Sugar and lime and peaches? Her lips taste like peaches. I have her pressed between the door and my body by the time I raise my head to look down at her stunned expression. Her pupils are dilated. Those peach-flavored lips swollen.
I want to do it again, but I manage to restrain myself. Barely.
“I had to know,” I tell her honestly, slightly out of breath. “We should know before we agree to anything, shouldn’t we? I wouldn’t want you to be disappointed.”
The next thing I know, she’s grabbing me by my neck to pull me down. She’s kissing me this time, moaning when her tongue slips out to trace the seam of my lips.
I groan into her mouth, circling her hips with my hands to drag her closer, and she whimpers at the contact. She wants this. Wants me.
More.
I’m ready to start begging when she leans back with big eyes and a soft, bemused smile on her face. “I don’t think I’ll be disappointed.”
Neither do I. “I’ll talk to the boys tonight.”
If that goes well, I think we might have an agreement. I’m already thinking about another kiss to seal the deal.
God help me. And her, if she doesn’t already know that what’s between us is going to be more than what she bargained for.
She’ll find out.
Chapter Three
Tanisha
Mrs. Tanisha Wayne.
That’s right. My last name is Wayne now. Because I just did something I once swore on my life-size cardboard M’Baku that I would never do.
I got married.
“Second thoughts?”
The deep-voiced query has me biting my lip. Do I have second thoughts? If I do, it would be too late to voice them now. We negotiated for a week before signing, got blood tests, said our vows, dropped off the boys at his mother’s house and are now on our way home.
Just the two of us.
But I’m fine.
“My second thoughts are reserved to the number of pancakes I ate for breakfast,” I tell him. “You?”
“Same. Your friend’s little girl can really pack them away, can’t she?”
“Rue claims she can usually eat a cajillion.”
“Sounds about right.”
We both smile at that, then the awkward silence settles around us again, the only sound in the vehicle the hot air blowing through the heater, insulating us from the chill outside.
I pretend fascination with the view from my window, smoothing my hands over the sunshine yellow skirt I wore to the courthouse. Joey says this is my “someone needs a hug” color. The one I wear when I’m feeling particularly vulnerable.
That’s not why I wore this. I happen to look good in yellow, and I decided white would be too obvious and sad.
The one-legged desi virgin has finally snagged herself a groom.
I told Emerson I hadn’t planned to marry and it was true. I’d decided years ago to be a wealthy old maid living with or in the vicinity of my best friend instead. J&T Nanny Placement was more successful now than we’d ever dreamed, but who knew? It could eventually go international, and I’d finally have a good excuse to visit Paris. Maybe even Brussels. For chocolate reasons.
Anyway, after my world tour, I’d use my free time to throw more charity events and expand our company’s outreach programs. I’d already started planning a Christmas extravaganza for the local youth center, Bellamy House.