Page 27 of Knocked Up
I can’t help it. I smother my mouth with a choking sound but it escapes as my laugh rumbles through me. This girl just ordered more food than I did when I played high school basketball. She has absolutely no idea how large these burgers are, or the fact that all the food is served on fourteen-inch silver platters that could hold a pizza.
Her cheeks pinken and I shake my head. “Sorry. That’s just a lot.”
“Well,” she huffs in the most adorable way. “I’m eating for two.”
“Or six.” I wink at her, showing her I’m teasing, and when the waitress turns to me, I order a regular cheeseburger. It’s less than I usually order, but I’m betting Cara will leave approximately eighty percent of her own food untouched.
“So,” she says, once Marissa skates away. “You wanted to talk?”
Where there was a mischievous excitement in her eyes when she approached me at the wedding, asking me to keep the night going with the same tone of voice, now there’s still a haze of uncertainty in her blue eyes. It’s a look I want to shake from her, because she seems so scared of me, so hesitant to ask me for anything. It’s ridiculous. What she doesn’t know yet is that I have a feeling I’ll give her everything she desires without question or thought.
Or, I can remind her of the kiss we shared. I might have done it to quiet her down but between the kiss and the feel of her beneath my hands again, and then the cock-shaped instrument that went inside of her, I’ve been sporting a semi for the last hour just thinking about filling her again, but this time with something more substantial—me.
I’m not going to sit here and lie to the girl, or beat around the bush. I could wax poetic about how I think we should get to know each other, become friends, and then hope I can slide my way into her heart, but I’m rarely anything but blunt, and I don’t see the point in changing now.
I wait while she takes a sip of her water, the glass trembling slightly in her hand showing her nerves. The last thing I want is that sip of ice water to end up sprayed out of her mouth and ending up all over the table.
She sets the glass down, and I wait no more.
“I think we should date and move in together.”
Chapter 10
Cara
My hands grab on to the metal and chipped-Formica table in front of me like an earthquake has suddenly hit the diner. It might have. That’s the only way to describe the crazy force shaking me.
“I’m sorry, you what?”
“I want to date you. And I want you to move in with me.”
He holds no shame or embarrassment in his gaze, none of the bossy arrogance he used in my apartment when he saw the poor little dump I live in. Instead, there’s something else there, a heat that’s been swirling around us since the first time we met.
It’s the chemistry, the fact I can still practically feel his lips on mine from earlier, and the ease with which we can tease each other—him better at it than me—that is what made it so easy to approach him the night of Jenna’s wedding reception and suggest the night not end quite yet.
Because it’s Braxton, and he cried without a hint of embarrassment when he heard our baby’s heartbeat, and as soon as I mentioned lunch and what I was currently craving, he took me immediately to a place I could tell is somewhere he loves, and not somewhere convenient. I know that because it took us thirty minutes to get here and we passed dozens of burger joints and steakhouses on the way.
And yeah, I’d love to date him, to be with him in that way we were months ago, but I’ve jumbled everything up in the last few days and he didn’t even manage to reply to my text of an apology. So there’s a lot of unanswered questions and now that there’s a baby on the way, jumping into a relationshipbecausethere’s a baby on the way doesn’t seem like the most responsible choice either.
“Why? Is it because you don’t like my home?”
“No. Can I be completely honest?”
I’m not quite sure I’m ready for his brand of honesty. Although secrets haven’t helped anything so far.
“Sure,” I say, my voice wobbling with fear. “Honesty sounds good.”
He leans forward, the sleeves of his long shirt are pushed up to his forearms and have I mentioned how perfectly his shirts always seem to fit over the curves and dips of his chest and biceps? He’s so beautiful that as he sets those forearms, all his brightly colored inked designs on such beautiful and manly display, I almost forget he’s about to throw me into another tailspin.
He drops his head, pummeling me with sharp determination in his eyes and a wicked tilt of his lips. “I want you. I wanted you the weekend of the wedding and I wanted you the next day and I was pissed you snuck out so I didn’t bother Dan for your number. While we might have cleared up that misunderstanding, it still pissed me off.”
I’m so stuck on theI want youandI wanted youit takes me a moment to process everything else he said. “Okay.”
The tilt of his lips curve up into an almost full grin. “I can see I’m shaking you up a little bit right now, but going slow has never been my thing. I see something I want and I don’t hesitate to go for it. I want to date you because I enjoyed our weekend together. I felt something, what, I’m not exactly sure, but I know it was so good I wanted to see you again. So that’s what I want to do. I want to see you outside doctor’s appointments, for dinner, a few movies, whatever else we can think of to do together.”
I want that. Goodness, I really want that too. I want it so badly I force my hands into my lap so I don’t reach across the table and cover his gorgeous, strong hands with mine and begPlease, yes, let’s do all of it and more.
He also isn’t kidding. He doesn’t go slow.
