“Oh,” was all I could think to say in that moment – as ridiculous as it sounded.
I really had no words to say to that. I was happy that I came back too. This wasn't just for him; it was for me as well. I was getting chilly, so I pulled the covers up and nestled myself down deep into them. His bed was so cozy, so soft, and so wonderfully warm. I could probably die right then and there – after mind-blowing sex and in the most comfortable bed I'd ever been in – and have been perfectly happy.
“Promise me one thing, please?”
“What's that?”
“Promise me you won't sneak out in the middle of the night again,” he said. “Because I'd really like to make you breakfast this time.”
“That sounds nice,” I said. “Really nice.”
And Drew pulled me close, my head resting on his bare chest, and I thought to myself – I could really get used to this.
BOOK 3: CRUSH
“Belle!”
My head snapped up and I saw my roommate and best friend, Alexa, bounding across the kitchen. She grinned at me as she dumped a handful of pasta into a pot full of boiling water on the stove.
“Hey,” I said with a grin. Setting my backpack down on a chair, I did a lazy twirl across the hardwood floor. It felt good to be home – especially considering today had been my last week of classes before finals. I’d worked my ass off this week, and I really needed a break.
“I’m making dinner,” Alexa said dryly. She grabbed a jar of marinara sauce and started unscrewing the lid. “This looks good, right?”
I snickered. “You’re not supposed to put that in until the pasta’s done,” I said as kindly as I could. Alexa had never really been prone to making good meals. In the two-and-a-half years that we’d been living together, I’d done the vast majority of the cooking. But I didn’t mind – that was one of the things that made me and Alexa work so well as roommates. Sure, we were good friends. But we also knew our strengths: I was a better cook, and Alexa wasn’t bad at cleaning…and gossip.
“Thanks, sous chef,” Alexa teased. She set the sauce down on the counter and sighed dramatically. Her big blue eyes widened as she slapped her hand against her forehead. “I had the worst day,” she added.
I frowned, knowing a story was coming. “Oh, yeah? Tell me about it,” I replied. Moving my bag from the chair to the floor, I slid down in the chair, making sure to keep one eye on the stove. Alexa’s dramatics were nothing new, and I knew from experience that it was a good idea to keep track of time. Knowing my best friend as well as I did, I knew her story could take hours.
“Well, I ran into Jared,” Alexa said. She paused for dramatic effect.
“And?” I rolled my eyes. “What happened?”
“Only the worst thing ever.” Alexa pranced from one end of the kitchen to the other, swinging her graceful arms through the air like she was practicing dance.
I giggled. “He ignored you?”
Alexa’s nostrils flared. “Worse,” she complained. “He made this huge thing about how we hadn’t talked in forever! And he tried to hug me!”
I snickered. “Heaven forfend, a man try to touch you.”
Alexa smirked. “Well, I could tell he missed me.” Irritation spread over her features and she flopped down into another kitchen chair. “But that’s not the point.”
I stood up and walked over to the stove, poking at the pasta with a wooden spoon. It was still a touch too stiff for my liking, so I set a lid down on the pot and watched the cloudy water swirling around. Cooking had always been soothing for me, even though I hadn’t done much of it growing up. We’d always had a maid, and a cook, and usually a sommelier…although my stepdad, Mitchell, had been talking for years about how he wanted to learn more about wine himself.
Even though it sounds like I grew up really rich, the truth is a little more complicated than that. When I was twelve, my mother Anne married Mitchell Rhodes – real estate mogul and consulting pro. He’d made billions from New York City real estate over the past few decades, and he lived like a king. Before Mom met Mitchell, our life was pretty boring. We’d lived in Buffalo, in a little apartment with bad insulation and no heat in the long winters. Mom had fallen for Mitchell when she’d met him in New York, on a trip with her girlfriends. He’d swept her off her feet, and they’d married within the year.
Mom had teased me when I was younger. I could still see her happy face now as she stroked my hair and pulled me into a tight hug. “I named you Belle because you were my little princess,” Mom had said. “But now you’re really going to be a princess!”
In reality, things had been a little murkier than that. Mitchell had always been kind to me, but it was clear that he didn’t have much interest in being a stepfather. And his son, Jackson, my stepbrother, was an asshole. There weren’t any other words I could use to describe him. He was a perfect, smug, gorgeous asshole.
Just thinking about him made me want to shudder. I hadn’t spoken to him in years – Jackson is nine years my senior, and thankfully he left Mitchell’s house as soon as he turned eighteen so we never even lived under the same roof. The last time I’d seen him, when I was sixteen, he’d spent the whole afternoon flirting with me. I’d been so taken by his charms that I hadn’t even noticed that my period had started. But Jackson had, and he tricked me into exposing my bloodstained butt to a roomful of people…. everyone waiting to wish Mitchell a happy fiftieth birthday.
It had been the most embarrassing moment of my whole life.
“Belle?” Alexa snapped her fingers in front of my face. “Hello? What happened? You just like, totally faded on me!”
“Sorry,” I mumbled, blushing hotly. “I was just thinking about…well, never mind.”