Every Time I Fall (Orchid Valley 3)

Images from last night flash through my mind, answering my question. Definitely Abbi.

She pulls the brownies from the oven and plops them onto a cooling rack before returning her attention to the stove. Only when I’m sure she’s not at risk of startling and hurting herself do I clear my throat.

“It smells amazing,” I say, stepping toward her.

She flashes me a smile over her shoulder and tugs her earbuds from her ears. She tucks them in her pocket as she turns to me. “I told you I’d take over your kitchen. Hope you don’t mind.”

I drag my gaze over her. Big T-shirt, fitted jeans, bare feet. She looks comfortable, and that does more for me than the meal she’s cooking—which is saying something, given the smells happening in here. “Mind? I’m pretty sure I’m the luckiest guy in town tonight.”

She grins. “You say that now, but once you taste my chicken piccata, there’ll be no room for doubt.”

A few weeks ago, the only compliments Abbi knew how to take were ones about her cooking. But tonight? I grab her by the hips and pull her forward until our bodies are flush. “What if I wasn’t talking about the food?”

She looks up at me with big, hungry eyes. “Then I’d wonder when you might kiss me,” she says softly, surprising me as she slides a hand into my hair.

Groaning, I lower my mouth to hers, sucking her bottom lip between my teeth. Images of last night flash through my mind—Abbi all flushed and needy beneath me, the way she moved against my mouth. Goddamn, I could barely focus on my work today because I was so distracted by the memories and my plans for her tonight.

When she breaks the kiss, we’re both breathless, and my body has forgotten all about its need for food. Right now, all that matters is my need for her.

“Will that be okay on the stove for a while?” I ask, kissing my way down her neck.

“Hmm?” She tilts her head to the side, giving me better access to all her most sensitive spots.

“I haven’t stopped thinking about you all day, and I don’t know if I can make it through dinner without getting my mouth on you again first.”

“You . . . already have your . . . mouth on me,” she says, as if piecing the sentence together takes all her effort.

“I do,” I say, flicking my tongue against her earlobe, “but I’m craving . . . other parts.” I tug up her shirt and slide a hand between her legs, stroking gently.

“I can’t think when you do that.”

I fucking love that I scramble her mind like that. I want her so turned on that she forgets all her worries and all her insecurities. So turned on that she forgets this Frankie guy. I only want her thinking about me. “That was the idea.”

She shakes her head and steps out of my reach. “Get over there.” She points to the opposite side of the kitchen. “Seriously. If you stay next to me, dinner will be burned.”

I smirk. “I think I might like you bossy.” But I obey, watching her finish our dinner. We eat, and it is incredible, but I’m impatient and have her naked and moaning my name before we make it to dessert.

* * *

Abbi

Tuesday morning comes too soon. I make myself get out of bed when Dean gets up to get ready for work. Only seems fair, since I was the reason he didn’t get much sleep.

I didn’t intend to stay the night, but when it was time for me to go, Dean pinned me down on the bed and kissed me until I forgot why I needed to sleep alone. Not that I tried too hard to remember.

We ate brownies naked on the bedroom floor, and he “accidentally” smeared frosting across my chest and feigned insult when I suggested we take a shower to clean it off.

He promised he could do a better job than a showerhead and proved himself. Then we took the shower anyway, and he did some seriously wicked things to me with his removable showerhead before hooking one of my legs over his hip and driving into me, the cold tile against my back.

After that, we both collapsed in bed and slept hard, spent, sated, and exhausted. But that didn’t keep him from pulling me close when the alarm went off this morning. He rolled me to my stomach and slid into me from behind, trailing kisses across my back and shoulders as he tortured me with deep, slow thrusts of his hips.

When he headed to the shower, it would’ve been so easy to roll over and fall back to sleep for a few hours, but I don’t. The least I can do is make him some coffee before he goes to work. And anyway, I like this—the sleepovers, the morning coffee, and the way he looks at me. It makes that hope surge. Hope that maybe this can be more, that maybe this feels like a real relationship because it is and not only because I want it to be. I know I need to find the courage to have a conversation about it, but I don’t want to rush it either. Our relationship feels like a blooming flower that might fall apart if it’s examined too carelessly.