Handy for you, p.28
Handy for You, page 28
Kari’s hand wrapped around his dick, angling it up and into her. His hands cupped her hips as she slid down, enveloping him. He bucked off the bed, ass clenching, pushing further into that sweet heat. Kari bent over him, the tips of her hair trailing across his chest, tickling. A strange joy bubbled up in him, suffusing his body, his mind.
I love you, Kari Halvorsen.
The thought shocked him.
But it made perfect sense.
He wrapped his hands around her neck, pulling her flush against him, hips rolling up to meet hers, lips pressing, tongues tangling.
I love Kari Halvorsen.
Some tiny shred of self-control kept him from saying the words out loud. Not now. Not while she was moaning into his mouth, fingers tangling in his hair. Not while there was no space between them, joined like a single being. The position left barely any leverage to move, but he didn’t want any separation between them, so he pulsed up into her. The tiny motions made her groan and cling tighter.
“Good?” he asked.
“Oh, God. So good. Don’t stop.”
“Don’t worry.” He redoubled his efforts, moving faster, and was rewarded with a stuttering cry from Kari, and a warm, pulsating sensation that sent him over the edge after her with a hoarse groan, pushing up into her as hard as he could, his orgasm radiating through his entire body.
When he recovered, Kari’s panting breath puffed hot against his neck. He smoothed his hand down her back, tracing the bumps of her spine. “You okay?”
“Broken,” she mumbled into his neck. “You broke me.”
He tried to tamp down the adolescent swell of pride her words gave him. “What do you think you did to me?”
“You did it to me twice.”
“You’re saying it like it’s a bad thing.”
Kari lifted up, resting her forehead on his. “Not a bad thing. Just. Wow.”
Yup, the battle against feeling like a cocky teenager was lost now. Over. He cupped her cheeks and kissed her. “Can I tell you something?”
She didn’t move. “Sure.”
“I don’t want to scare you, but I think I might be falling in love with you.” It was a half-truth. He didn’t think anything. He was one hundred percent sure he was in love with her. But it felt safer to edge over to the truth, rather than confront it boldly.
It was still terrifying, though.
More terrifying was how still she’d gone. Shit. He was still half inside her, his softening dick sliding out of her by degrees. This was not the way to do this.
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have—” He stopped, her finger landing on his lips.
“Shh.” She took her finger away and kissed him, the briefest press of her lips, somehow seeming like a promise.
“I think that makes two of us,” she whispered.
Kari’s blood had turned to champagne. That was the only explanation for the feeling that fizzed through her, energizing all the nerves, overriding the lassitude that had flooded her after her second orgasm. Rob rolled them so they lay on their sides, face to face, his breath still coming a little fast, his hand warm on her hip.
“So this is…exciting.” He said, his eyes searching her face. Whatever he was looking for, he didn’t seem to find, as a crease appeared between his brows.
“What’s the matter?” Kari stroked the indentation with a fingertip.
“You seem so calm,” he said.
“Calm?” What she was feeling must have shown on her face. How could it not? “Anything but. I feel like I swallowed a truck full of firecrackers.”
His face eased at that, but a trace of wariness remained. “You’re hard to read sometimes, you know that?”
She shrugged. “I live in my body. I look at my face in the mirror every day. It’s hard to know what comes across and what doesn’t.”
“So tell me.”
“I thought I already did.”
“I said I thought I was falling in love with you. You said you ‘think’ that makes two of us. That’s pretty vague.”
“Ah.” She scratched her nose, searching for the words. “I guess…it was having you gone. I was lonely. I’m used to being alone, but it was different this time. It wasn’t just that I was alone. I missed you. Specifically you. I couldn’t wait for you to get home.”
His hand slid from her hip to the dip of her waist. “I know what you mean. Hotels don’t usually faze me. I can usually sleep anywhere. Well—”
She grimaced. “Yeah. Until you couldn’t sleep with me in the bed.”
“Two times. Only two times. And I hadn’t slept with anyone else in ten years. More. I wasn’t into sleepovers even when I was dating. That’s a long time and I’m an old, set in my ways kind of guy.”
“Bullshit.” Kari gave his shoulder a little push and he rolled onto his back, laughing. She squirmed closer and rested her head on his chest, his arm curling around her shoulders. “You’re a forty-eight year old hottie who sometimes has a little too much energy and restlessness for your own good. You need to settle down a little.”
“Settle down, old man.”
“You seriously need to stop it with the old man thing. Especially after you’ve given a woman two orgasms.”
“Give a nice old man a sexy younger girlfriend and see what he can do,” Rob said. That made Kari laugh in earnest, her stomach cramping. “You think I’m kidding.”
Kari lifted her head so she could see his face. His eyes were closed, a smug smile curving his lips, creases fanning from the corners of his eyes. “No,” she said, “I think you’re impossible.”
“Nah. Merely improbable.”
“So, I was thinking.” Rob popped a piece of popcorn in his mouth and chewed, distracted by Kari shifting next to him on the sofa. He’d managed to convince her to forego the bra when they got dressed again. An excellent idea in theory, but in practice it tended to derail his brain.
