He grinned against me, and I smacked my lips against his. “Then you better get moving, mister.”
“Mmm. I guess, if I have to.”
His smile lit up his face, and his laughter lit up the room. I helped him find a pot for the rice before he made me sit at the table to watch.
I knew there were good men in the world. I’d witnessed first hand how some men would give anything for their families and the ones they loved; cooking, cleaning, killing in order to protect. But my experience was fleeting, and those acts had never been directed at me alone. To have Trenton here, in my house, making dinner for me when I’d only just met the man, was something I never, in a million years, would have come to expect.
“I almost forgot.” He turned from the stove, where he’d set the water to boil for the rice, and snagged one of his bags off the kitchen counter. Coming to me, he sat in the chair by my side. “This is for you.”
He set the bag on the table, then carefully peeled the sides down, revealing a potted plant. After pushing the bag aside, he set the ceramic bowl on the table and adjusted the little mermaid statue sitting among the brightly colored succulents.
“It’s beautiful. Thank you.” I fingered the mermaid, her yellow hair and her pearlescent blue tail. “Is this because you like to surf? To remind me of you?”
He chuckled quietly as he snatched my hand away from the statue and strung his fingers between mine. “I got it because it reminded me of you, love. When you were swimming in the waves last night…” He shook his head, and his eyes got that faraway look once again. When he focused back on me, his smile wasn’t as big as before. “You looked beautiful. Like a goddess that’d come straight from the sea. And when I saw this at the surf shop this morning, I had to have it. It’s just…”
“What?” I asked when he didn’t continue.
He lowered his gaze to our hands, running his thumb across mine. Then he shrugged. “My lifestyle isn’t exactly conducive for plants. My bunkmate, Carson, nearly toppled it in the five minutes I left it alone near my bed.”
“That’s not good.”
“No. It’s not.” He took my other hand, sliding his fingers between mine again. “I want you to keep it. Take good care of it for me.”
“Of course, I will.”
Trenton’s brow furrowed and he whipped his gaze behind him. “Shit!” He raced to the stove and moved the pot off the burner. A little water had boiled over, and he grabbed a towel to wipe it up. “Sorry about that.” He sent a wide smile my way. “A beautiful goddess distracted me.”
I ducked my head as heat rose to my cheeks. “You’re too sweet.”
“We’ll see if you still think that after I’ve finished making dinner.”
He poured some rice from the bag into a measuring cup, then dumped it into the pot and put it on the back burner. But as he reached for the rice bag to put it away, his hand bumped the plastic and it fell over. Tiny white kernels spilled all over the counter and tumbled onto the floor.
“Dang it.” Immediately, he was on his knees, scooping the rice into a pile with his bare hands. His gaze zipped to mine, and something like panic was written in his eyes. “Where’s your broom?”
There was a bite to the words, one I wouldn’t have expected from such a kind soul. I rose quickly, snagging the handheld broom and dustpan from behind my fridge and bringing it to him.
He didn’t look at me as he grabbed it from my grip, didn’t say a word as he swept up the rice. His hands worked in quick, jerky movements, and his focus was steady on his task, and something inside of me broke.
“Hey.” I placed my hands on his, stopping his frantic movements. “What’s wrong?”
He sucked in a quick breath and held it for a long moment before finally letting it out. “I need to clean it up.”
He lifted his gaze, which looked darker without the wide smile I was so used to seeing. I cupped his cheek and he turned his head into my palm.
“Mysti…”
“It’s okay. It’s okay to make a mess sometimes. We’ll clean it up.” My voice was quiet, soothing, as I took the broom from his hand and lowered it to the floor. Rice stuck to my knees as I scooted forward, wrapping my arms around his neck. With his face buried in my chest, he let out a sharp breath, then held me back.
“Goddess,” he whispered against me, and that broken piece of me started to unravel. Despite the sharp pain in my knees from the grains of rice pressing into my skin, I refused to let him go.
I didn’t know what was going on in his head, but I’d seen that look in his eyes before. I knew it intimately, because I’d seen it in myself.
After a long moment, Trenton edged back, looking up at me with lighter eyes and the corners of his lips curled up. “What did I do to deserve you?”
I pressed a gentle kiss to his lips before I told him, “You sent a little kid to trip me up so you could sweep me off my feet.”
Laughter rumbled through him and he tightened his grip around me. He pulled me closer, leaning back on his heels until I was straddling his legs. With one arm wrapped snug around me, Trenton lowered the other, his hand coming to rest on my ass. “The things I want to do to you, my beautiful girl.”