“You bought enough food to feed an army,” she said, chuckling as she placed the bottles of juice and water on the nightstand, the junk food that he’d bought for the movie right next to them and then organized the burgers and fries between them.
“I normally do,” he said, smiling as he waited for her to finish setting everything up.
When she sat back against the headboard and picked up the remote, he decided that it was time to dig in. She’d apparently already eaten from this place before, because she wasn’t sampling everything or pulling out her notebook. While she looked for something to watch, he unwrapped a burger for her and squirted some ketchup on her fries and placed it by her side.
With a smile and a murmured, “Thank you,” she picked up her burger and took a bite. He didn’t say anything as he waited for her to pick a movie, content with sitting here with her. He didn’t even mind when she put on a chick flick minutes later or when she helped herself to his ketchup and stole a bite of his burger.
It was then that he realized for the first time in his life that he was truly happy and it was all because of the woman stealing the last fry.
Chapter 31
“You…bastard!” she gasped, biting back a laugh as ice-cold fruit punch soaked the front of her shirt.
“Shit!” Reese hissed as he quickly plucked the bottle off her lap that he’d accidentally dropped on her before it could spill over onto the comforter. “I’m sorry, sweetheart,” he said, shooting her a sheepish grin while he quickly worked to clean up the mess as she pinched her shirt and pulled it away from her chest to keep the juice from coating her.
“It’s fine,” she said with a shrug as she checked to make sure that none of the juice had spilled onto the bed. Once that was done, she looked from her ruined shirt to the pristine “Bradford Construction” tee shirt that Reese was wearing, which just happened to be the one that she’d had her eye on for a while.
“Shit!” Reese repeated as he climbed off the bed and made sure the bed wasn’t ruined before going to the bathroom and dumping the rest of the juice out before returning with a damp facecloth that wouldn’t be needed.
“The shirt, Yummy,” she said and thankfully, she didn’t need to explain, because he knew the way things worked now.
With a glare, he reached back and pulled it off, revealing all that delicious yumminess that she liked so much and tossed her the shirt. “Am I going to get this one back?”
Sighing with a sad shake of her head, she gestured for him to turn around. “Have you gotten any of the other ones back?” she asked, wondering why he would torture himself with false hope like that.
She pulled off her ruined shirt, tossed it aside, and pulled on her lovely new shirt that was going to go along nicely with the other ones that she’d helped herself to. Once she had it pulled on and it fell to her knees, she shut the lights off, climbed back onto the bed, stole one of the pillows from his side of the bed, and added it to her collection before she sat back, grabbed the remote, and hit “Play.”
Without a word, he joined her on the bed, shoved his pillow closer to join her pile and sat back, throwing his arm around her as he leaned back and settled in to watch the movie that she’d been meaning to watch for a while now. Shifting onto her side, she curled up against him, and settled in for the long haul.
“You know that I could probably get you shirts in your size, right?” he asked, wrapping his arm more tightly around her so that she could settle in comfortably by his side.
“You really don’t get this, do you, Yummy?” she asked, snuggling in closer to him, still amazed that she was comfortable enough to do this with him.
She didn’t even do this with Eric. She was close with Eric, loved him like a little brother and he was one of her best friends, but she’d never felt comfortable enough to snuggle him, sit on his lap, or demand that he carry her fireman style just to see if he could do it. With Reese…
She didn’t question it or overanalyze everything. It just felt right, she thought as she shifted closer so that she could lay her head on his shoulder and place her hand on his chest where his heart beat, strong and steady just like him.
“I’m running out of shirts, sweetheart,” he said, sighing heavily as though this somehow pained him when he should feel honored that she was willing to wear his shirts.
“Then you should probably get more,” she informed him, absently noting that he was more comfortable than the mattress.
Chuckling, he started tracing a path over her arm with his fingertips as he held her. He was honestly the sweetest man that she’d ever met and that thought should have made her feel disloyal, made her feel like she was betraying Michael, but it didn’t.
