Give the order,the heroine replies.
Do something that scares you.
Perhaps it’s time I take my heroine’s challenge tonight—try something that scares me.
I don’t mean in bed, though. I meanbefore.
20
PRACTICE MAKES PERFECT
Ellie
The thing about a honeymoon is it’s temporary. Then you go back to real life and make the relationship work when you don’t have room service.
No matter what Maddox says about how great Gabe is for me, we only have a honeymoon. There’s no relationship to make work.
But even though this is a temporary fling, I can tell Gabesomethingtonight. Something real. I’m still working out what to say exactly though as I hunt for a parking spot at the park.
That’s the challenge I set for myself tonight. Be more than sexy. Bevulnerable.
I find a parking spot, cut the engine, and grab the two slices of pie I picked up for our evening picnic.
I get out of the red convertible, then shield my eyes against the fading sun. I peer past a group of guys in their thirty-somethings playing volleyball, then some college dudes tossing a frisbee.
In the distance are picnic tables, and a six-foot-three, strapping, tattooed man unpacking food at one of them.
My heart scampers in my chest. My skin warms. Is this infatuation? Or more? I just like him so much I barely know what to do with these feelings.
Is that what I want to say?
Hey, Gabe, I dig you.
Hey, handsome, I’m totally into you.
Hey there, this has been the best week ever and I’m not just saying that because of your dick.
Yeah, maybe not those.
I’ll need to workshop this confession like it’s a scene in my TV show. But as I cross the park, I hit pause in myscare myself into opening upchallenge when my gaze catches on a wicker basket on the table. Then the red checked tablecloth underneath it. And, at last, I settle on the man.
Sure, I knew we were having a picnic, but I didn’t expect him to have an actual picnic basket. It’s such an incongruous image—the big, burly man reaching into the old-fashioned basket.
And it gives me butterflies.
How will he react when I tell him I like him? I think he might like me too, but he was so clear about the week limit. But that’s why I’m going to take my own challenge.
Toting a pink pie box and a belly full of nerves, I cross the final stretch of spongy grass, then reach him. After I set down the pie box, I point, flabbergasted, at the spread. “You have a basket.”
“Don’t tell a soul,” he says gruffly as he takes out a container of olives, putting them next to some Marcona almonds. They’re keeping company with hummus, carrots, and blueberries. My mouth waters.
“Your secret is safe with me,” I say, then I lift my chin in a very obvious request for a kiss.
I need a kiss for courage.
He hauls me in for a hot, searing one while his hand grips the small of my back. He devours my mouth. This is not a picnic kiss. It’s nightclub devastation. We’re not a red-and-white-checked-tablecloth kind of couple. We are satin sheets and blindfolds.
When we separate, I’m dizzy. Then, my pulse soars when he slides a hand down my back again, stopping at my ass, spreading his hand across it. He squeezes, harder than he has before.