“You mean town gossip.” I finish my last bite.
“Whatever the fuck you want to call it. You are not going there by yourself, and if I find out you did, I’m going to turn you over my fucking knee”—I gasp—“and not in the good way either.”
“You did not just say that to me,” I accuse him, shocked.
He pushes away from the island. “Oh, I did, baby.” He grabs his plate. “Now, we have to get this cleaned up, and then I have to take you upstairs”—he puts his plate in the big deep sink—“and look at your whiteboard.” He uses quotation marks when he says it. “Then I’m going to make out with you. Then I have to get home. We start the barn project tomorrow, so I have to be there bright and early. Emmett is going to be a pain in my ass.” I’m about to say something when he holds up his hand. “If you mention me dating Lilah one more time…”
“I’m just saying, maybe he’s not keen on the fact you dated her either.” I grab my own dish.
“I kissed her once.” The thought makes the back of my neck heat.
“I know.” I put my plate in the sink on top of his. He steps forward and his hand grabs my hip. “Also, you kissed her twice.”
“And it was nothing like our kisses.” He pulls me to him. “With you, I kiss you and I never want to stop. I walk into the room, and I see you, and the only thing I can think is, when am I going to get to kiss you? Fuck, I look at you and all I want to do is be next to you.” I swallow down the lump that has somehow moved up from my stomach. “Think about that the next time you compare yourself to Lilah.”
“I’m not comparing myself to Lilah,” I defend myself.
“Good, you shouldn’t since you would win every single time.” He bends his head and kisses me. I think it’s going to be a soft kiss, and that is how it starts out. Then his tongue slips out of his mouth and touches my lips, and my mouth immediately opens for him. His tongue rolls with mine as my body melts into his. “If you don’t move away from me, I’m going to forget about cleaning up this kitchen.”
“I don’t know if I would be mad if we did that.” I wrap my arms around his neck.
“Baby, you just got this kitchen. It’ll take twenty minutes to clean it up.” He looks around. “If you want, you can watch me and think about things I’m going to do to you with my tongue.”
“You can’t say things like that,” I groan. “What if I get up after you leave and clean up?”
“Who says I’m leaving? Maybe I changed my mind and I’m staying.” I swallow when he says those words. “We aren’t going to be having sex until I take you on a proper date, but that doesn’t mean I can’t sleep over.”
“Who says I’m going to go on a date with you?”
“Baby,” he states softly, “Saturday night, you are going to get dressed up. I’m going to take you out to have dinner. I’m going to wine you and dine you, and then”—his voice goes lower—“then I’m going to bring you home and fuck the ever-loving shit out of you.”
“Fine.” I try not to smile. “If you put it like that, I’ll go out with you.”
He laughs. “Good. Now, are you going to let me clean the kitchen?”
“Ugh.” I push away from him. “You were the one holding on to me and not the other way around.”
“You always sass me.” He shakes his head, walking to the stove and grabbing the pot. “I might have to think about ways to fill your mouth.”
“Caleb,” I snap his name out and stomp my foot, “do you want me to clean up the kitchen naked?”
“No,” he retorts, and I take a step back, sort of insulted, “you don’t have any curtains in this fucking house, and it’s nighttime, and the lights are on. Everyone can see inside. Order fucking curtains, and then you can do it naked. If I can make a request, I’d like for you to do it naked and bending over. With your ass to me or your face, either works fine with me.” I open my mouth to say something, but nothing comes out. I open it, close it, and then open it again. The only thing I can do is turn and stomp away from him. “I’ll be up in ten!” he shouts from the kitchen, and I shake my head, wondering if maybe I can slam the door and lock him out. Then knowing I want to make out with him more than I want to prove a point.
I’m washing my hands when, ten minutes later, he comes up, his boots off, his head bent, and he’s rubbing the back of his neck. “Hey,” he says, walking right past me and toward my closet.
I follow him and watch him with his hands on his hips. “We can do some research during the week if you want.” He looks over at me.
“You would do that?”
“One, I get to spend time with you, so I’ll do just about anything, and two, I’m invested in this, so yeah, I’ll do it.”
“Okay, fine, I’ll make out with you,” I joke with him, but he stalks to me, wrapping his arm around my waist and picking me up off my feet while he takes me back to my bed. The two of us land on our sides while he attacks my mouth.
We spend most of the night making out. Fuck, his kisses, I’m pretty sure they can solve all my problems or at least a certain amount of them. He gets up at eleven. “I’m going to head home.” I sit up on the bed. My shirt is halfway up from when he was feeling me up, the most he did was feel me up. Neither of us cross that line to get each other naked. “I’ll close the door behind me.” He looks down at me. “And I’ll call you in the morning.”
“Okay,” I reply as he bends to kiss me again. I watch him walk to the bedroom door, grabbing his boots and slipping them on before walking out with a smooth wave before the front door slams shut. I collapse back on the bed, smelling him all over me and wanting him to come back and spend the night.
I’m thinking about doing that when the phone rings and I have to rush over to my desk to get it, seeing it’s him. “Hello,” I answer, putting the phone to my ear.
