I spent the rest of my dream fighting to tell him there was no place I’d rather be.
Chapter Twenty-Three
AUGUSTUS
An angel was cooking in my kitchen, in my clothes, covered in my scent.
She’d fallen asleep last night trying to ask me about my tattoos but ended up nodding off instead. Leaving me with the foreign feeling of being both content and disappointed simultaneously.
Not to put it the wrong way, nothing about what we’d done last night was disappointing. It was so much the opposite, in fact, that I think she re-wired my nerve endings to automatically react whenever she was within a five-foot radius—said my dick as it stood on end watching her make eggs.
But something awakened in me after having her in my space. Like now that she was here, I didn’twant her to go. I wanted to do everything with her. I was so ridiculously excited to have her put on a movie as she sat with me on the couch that I was already planning our next one before it was even over. We could play a board game, or do a puzzle, or even just keep talking throughout the night.
Though it was cute the way she instantly passed out when she nestled up against me too, I was slightly disappointed when her warm breaths started to get deeper against my neck and her head threatened to pull her whole body forward as she popped in and out of sleep.
I was getting selfish with her. Needy. I’d already convinced her to stay the night, but I was brainstorming ways to get her to stay the entire weekend. Truth was, I’d propose a way to have her stay forever if I didn’t think it would spook her.
For now, I continued to play it cool as I watched her from afar. Voices blasted out the speaker of her phone as it sat in a bowl on the counter. She was listening to a podcast while mixing something in a sizzling pan on the stove. The words ‘marketability’ and ‘net 30’ were all I needed to hear to know this was not something I wanted to be tuning into, leaving me wide open to tune into her and the smell of whatever deliciousness she was whipping up half-naked in my kitchen.
She was an early riser. When I first woke up wrapped around her like she was some kind of pillow, my first reaction was to jerk away, giving her space to breathe.
“Oh shit, sorry,” I’d rushed out. “I didn’t mean to crowd you like that.”
She was already awake. Her pretty eyes open and alert, her face relaxed as she looked at me. “It’s okay. I’ve been waiting for you to wake up.”
I wiped my eyes, then stretched. “Really? Why?”
“Can I use your kitchen?”
I blinked, surprised by her sudden forwardness. “Hungry?”
“Starving,” she admitted.
Sitting up on my elbows, I tried to force myself to be more awake. That was hard to accomplish when I felt like someone had hit me with a truck. A beautiful truck that gave me multiple orgasms and felt like a dream wrapped around me, but a truck, nonetheless. It was safe to say I hadn’t used the special muscles it took for a sex marathon in quite some time.
But she was awake, so I wanted to be awake too.
“I can make you something. Or we can order something,” I offered quickly. “No need for you to cook.”
She shot up, “That’s alright. If it’s okay with you, I’ll just make something. I think I saw enough ingredients when you got me water last night. You can stay here, I’ll call you in when it’s ready.”
So much energy.
I wondered where it all came from as she bounced out of the room. I also wondered if she asked me to stay behind while she all but booked it out of there because she needed some space.
I gave her some just in case. Taking my time brushing my teeth and washing my face, then pulling on some warm sweats and digging through my clothes to find her something other than that long sleeve she’d found of mine. There wasn’t much, which was better for me anyway. It meant I could see her toned legs on display as she sauntered around in my clothes.
Not long after getting dressed, I found myself watching from the doorway as she handled my kitchen like a pro. Onions, pepper, garlic, and cilantro were all chopped up expertly and set aside. Sizzling in the pan was the spicy sausage stuff I liked to pick up from the market down the street, and I think there was some kind of sauce she was fixing to add too. There was even the smell of coffee in the air. The scent was usually magic to my senses, but it left me feeling uneasy as I finally walked in after her.
She’d done everything already. What could I offer now to make her want to stay?
Coming up behind her shoulder, I gave her space as I approached. “Can I peek, or will that bother you?”
Looking over at me, I saw a lightness I didn’t know I was missing back in her eyes. “Sure, just pause my show real quick, please.”
I did as she asked, pausing the voices before coming back around to view her concoction. “Whatcha making?”
“Chilaquiles con chorizo,” she said.
