Offering him a sleepy little smile, I say, “Hey, you.”
Carter’s lips curve up and he brushes my hair off the side of my face. “Long night?”
“All the playing. Chloe has many toys, and she thought we should try every single one of them out, just in case I never come back.” Turning my head to look at the coffee table where I left a plate of them, I add, “We also made you cookies.”
“How thoughtful,” he remarks.
“It was Chloe’s idea,” I state.
He leans forward and grabs a cookie, then turns it over and inspects it. “Chocolate chip, huh?”
“She said they were your favorite.”
“She knows what she’s talking about,” he says before taking a bite.
I give him a minute to taste it, then I ask, “Good?”
“Delicious.”
Cocking an eyebrow, I ask, “Better than your rally girl’s cookies?”
Grinning, he puts the cookie down on the plate and then looks back at me. “Much better. A million times better. I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say these are the best cookies I’ve ever tasted.”
“Hmph, that’s right,” I mutter, satisfied. “How’d the game go?”
“Good. We won. It was a close one, though. Looked like we were going to tie, but we pulled it out in the end.”
Carter shifts positions, kicking off his shoes and nudging them under the table. Then he peels off his letter jacket and drapes it across the empty side of the coffee table. Once he’s down to a gray tee and jeans, he braces his weight on the couch and climbs on top of me.
“How are you and the baby doing tonight?” he inquires.
I roll my eyes, but I’m feeling more indulgent than annoyed about it at the moment. “I’m not pregnant.”
“That’s not what I heard,” he informs me.
“Because you started the rumor.”
“Would I ever do something like that?” he asks with feigned innocence, before bending his head to kiss my neck.
“Yes, you most certainly would,” I mutter, bracing a hand on his back regardless and closing my eyes, giving myself up to a moment of pleasure to soak up his perfect kisses.
“Would you tell me if you were?”
I can’t tell if he’s serious or not, but I pull my neck away so he’ll look at me, just in case. “Of course I would tell you.”
His tone is light and teasing, but his words make me feel protective anyway. “Even though you hate me?”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” I chide, reaching up to caress his face. “I don’t hate you.”
I don’t know if it’s my unguardedness due to the fact that he woke me out of a dead sleep, or something else, but there’s a tenderness between us right now that has been lacking since the nights we spent together, before it all went to hell. My tummy flutters as his hand moves down my torso and stops to unbutton my jeans.
I don’t balk as he unzips them and slides his hand down inside to touch me. It feels too good, and technically speaking, I owe him three rounds anyway.
It should feel cheap and sordid, I suppose, but there’s a freedom in letting him push me into corners, especially now. I can’t bring myself to get back together with him, but doing it his way, we still get stolen moments like these—just without the commitment of a relationship.
Carter breaks away from kissing my neck so he can sit back and drag his shirt off. My gaze drops to admire his beautiful physique. I reach up to drag my hands along the chiseled ridges of his abdomen. My index finger follows the start of the V-shape that starts at his lower abdomen, then I unbutton and unzip his jeans so I can see the rest.
“I like this,” I tell him.
Faintly amused, he watches me trace the line. “Yeah?”
I nod. “I’m a fan. You should keep this.”
“You should probably be careful about making me cookies then,” he jokes.
I let my hands drop and he scoots back. “Well, not at the expense of cookies. I’m not a monster.”
Carter cocks an eyebrow at me, dragging down my jeans. “No, I get to be the monster in this relationship. You’ve gotta be the good one.”
“If I’m not, you can just tell people I’m pregnant so all the other guys will stay away from me.”
“Or I can spank you,” he counters. When he sees what’s underneath my clothes, he smirks at me. “You wore the blue panties I bought you.”
“I thought you might take advantage of my presence at your house tonight and cash in on the math test sex I owe you,” I explain.
“Math test sex,” he repeats, shaking his head as he drags the panties down. “Only you would be so casually forthright about that.”
He tugs my jeans and panties all the way off and tosses them on the floor with his shirt. He doesn’t bother removing my shirt though, merely shucks his pants and climbs between my legs. Pushing a finger inside me, he meets my gaze.