Total pages in book: 127
Estimated words: 122506 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 613(@200wpm)___ 490(@250wpm)___ 408(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 122506 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 613(@200wpm)___ 490(@250wpm)___ 408(@300wpm)
“Thank you,” she whispers.
“For ruining breakfast?”
“For even thinking about making me breakfast.”
“Right,” I mutter. Some idea this was. I should’ve gotten the kitchen crew to make it all and just be done with it.
“Shut up,” she says, tightening her grip. I feel her smile against my skin, and the sunshine peeks out from behind my gray mood.
“Fine,” I mutter, submitting to my failure. I guess I can stand anything as long as she’s touching me.
“You know, the last person to make me breakfast was Baba. And I was probably eleven or twelve.”
“Yeah?”
“I bet you have a private chef who feeds you.”
“I’m a protein-shake man.” I mean, I do, for dinners and stuff. I obviously haven’t picked up any of his skill.
“Thank you for doing this. For looking after me. It feels . . . nice.”
I feel the loss of her heat as she pulls away, her gaze averted.
“In this case, I’ll take nice.”
“Oh, will you now?” she replies pertly.
“Yeah.” I flick a lock of her hair over her shoulder, then press my lips to her forehead so she can’t read the rest on my face. I want to look after you so damned well—and for the rest of your days.
“Time to dish up those pan crepes,” she says brightly as I pull away. “I’m so hungry, my bum is eating my knickers.”
My chuckle sounds kind of filthy.
“Yes, okay. It would be eating my knickers if I could find my knickers. I don’t suppose you know anything about that, do you?”
“Do I know anything about your panties?” I repeat pensively, rubbing my hand across my jawline. “I know I like to see them ’round your ankles. I also like to see them licked to transparency and sticking to your pussy.”
“Stop that!”
I catch the dish towel she throws at my head. “They also looked pretty good stretched to one side while I—”
“La-la-la-la!” she sings loudly, pressing her hands over her ears. “No distracting me from my meal,” she says, waltzing around me to gather a few of my sad fucking pan crepes, as she called them—more like pan craps—from the plate next to the stovetop. “I’m so starving.”
“Me too,” I rasp, sliding my hands around her. My palms gravitate to her tits. “I just can’t seem to get my fill of you.” I can’t touch enough, can’t fuck her enough, can’t make her laugh enough to my satisfaction. But I intend on making it my life’s work. If I can.
“Sex maniac,” she says, laughingly pulling away.
Mila maniac, more like. And I do love her exasperation.
“You’ve gone to all this trouble to feed me,” she adds, dropping the sad offerings to the middle of the laden platter. They look so out of place. “So feed me.”
I adjust my crotch, my thoughts instantly X rated.
“Not that.” Her gaze drops pointedly.
“I didn’t say anything!”
“You didn’t need to. Pervert,” she adds as an apparent afterthought. Or maybe a compliment.
“You weren’t complaining about my perversions this morning.” God, I love this. Banter. I’ve never had a relationship with a woman I could have this kind of fun with. She dishes it as well as she takes it. And my God, she takes it so well. It’s like being with the guys—and Evie—only better, because I don’t want to fuck my name into any of them.
“Shall we eat on the patio?” she says, picking up the napkins, side plates, and silverware that arrived with the platter.
“Sounds good.” I lift the platter. Because I’d follow that ass, that woman, anywhere.
“You like what you see?” I give a comic waggle of my brows as I catch Mila eyeing me from across the table.
“I was just thinking you look like you should be lounging on a yacht on the Côte d’Azur. Well, except for your hair.”
“Which makes me look like I should be on a prison ship?”
“I bet you’d be really popular on a prison ship,” she says with a snicker.
“I’d prefer Portofino.”
“To a prison ship? Who wouldn’t?”
“I’d prefer Portofino to the Côte.”
“Oh.” Her eyebrows lift. “Of course you do.”
Shit. She didn’t like that. So maybe I won’t offer to take her with me next time. At least, not yet, as I watch her use her fork to move pieces of pancake around her plate a little more.
“You don’t have to eat it.”
Her gaze lifts.
“No need to fake a dolphin sighting so you can drop it into the potted palm behind you.”
“I wasn’t going to,” she says with a frown.
“But I wouldn’t blame you. They’re fucking awful.”
“They’re not that bad,” she murmurs, moving her attention back to her plate. “Eggs,” she adds curiously.
“What about them?”
“How many did you add to the batter?”
I already know where I went wrong. I just wasn’t looking to broadcast it.
“Well, there were eggs mentioned in the recipe, but I dropped them.”
“You dropped the eggs,” she repeats, amused.