“Hm?” She elbowed him in the ribs before digging into the bowl on his lap for her own handful of popcorn and pointed at her face with her other hand. “Eyes are up here, bud.”
“‘Sorry, not sorry,’ as the kids say. One of my best ideas ever.”
“Speaking of which, you’re sure Mia’s safely in New York, right? I’m still traumatized from last time.”
“Absolutely. Her Instagram feed is full of photos of her new digs, roommates, cardboard boxes, the whole shebang. Unless she invents a Star Trek transporter, she’s in Queens.”
“Okay, so what were you thinking?”
He paused, trying to gather his scattered thoughts. “Oh. Your kitchen.”
She gave him a slow blink. “From my boobs to my kitchen. Your brain is an interesting place.”
“You have no idea. Anyway, have you considered doing a DIY renovation?”
“Me? The woman with no skills whatsoever in that area?”
“No experience. That’s different. And besides, you have me.”
Kari looked at him, twisting her mouth sideways. “You want to redo my kitchen? I thought you said kitchen renovation was hell.”
“It is if you’re trying to live in the house and prepare anything close to a meal. Even making coffee gets fraught pretty fast. But you’ve got a fully-functioning kitchen right here.” He waved toward his own kitchen. “And maybe we can…” He paused, the idea forming a little too big for him to wrap his brain around.
“Maybe we can what?”
“Experiment with spending even more time together,” he hedged.
She paused, popcorn halfway to her mouth. “Playing house?”
Damn, she was sharp. And how he loved it. “Pretty much.”
She chewed slowly. Swallowed. “How much money would this run me?”
“A fraction of what you were thinking, I’m pretty sure. The Swedish flat-pack store has sales a couple of times a year.”
“Swedish. Really.” She gave him an arched-eyebrow look then laughed. “Okay, fine. I’m intrigued.”
“Good. When I redid my kitchen I was pretty shocked by how the upper cabinets were attached to the walls. It seemed like a miracle that they hadn’t come crashing down before.”
She gave him a horrified look. “Do I need to go take all my plates out now?”
“No. If they’ve stayed up this long, they’ll stay up for a few more months.”
“You’re really all in, aren’t you?”
“Didn’t I say I was?”
“Yeah.” She paused, her eyes going unfocused. “I’m getting used to the idea. I feel like a teenager.”
“Acne and angst?”
“No. The rarest of rare experience for a teenage girl: the boy I like likes me back.”
“I feel like I should give you my letter jacket.”
“You have a letter jacket?”
“No. Mathletes weren’t given letter jackets.”
“Awww. You were a mathlete.” She tilted her head and batted her eyes. “That’s so perfect.”
“Far from perfect.” He kissed her softly.
“Perfect for me, then,” she murmured against his lips.
Epilogue
You sure you don’t need anything else? Kari texted, her hip resting against the handle of her grocery cart, eyeing the lines stretching from the minimally-staffed checkout stations into the aisles.
Nope. We’re good.
“The man wants to do Thanksgiving and he can’t even plan properly,” Kari muttered, stuffing the phone in her back pocket and pushing the cart to the self-checkout, mentally crossing her fingers that the finicky scanners would actually work. “Who plans to make pumpkin pie and doesn’t think to check to make sure there’s enough sugar?” Not to mention the five obscure but necessary ingredients he’d realized he didn’t have for the very special stuffing. And the other random things.
The grocery gods smiled on her. She only waited twenty minutes for a checkout station and didn’t have to get one of the harried-looking grocery employees to come over and help her with a scanning failure or other issue with the stupid machines. She stuffed her purchases into cloth bags and left, shoving her cart into the corral with a sigh of relief.
A grocery store on Thanksgiving afternoon was not exactly a low-stress environment.
A short drive home and she was pushing through her front door, the smell of roasting turkey floating from the kitchen. “Everything okay back there?”
“Fine.” The word was closer to a grunt, but somehow it made her smile. She lugged her purchases to the kitchen, finding Rob elbow deep in bread crumbs, sausage, cranberry, and she didn’t know what else.
“Your leeks, sir. And all the other stuff.”
“Perfect timing. You mind washing and chopping them? I need them for the stuffing.” He nodded at the big bowl in front of him.
“Not at all.” The gleaming, modernized kitchen was still enough of a novelty that mundane tasks seemed like a pleasure. And having an actual dishwasher was pure heaven. “Step aside, Mr. Dog.” Hugo moved from his position in front of the new, huge farmhouse sink, circling to the other side of Rob, alert for any sign of something dropping from the counter.
“He’s so attentive. He really loves you,” Kari teased as she rinsed the leeks, shaking them out and putting them on a cutting board.
“He loves sausage.”
Kari pulled a knife from the block. “He’ll be excited to see Mia in an hour or so. Won’t you, boy?”
