Total pages in book: 73
Estimated words: 70518 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 353(@200wpm)___ 282(@250wpm)___ 235(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 70518 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 353(@200wpm)___ 282(@250wpm)___ 235(@300wpm)
I couldn’t go there yet, thoughfirst I had to figure out what to do for Thanksgiving. Sawyer and I had been invited to his teammate Wes and his wife Hadley’s home for the holiday next week, but Sawyer refused to go. Our mom couldn’t get away from caring for her sister, so I either had to convince Sawyer that we should celebrate with his team or cook a meal for the two of us myself.
And while I loved cooking, the thought of spending yet another day cooped up in Sawyer’s house watching him drink beer and feel sorry for himself wasn’t appealing.
I’d snuck out this morning while he was asleep on the couch. Not only did I need some fresh air, I wasn’t going to live in fear of Nate. It had been several days since someone had set off Sawyer’s security system, and I was ready to move on.
Just as I was about to walk into the bakery, my phone buzzed in my coat pocket with a text.
Kon: I would love to, thanks. What should I bring?
I smiled at the message on my screen. I’d texted him just before leaving Sawyer’s house to invite him over again for dinner tonight.
Something inside me had shifted the night he’d gone looking for our potential home intruder with a gun. Kon had made me feel cared for and protected. Safe. The intensity I always saw in his gaze was mixed with confidence. He knew he was capable, and I sensed he also knew he was sexy as hell.
Not that I’d noticed. But when he held me the other night, I’d felt how rock hard his body was. It was like being hugged by a brick wall. And I didn’t hate it.
I texted him back.
Lucy: Don’t bring anything. Just be there by 6.
Kon: See you then.
Ugh, that awkward moment when you don’t know whether to send another text or not. I decided to go with a reaction to his text instead. That created a new dilemma, though. Thumbs-up or heart emoji?
What the hell. I went with the heart. I did love that he was coming over tonight, because it meant I’d have someone other than my brother to talk to for a change. I also loved cooking for people. And if I accidentally ran into him and got another brick wall hug, that would be a bonus.
Nate and I had only been together for around nine months, and we hadn’t touched each other in the past two months. Even before things got tense, he was never the type to comfort me with a hug or a kind word. Hell, he’d never even given me an orgasm in bed, which he said was my fault because I had “an unusually small clit.” The red flags had been waving wildly, but had I noticed them? Nope.
As soon as I opened the door to Morelli Brothers, the scent of freshly baked bread made me smile and pause for a second.
The bakery was a huge, open space. I could see people working in the back, pushing loaves of bread and sheet pans of cookies into huge ovens, or pulling them out and adding them to one of the tall cooling racks on wheels.
The walls were decorated with vintage St. Louis news stories and ads. I stepped closer to one, which was a framed photo and magazine story about the Morelli Brothers, who were standing side by side and grinning at the camera.
“I’m the handsome one,” a man behind the counter boomed. “Luigi.”
His hair was peppered with gray now, and his belly was more pronounced, but I recognized his smile from the photo.
Looking back at the photo, I squinted at its caption. “Luigi and Mario Morelli? Really?”
“Really,” he said, sounding weary of explaining it. “We’re fifty-three and fifty-six—born before those cartoon guys made our names famous.”
“That’s pretty neat,” I said, walking up to the glass display case at the front counter. “So what’s your specialty?”
“Our specialty?” He shrugged, smile still in place. “Anything baked at Morelli Brothers will make you wonder whether you may have passed away unexpectedly and you’re now in heaven. Our bread will make you weep with the knowledge that you’ve ever eaten any other kind.”
I laughed. “That’s quite an endorsement.”
“What would you like a sample of? Tasting is believing.”
“Hmm…” I scanned the baked goods, my gaze landing on a brownie drizzled with caramel and covered with chopped pecans. “Wow. Everything looks so good, but that brownie is calling my name.”
Luigi nodded and reached into the case, cutting a generous piece off of a brownie in the very back. He placed it on a little napkin and passed it to me.
It was just after nine in the morning, a little early for a brownie, but what the hell? I bit into it and moaned with satisfaction.