much to beat me at chess. I was always better at low strategy, low stakes games like checkers and tic-tac-toe. Used to drive my mom nuts.”
Viggo stacked pancakes onto a plate. “These are ready if you want to dig in.”
“I’ll wait for you.”
He hummed, his head bent over the stove. God, he smelled amazing—fresh and woodsy. I wanted to lean in and sniff him, but I didn’t have a death wish.
Viggo plated the scrambled eggs and set them next to the pancakes on the island. “I’ll get the syrup. Anything else?”
“No, this looks fantastic. Thanks,” I gushed, sliding onto a barstool.
“You insisted.” His teasing twinkle was back and just like that, my pulse skipped and skittered.
“Yeah, yeah.”
Viggo speared a bite of pancakes. “What were you saying about your mother earlier? She’s competitive?”
“My whole family is. We tried to do game nights at the lake, and they never went well. We couldn’t play a simple game of Monopoly without fear of bloodshed. And I was like…nine years old. Way too young to be stressed out about not having a ‘Get out of jail free’ card,” I huffed derisively. “What’s your family like?”
