Now his smile widens and his hand shoots out, catching the back of my neck and tugging me in so he can give me a kiss. “Your effort is much appreciated,” he murmurs against my lips.
“Yeah?” I tease, sliding my arms around his neck and leaning closer.
“Yeah.”
As if I healed the power lines with my surrender, the power blinks back on.
Cassidy leaps off the couch and jumps up and down. “Yay! The air works again!”
“Think that was your mom, or mine?” Derek jokes.
I roll my eyes. “I think there were no supernatural entities at work here, and the slow-ass men who have been working outside all morning finally earned their pay.”
“Yeah, you’re right, it was probably mine,” he says, like I agreed with him. “Your mom would be like ‘let that little bastard’s back hurt. Take the bumpy road, too!’”
I swat him in the stomach and he grunts, but I’m not even sorry. Getting to my feet, I tell him, “I’m going to check the food in the fridge and see if I have to go grocery shopping again.”
---
After a relaxing day together, I let Derek convince me to go to bed early. I could have taken advantage of the quiet to work for a couple more hours, but the promise of pillow talk, cool bed sheets, and cuddling sounded much more pleasant.
I’ve already resigned myself to the fact that I’m going to have to go without sleep all week to make up for coming here to take care of Derek. There’s nothing that can be done about it at this point. If I’m going to pay the price, I may as well enjoy myself while I’m here.
“Bookstores,” Derek says, in answer to the question I just asked him.
“Bookstores?” I ask, lifting my eyebrows. I’m lying half on top of him, since he can’t turn on his side to look at me tonight.
He nods, his eyes on the ceiling instead of my face. “Since you left, I can’t step foot inside one. All I can think about is you playing hide and seek in the aisles, that job you were so excited to get back then, how I even fucked that up for you. I just can’t do it.”
“Don’t you buy books for Cassidy?”
“Other stores have books. Plus, you can order them online now and have ‘em shipped right to your door. The age of convenience.”
“No kidding. I get boxes of books shipped to me all the time. Well, we should remedy that soon. Once your back is feeling better, we should all take a trip to a bookstore. I can’t handle the thought that Cassidy has never stepped foot inside one.”
“Yeah?”
“Definitely.”
Turning his gaze back to me, he lightly runs his fingers across my shoulder. I’m wearing a thin cami top to sleep in with no bra underneath, so only a thin strap keeps my shoulder from complete bareness. “What about you? What’s one thing you can’t do since we split up?”
Take chances. Offer my love to anyone else. Trust anyone.
Those are probably too dreary, so I go with something a little lighter. “Read Wuthering Heights,” I answer. “Not that I have much time to read non-work-related books anymore anyway, but yeah, I can’t even look at that book without being transported back to your dad’s house, finding that letter.”
Derek nods. “Makes sense.” Now it’s his turn to ask a question, so he does. “What’s one thing you wish you could have right now?”
“Twenty more hours in every single day,” I answer without hesitation. Nodding firmly, I say, “Yes, definitely that. What about you?”
“Mine’s a little more attainable than yours,” he says, smirking.
“What is it, then?”
“I want you on your knees, those pretty green eyes looking up at me as I caress your jaw. I want these soft lips,” he says slowly, running his thumb over my bottom lip, “opening wide, hungry for my cock.”
His spontaneous dirty words fill my mind with visuals that I very much like. They’re so unexpected, they rob a little bit of breath from my lungs. I squeeze my thighs together, my tongue darting out to lick the bottom lip he was just touching. “Then what?”
“Then I grab hold of your hair and thrust my cock inside your pretty mouth. I can see in your eyes how much you love it, but in case I couldn’t, your sexy little moan would tell me.”