The dog’s attention didn’t waver but his tail thumped once. Kari shook her head and chopped the leeks, dumping them into the bowl for Rob to mix in with the rest of the stuffing. Leaving him to finish preparing that dish, she went into the dining room, picking up the tablecloth she’d ironed earlier in the day off the chest and floating it over the table, replacing candlesticks after she’d squared the cloth off. Returning to the kitchen to get silverware, Rob was just closing the oven door on the stuffing and turkey. He straightened, rolling his shoulders and she fitted herself behind him, wrapping her arms around his waist and resting her cheek against the back of his head. His hands ran over her arms, coming to rest over her clasped fingers, squeezing gently. They stood there like that for a few breaths, a lovely, quiet moment to add to the chain of lovely moments since she had first let Rob into this room all those months ago to look at her faucet.
She took one more breath, enjoying, then straightened, pulling away from the warmth and solidity of Rob’s body. “Okay. Table setting.”
“No.” Rob turned, his fingers capturing hers, pulling her to him. “Kiss first.”
“Mmm. Okay.” The familiar, joyful heat that hadn’t faded in their time together bloomed in her chest as their lips met, first teasing, then settling into angled heads, pressure, and languor. She pulled back again. “They’re going to be here any minute. I got a text a few minutes ago that Sam and Graham were on their way to pick up Mia from the Metro.”
Rob rested his forehead against hers. “Okay. Rain check.”
“Definitely.”
The sound of the door opening and a clamor of voices made Hugo’s head whip around, his jaws shutting with an audible clop.
“She’s here, boy,” Rob said to the dog and Hugo took off at a run for the entryway. Rob dried his hands on a dish towel and walked to the living room where Mia, Sam, and Graham were taking turns hugging Kari. Mia dropped to her knees to receive a tongue bath from Hugo, who was making anxious little whining noises. She laughed and wiped her face on the sleeve of her coat, getting to her feet to wrap her arms around Rob’s middle. Hugo tried to join the hug, stuffing his face in between their legs.
“Glad you could make it, kiddo.” Rob stroked his daughter’s curly hair, his heart threatening to burst out of his chest.
“Glad to be here, Dad.” Mia grinned up at him, releasing him from her tight hug. “I see you have implemented your plan.”
“Yeah, we noticed the For Sale sign next door,” Sam said. “You have some splainin’ to do, Auntie dearest.” She poked her finger at Kari, who gasped and grabbed Sam’s hand.
“I have explaining? What is this?” She looked from the sapphire ring on Sam’s left hand to Graham, who was sporting a smug grin. “I guess I don’t have to ask if you guys had a nice time in Norway.”
Rob had wondered if Graham was going to use their vacation to pop the question. The younger man had been oddly keyed up prior to their trip. Well, as keyed up as quiet, pensive Graham seemed to get.
“He asked me to marry him almost as soon as we were in Norway. Well. After several hours on the train and an hour in a car. Then he asked me. At the hotel.” Sam turned to Rob, a sly smile on her face. “You’re selling your house, huh? That’s interesting. I wonder where you’re going to move to?” She tapped her chin with her index finger looking from Rob to Kari and back again.
“He’s pretty much been living here for a while now,” Kari said, shooting Rob a quick smile. “After a while it just seemed silly to have two houses.” It was true. While they worked on her kitchen, she had all but moved into his house after a week of traipsing back and forth for meals. That had worked so well and been so surprisingly easy that when her kitchen was finished, he found himself working on more improvement projects and spending more nights at Kari’s than he did at his own house. Eventually they had decided to run a full experiment: live in her house for a month and see what happened. And it had been glorious. After more discussion, he had decided to put his house on the market and move in completely.
“It’s okay, though. I have an excellent landlady to rent from.” Rob winked at Kari and she laughed.
“From being the person who called the landlady to solve problems to being the landlady herself, all in less than a year,” Kari said. “Let’s go finish off the meal and we can all get caught up.”
Rob trailed the group back to the kitchen, the room humming with happy chatter and laughter. He might be about to sell his house, but home was where Kari was.
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Chapter 1 of Willing for You
Gina took a deep breath and tried to control her trembling fingers as she ripped open the envelope. She shouldn’t be doing this here. Should’ve waited until she was upstairs in the privacy of her apartment. Instead, here she was, standing at the bank of mailboxes, tearing open her fall grade report. She unfolded the paper, her eyes skimming past the two A grades, the 4.0 average, to rest on the detail she dreaded.
Yes, there it was. Three credits—one class to go—and she was done. Possessor of a Master’s in Business Administration. And if she didn’t have her own business up and running and most importantly successful before graduation day, she was going to have to go back to Boston.
The glass door of her condo complex opened and Gina glanced up, suppressing a groan when she saw who it was. She kept her voice neutral as she said, “Hi, Chad.”
The grin on Chad’s ruddy face was broad and confident. He wasn’t a bad-looking guy if a big, Irish former pride of the University of Maryland football defensive end was your thing.
Yeah. Most decidedly not Gina’s thing.
“What’cha got there?” he asked, nodding at the paper in her hand.
“My grad school grades,” she said, folding the paper and putting it back in its envelope.
