Back at the apartment, I sent them out of the kitchen after planting a kiss on Max that left him all kinds of confused if the look he gave me as he left was any indication.
I spent the next two hours making brownies which are Travis’ favorite and my special German chocolate cake. They descended on it like starving wolves. And when Max picked me up and spun me around after his first taste of my cake, I felt my heart open up just a little bit more.
Chapter 27
I feel like I fell down the damn rabbit hole. Maybe she’d had a nice dream or some shit because the woman who came back from her nap was a completely different person to the one who’d driven back from the island.
Between the supermarket run and the baking I wasn’t sure what the fuck to think. And that kiss before I left the kitchen just now, a kiss that she initiated, only left me more confused. Happy, delighted, but confused as all hell all the same.
“What’s up with her?” I whispered the question to Travis as soon as we hit the upstairs gym. She had me so spooked I was still whispering even though I knew she couldn’t hear us.
“Here’s a tip. When she’s mad she cooks like an angel, when she’s happy she bakes like a queen. Keep those two things straight and you’ll be just fine.”
“Damn, I’m gonna gain weight.” I removed some of the weights from the bar as he laid back on the bench to lift.
“Why do you say that?”
“Because she’s always going to be happy.” Can’t ever fucking win.
I worked through my sets after spotting him without feeling a thing, because my mind was filled with her and what had brought about the change.
She was still in the kitchen when we headed back downstairs, and swear to fuck I think she was singing. I sniffed my sweaty arms debating if I should go to her or get cleaned up first. Of course she won, she always will.
I peeped around the doorway and she was puttering around the kitchen with a bowl in her hand mixing something with a wooden spoon, singing at the top of her lungs.
I couldn’t resist. Seeing her this happy made me all kinds of fucked up. I walked into the room and she looked up in surprise as I walked over and took her face in my hands.
I caught her lips and laid one on her with the bowl between us. “I like seeing you like this.” I left her and hit the shower.
The surprises didn’t end there. All evening and into the night she was the most relaxed I’d ever seen her. When I pulled her onto my lap to watch TV she didn’t complain, but made herself comfortable, even turned her face up for a kiss before turning back to the screen.
And later when I took her to bed after she started to fade, it was she who held me back and wouldn’t let me leave. It was she who pulled my head down to hers for our nightly kiss.
I ended up covering her on the bed as the kiss got hotter. By the time I moved off of her, my dick had gone beyond just being hard and my damn eyes were crossed. But as hot as her innocent kisses were that night, I knew she still wasn’t ready.
Besides, when I take her the first time I don’t want any witnesses to what I’m going to do to her. I have no doubt that once I get inside her shit’s going to get wild.
I didn’t want to leave her though, didn’t want to wake up the next day to a change, so I laid in bed next to her with her head on my chest until she fell asleep. I’d planned on leaving as soon as she passed out, but found myself reluctant to let her go.
Her weight on my chest felt right, being that close to her felt like it was meant to be. I must’ve smelt her hair and kissed her temple a hundred times as I listened to her easy breathing in sleep.
I let myself relax and realized I’d been tensed up all night waiting for the other shoe to drop. Travis said goodnight from the doorway a little while later and closed the door before heading off to bed.
His show of trust in me was just one more reason for me not to fuck up. I don’t know anyone who, knowing their history, would do that shit lightly.
I tried getting out of her bed a little while later when I was sure she was down for the night, but she made a complaining sound in her throat and held onto me. I was really starting to eat up these little shows of affection.