“Besides, I asked you first.” He let his hands play down her back to cup her bottom lightly in his palms. “Were you serious about me moving in with you?”
“I plead the fifth,” she said, rolling off of him.
“Come on.” He sat up, wincing as his painfully erect cock got caught in an especially damp, muddy fold of his boxer briefs. “Throw me a bone, North.”
“I’ll do more than throw you a bone. I’ll give you an answer, but not until Saturday. That was the bargain and I’m sticking to it.” She stood, tugging her muddy shirt away from her back. “Besides, I make it a point never to make big decisions while covered in mud. I should get back to the house and clean up.”
He came to his feet with a sigh, a part of him wishing he’d kept his mouth shut. If he had, they might both be on their way back to her place to do something a lot more fun than shower.
“What time should I expect you?” she asked, as they started back toward the start of the course where they’d parked their cars.
He shook his head. “Expect me…?”
“For dinner,” she said. “I know you lost, but I feel bad dangling delicious Chinese-Texan food in front of you and then leaving you to fend for yourself for dinner. Why don’t you come over around six? We can take a walk around the farm while the veggies are cooking and then eat on the deck. I don’t have any patio furniture yet, but we could spread a blanket on the boards and picnic.”
“Sounds good,” he said, ridiculously glad this wasn’t goodbye for the day. “Anything you want me to bring?”
“Just yourself. And anything you like to drink with Chinese-Texan food. I have a couple beers, water, and half a bottle of leftover Pinot Grigio in the fridge that I’m happy to share. I would buy more, but I’m avoiding buying any more alcohol. Just in case.”
Just in case she was to get pregnant, he realized, the thought no longer as crazy as it was even a couple of days ago. He couldn’t see himself releasing the sperm sample, but he could imagine a time in the not too distant future when he and Yasmin might decide to make a baby the old-fashioned way.
That in itself was probably crazy, but he was too crazy about this woman to care.
CHAPTERTWELVE
Yasmin
Homemade,hand-pulled noodles were her mother’s specialty. Li-Mei could whip up a batch of noodles without glancing at a recipe book while doing ten other things at the same time. But for Yasmin, the process required more concentration, a fact she was grateful for as she spent the second half of her afternoon mixing ingredients and trying not to think about Noah’s question.
When she’d made the offer to move in, all she’d been thinking about was throwing him off his center long enough for her to get a head start.
But now…
Well, it kind of made a crazy sort of sense. They would certainly find out whether they were compatible much faster if they were living together.
And what do you think Mom and Dad will say about that? A complete stranger that you met while hunting for a sperm donor moving into the house with you?
“Better than a hitchhiker,” Yasmin mumbled to herself as she rolled out her dough. Li-Meihadrecommended she find someone to knock her up the old-fashioned way, but if Noah moved in it wouldn’t be about making a baby. It would be about finding out if the two of them had what it took to become a couple.
The thought shouldn’t be scarier than the thought of getting pregnant with her first child, but it was. So she concentrated on running her dough through the pasta machine and did her best not to think of the future. Until the background check came back, she had no idea if it was safe to cohabitate with Noah anyway, so there was no reason to put any more stress on her already stressed out brain.
Seriously? If you think that background check is going to prove Noah is anything but a model citizen, you’re even crazier than you look.
“And you look pretty crazy,” she muttered to her reflection in the microwave as she finished with the noodles and tossed all the other ingredients into the crockpot to simmer for an hour.
She’d thrown on fresh workout clothes after her shower—not wanting to worry about getting flour all over the dress she planned to wear tonight—paired with her “Shitake Happens” apron and a pair of blue socks with treads on the bottom that kept her from slipping on the polished wooden floor. She looked like a homeless woman who had been raiding the donation bin, and she only had another twenty minutes before Noah was due to arrive.
Tossing her apron on the hook near the stove, she dashed up the stairs to her childhood bedroom—she wasn’t ready to move into her mom and dad’s old room on the ground floor yet—and set about transforming into a butterfly. It took a little longer than usual to get her eyeliner straight, but when she descended the stairs thirty minutes later, there was still no sign of Noah. She was getting ready to call him to see if he needed directions after all when she caught a creaking sound coming from the direction of the porch.
She peered out the window above the sink to see Noah kneeling next to a metal chair, screwing the top to the base.
“What have you done?” she asked, heart leaping when he turned to smile at her.
“You said you didn’t have patio furniture,” he said. “I figured it would be a good housewarming present. Do you like?”
“I love!” She hurried through the door out onto the porch, taking in the metal table with the latticework on the top and four rocker chairs. “But you shouldn’t have done this. It’s too much.”
“It’s just enough.” He finished with the last chair and slid it into place. “And as much as I love eating on the ground, I felt like I needed a seat tonight. I think I might have pulled something in my hamstring this afternoon. I’m not used to going from zero to a mad sprint. I usually warm up a little first.”