Yawning, I slid closer to sleep as he ranhis hand up and down my back.
“I don’t have a care in the world. I promise.”I could hear the smile in his words.
“Liar.” I kissed his chest again. “But I’llforgive it this time.”
“Brat.” But the tender kiss he placed on myforehead said he didn’t mind.
“But I’m your brat.” His quiet laughter andtender kiss were the last things I remembered as sleep finally pulled me under.
Chapter 22
Stuart
“Why don’t you have more furniture?”Looking around his apartment, I asked the question that had been pressing at mesince the first time I’d walked into his home.
Asa glanced over from the dining room tablewhere he’d been finishing up work. It hadn’t been much, but since he’d leftwork early to go to his appointment with Miles, he’d needed to complete a fewthings. Now that he was done, I’d decided it was time to be a bit nosy.
Looking around, he shrugged. “I bought whatI needed.”
That turned out to be very little.
“Asa.” My slightly more no-nonsense tonehad him sighing as he closed his laptop and pushed his chair away from thetable. The small dining room table that only had two chairs. It wasn’t even abistro set that might go on a patio.
“Yes, Master?” Walking over, he sat down onmy lap, straddling my legs so he could wrap himself around me.
“Do you ever have people over? What aboutthe friends you told me about at work?” His shrug was not a good enoughresponse, and he knew it.
“We have lunch together sometimes, butthey’re work friends.”
And work friends clearly didn’t come homewith you.
Ever.
His entire space seemed designed for justhim. The dining room table was the only space that had more than one chair.
“The furniture store wouldn’t sell you justone chair, huh?”
He scoffed. “No. Not unless I wanted to payfor each piece of the set separately, and that would end up costing almosttwice as much because the set was on sale. It was ridiculous.”
His walls were still so high he couldn’teven see them.
“How about we make a deal?” His groan mademe grin. “If you find a new person to talk to, one that you could see yourselfdoing friend-type activities with, we’ll change out my guest room downstairsinto a mancave for you as soon as you do it.”
He stilled, then eased back and studied myface. “Mancave?”
I wasn’t sure what was going through hismind, so I just pressed forward, explaining my thoughts.
“I have that desk in the living room underthe window where I work when I have to bring something home, but you don’t havea space just for you yet.” All I got was several slow blinks. “I was thinkingthat the guest room downstairs would be the perfect place to put in an officefor you.”
He cocked his head that time, and the handson my chest started to slowly caress me, so I knew he was at leastprocessing…something. “We’ll probably have to repaint that room and fix it up abit so it’s more you, but I don’t think it’ll take much work.”
Maybe a question would be better than amonologue.
“Would you prefer a big writing desk typeof table to work from or something simpler like us just moving your dining roomtable in there?” That earned me a nod which said I was heading in the rightdirection, but it took several seconds before he responded verbally.
“I think…something like my table?” Helicked his lips and shifted, still studying me. “I like to spread out when Iwork, especially if I’m taking a class.”
“Then a larger table instead of a smalldesk definitely seems like a better idea. That way you won’t have to cleareverything off the kitchen table when we eat dinner. Don’t you think?” Myquestion had him nodding again, but it wasn’t much to go on.