When Michael passed away he’d been a seventeen-year-old kid who’d never had the chance to become the man that he was meant to be. He’d been kind and funny, but in a different way than Reese. Reese was a grown man and he was settled into the man that he was meant to be, kind, funny, sweet, and incredibly sexy and Michael…Michael had been the love of her life.
He’d saved her from herself, gave her hope, made her want more, more than the life that she’d been given and the one that she’d been destined to live, he’d given her Mikey and then-
He’d broken her heart, destroyed her entire world, and she wasn’t sure that she would survive going through something like that again. She’d never wanted to try again.
Not until she’d met Reese, she thought, worrying her bottom lip as she tilted her head back and found Reese watching her with those amazing green eyes that she liked so much. He was an incredibly handsome man, she thought as she reached up and gently traced the small scar that Mikey had given him. He was also an incredibly kind man.
He’d never once said an unkind word to Mikey, made her feel bad about what happened, or treated her like a nuisance any time she begged him to play catch with her. Instead, he’d smile, gently pull one of her braids, promise that he’d play with her when he was done, and he kept that promise every time he made it. It didn’t matter if he was tired, and she knew that he was always tired, he played catch with Mikey, listened to her, laughed at her jokes, and always smiled when he saw her.
“Does this hurt?” she asked, tracing the pink scar with her fingertip.
“No,” he said softly as he reached over and cupped her face in his hand, gently caressing her cheek with a stroke of his thumb. “You’re so damn beautiful.”
She leaned into his touch as she traced a path along his jaw and down to his chin and back up again, losing herself in the motion until she found herself leaning forward and brushing her lips against his. The first brush of her lips against his had her breath catching. The second had her reaching up to cup his face with her trembling hands as she shifted to move closer to him, desperate to get closer. By the third, she couldn’t get enough of him.
*-*-*-*
“Kasey,” he said, only to end with a moan as she took advantage and deepened the kiss as she wrapped her arms around him and pulled herself closer until her breasts were pressed up against his chest and he was on the verge of losing his fucking mind.
“Baby, please,” he said, the word ripped out of his mouth as he grabbed hold of the comforter to stop himself from grabbing her and pinning her to the bed so that he could do all those things that he’d been fantasizing about doing to her.
He wanted to devour every fucking inch of her.
He wanted to rip her shirt off and touch, lick, and suck her breasts as she squirmed on his lap and ground herself against his cock, teasing and caressing it until he couldn’t take it any longer and ripped off those boxers that had better not belong to Eric. Once he had her naked and writhing on his lap, he would run his hands up her thighs and tease her slit until she was dripping wet and begging for his touch.
Then he’d lay her down, part her with his fingers so that he could flick his tongue over her swollen clit, tease it to make her wetter before he ran his tongue down to her core where he would run the tip of his to
ngue around it before sliding it deep inside her. He’d rub his thumb over her clit, praying like hell that it would make her squirm so that she rode his tongue and gave him a reason to reach down and release his cock.
He’d wrap his hand around his cock as he fucked her with his tongue, imagining how good it would feel to slide inside her and he already knew that he would. He was done waiting, done making excuses, and he was done trying to play this role. He wanted her so fucking much that he hurt, which made what he had to do all the more painful.
Shifting to relieve some of the pressure, he kissed her one last time and leaned back, knowing that they needed to go slow, to give her a chance to get used to the idea. For her sake, they needed to go slow, he needed to give her a chance to get used to his touch, because he needed to do this right.
He wanted to make this absolutely fucking perfect for her. She deserved perfect, deserved to be swept off her feet, a romantic dinner, a midnight walk on the beach, roses, a five-star hotel room that was going to put a dent in his credit card, chocolates, candles and everything that would make this absolutely perfect for her.
She deserved perfect and god knows that she wasn’t going to get that with a twenty-nine year old virgin. For the first time since he’d made the decision to wait until he’d found “the one,” he regretted his decision. He wanted this to be good for her and he was absolutely terrified that he wasn’t going to be-
Losing his fucking mind when she took him by surprise and sat back on his lap with a moan as she slid her tongue against his, ripping a groan from his throat and caused him to seriously fuck everything up.