“I mean, I had to fend for myself growing up. I didn’t starve, butI also never got to the point where Ilikedcooking. And I kinda think that’s the key to getting good.” Her eyes had been focused on Nugget, but she glanced up, and there was a vulnerability there that Ellis hadn’t seen before. It made her want to move around the couch and wrap her up in a hug. Instead, she slid the tray of asparagus out of the oven and gave it a toss before letting it continue to roast. “You like to cook, don’t you?” Cherry asked.
“I do. But I didn’t always.” She set a timer and then held up the bottle of wine in question. At Cherry’s nod, she opened it and poured as she spoke. “After my dad died and it was just me and Mikey left, I was kind of in the same boat as you. I was working two jobs and visiting Mikey at the facility, and I had to fend for myself, or I wasn’t going to eat.” She brought both glasses into the living area and handed one to Cherry, then took a seat next to her. “It didn’t start as something I loved. Actually, it started out like a chore. It bugged me. I was irritated that I even had to do it.”
“That’s where I still am,” Cherry said with a soft laugh, then held her glass up for toasting. “To you and the first dinner you cooked for me.”
“The first of many.” The words were out before Ellis had a chance to grab them, think about them, censor or even edit them at all.
But they didn’t seem to bother Cherry. She just smiled and touched her glass to Ellis’s. “Where’s the bottle?” she asked, then got up to get it. She crossed the small room and arranged the bottle and their two glasses in a surprisingly photogenic way near the window, and it was still light enough for rays from the setting sun to cut through the Riesling and bounce off the glasses. She took several shots, and when she glanced back at Ellis with a grin, she told her, “Can’t not take a photo of something so pretty, right?” And then she turned the phone toward Ellis and clicked off a couple shots of her, too.
She felt herself blush hotly and glanced down at her hands.
Cherry came back carrying both glasses, then bent down and kissed her softly on the mouth. Pulled back slightly and met Ellis’s eyes and Ellis saw that Cherry’s had gone impossibly darker. Cherry set down both glasses, then took Ellis’s face in both hands and kissed her again. Slowly. Thoroughly. Taking her time and exploring. A soft moan filled the air, and it took a moment for Ellis to realize it was hers.
Cherry straddled her lap, her lips never leaving Ellis’s as her ass settled into Ellis’s hands, Cherry’s hand sliding around to grip the back of Ellis’s head as she pressed her tongue fully into her mouth.
The oven timer chose that moment to go off, and they jumped apart, startled. They both laughed and Ellis said, “I can’t remember that timer ever sounding so loud or so obnoxious.”
Cherry grinned and swung her leg over so Ellis was free, and she swiped one finger along the corner of Cherry’s mouth, which was so fucking hot, it made Ellis let go of a little groan as she stood to check on dinner. “Killing me with that,” she said as she shook her head.
“There’s more where that came from,” was Cherry’s devastatingly sexy reply.
Another small groan.
Ellis only had a small, round table with two chairs, and she’d set it as nicely as she could with her mother’s cream-colored dishes and deep green tablecloth. She hadn’t gone so far as candles but now wished she had. Cherry brought the wine to the table, and she dished out the food.
“This looks amazing,” Cherry said when Ellis set her plate in front of her, and she wasn’t wrong, if Ellis said so herself. The salmon had cooked perfectly and looked like it had just been spatula’d off a television commercial and set on the bed of asparagus, and before Ellis’s brain could even pull up the wordphotogenicagain, Cherry was snapping a photo of her meal. “Absolutely gorgeous,” she said quietly.
She refilled their glasses, then sat.
As they ate, it occurred to Ellis that she was both super comfortable and also incredibly nervous around Cherry. And how were both things possible at once? That didn’t make any sense. But it was true. She didn’t know how else to describe the way she felt. Nervously comfortable. Comfortably nervous.
“I’m so confused when I’m around you,” Cherry said then, and Ellis snapped her head up in surprise.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, I feel opposite things at the same time.”
“Oh my God, me, too,” Ellis said, a bite of her dinner on her fork in midair.
“Like…” Cherry set her fork down and looked toward the ceiling as if the answer was up there. “I’m super happy to be here. Relaxed. Comfortable. Nowhere else I’d rather be.”
“Aw,” Ellis said with a grin.
“At the same time?” Cherry held up one hand, palm down, fingers out, and the slight tremor was clearly visible. A clearly uncertain chuckle escaped her lips. “I’m shaking like a leaf because I’m nervous.”
And the weirdest thing happened then. She couldn’t explain it. But it was as if Cherry’s nervousness canceled hers out. She suddenly felt completely, utterly calm. Relaxed. No nerves at all. Her gaze found Cherry’s and held it. Cherry blinked at her, cheeks tinted pinked, and when her tongue peeked out to wet her bottom lip, Ellis felt an insistent flutter low in her body.
“Do you think maybe that’s because there’s a decent chance you’ll be staying here with me tonight?” Yikes, did she say that out loud? Judging by the way Cherry’s cheeks went deeper crimson, and the way her eyes got darker, and the way she swallowed so that Ellis could hear it, the answer to that question was a resounding yes.
And then Cherry seemed to pull herself together, to find her own control. She arched one eyebrow as she picked up her wineglass, and her eyes never left Ellis’s. “I think that might be exactly the reason,” she said quietly. Then she took a sip of her wine, and again, her gaze never left Ellis’s and sweet baby Jesus on a skateboard, she’d never seen anything sexier in her entire life.
“I am so not interested in this food any longer.”
“Me neither,” Cherry said and stood. “Bring your wine.”
With a glance over her shoulder and a sexy grin, she disappeared through the door to Ellis’s bedroom.
Chapter Eleven
