The Love Experiment (Stubborn Hearts 1)

“Too late. It’s in your head isn’t it?”

He spent the walk home trying not to let that jingle take over his brain, even though Derelie hummed it. And while he cooked it was there, a silly little song that reminded him of laughter, of being loved, of the best part of growing up. Why it’d stuck so thoroughly he didn’t know—advertising jingle writers were demonically clever—and the memories he’d attached to the little ditty were happy ones.

They ate chicken and salad in his hastily cleaned up kitchen, with Martha watching them from the floor flicking her tail. They finished up with ice cream that Derelie had chosen, and he couldn’t remember a Saturday he’d enjoyed more, but he realized he’d stopped trying to have a life outside of work and wondered what that meant, knowing it was about to change.

He watched her lick the back of her spoon. His fascination with her mouth knew no end. I like you, Derelie Honeywell. I like you in your cargo pants and your hair all full of the wind. I like you sitting opposite me in the kitchen I felt duty bound to clean up. I like the fact that we’re going to take what we did last night and today in the park and do it all again but this time skin to skin. I like the fact you have an IUD and that you’re not scared of me and that you brought your toothbrush. I hope you didn’t bother with PJs. I’d like you in my T-shirts.

He didn’t say any of that because it didn’t seem necessary. That experiment had acted like a fast-forward button, shooting them past the initial awkwardness of discovery into the excitement of consummation.

“Do you want anything else to eat?”

She patted her stomach. “I’m full. I’ll help you clean up.”

“It can wait.”

“The way you’re looking at me could boil water, Jack.”

“You don’t like it.”

“I really, really like it. But I ate too much, so can you back off the smolder so I don’t end up with indigestion? That would be so unsexy.”

He laughed. The way he was about her, everything she said and did was sexy, except the mention of wieners. That made him want to tickle her till she cried for mercy. They washed up and he took her through to the living room. He’d cleaned it up too.

“What happened to your filing system?”

“It was all digital anyway. It was just a way for me to process the pieces of the story like a jigsaw puzzle. We could fool around some more.” He pointed at the couch. Which Martha promptly jumped onto and lay down full length over both cushions.

“We’d be putting Martha out,” she said.

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; “We could go to the bedroom.” They stood in his living room, indecisive and deliciously awkward, both of them looking at Martha. This never happened to him. He’d never cared enough to feel like what he said next to a woman he was taking to bed made a difference. He never intended them to be around long enough for it to matter.

Derelie gave him the sauciest possible grin. Prego had nothing on her. “That might be nice.”

“If we go in there we’re staying put a while.”

She shrugged. “I guess I can cope.”

He’d wanted to swat her wiener-jingle-humming butt the whole way home. He did it now, with his arms around her, less a swat than a hand clamped down on her ass so she knew what he wanted, and there were no misunderstandings. “Give me ten minutes to tidy up in there.”

She pulled on his neck to bring their faces close. “You know, the hottest thing about this whole day is that you weren’t so sure we’d end up there that you didn’t clean up the bedroom first.”

“That’s what you find hot? My domestic incompetence?”

She responded by grabbing his ass. “Go on then. Martha and I will have girl time.”

When he moved, Martha got up to follow, so he shut the bedroom door on her. She wasn’t the girl sharing his bed tonight. He shoved clothes in drawers. Sprayed the room with air freshener. Closed the closet doors and changed the sheets. He turned a side table light on and drew the curtains. He felt the same kind of energy he associated with waiting for a big story to break.

But once he got back to the living room, it was as if he’d misread it all and someone else had broken the story.

Derelie was gone and so was Martha, and on the floor was a foldback clip wrapped around a wad of business cards and slips of paper he’d collected and kept because Roscoe had said it might be useful to have the names and addresses of people who approached him in public if he was ever threatened again.

He was threatened now.

Chapter Seventeen

The thought of Jack making his bedroom presentable was an unaccountable thrill. It was just a man making his bed. It shouldn’t have made Derelie feel so effervescent, but she was the glass of soda she’d drunk at dinner, bubbling and fizzing and set to explode if shaken.