“And why exactly do you need to wake me up every morning at the crack of dawn to work on my kitchen and living room?” she asked with another shift that had him grinding his teeth and biting back another groan.
“Besides the fact that it brings me such pleasure in the morning to have my balls threatened?”
“Yes, besides that,” she said, waving her spatula regally as she gestured for him to continue.
“Because I don’t trust you not to try sneaking a peek at what I’m doing,” he said, giving up on trying to behave and allowed his hand to slide up to her thigh as she considered his words.
“What if I promised not to try to look?”
“You’ve promised that before.”
“Well, what if I put it in writing?”
“You wrote ‘void’ over the last written promise that you gave me,” he pointed out with a sigh as he closed his eyes, deciding that he was going back to sleep since this conversation was going nowhere and they both knew it.
“What if I cooked dinner for you for a week?” she offered.
“For letting you sleep in or letting you take a peek at the kitchen?” he mumbled, surprised that he was already starting to drift off.
“Both?”
“No,” he said, because they both knew that she’d do it anyway.
Every day she used his kitchen to cook, bake and sauté her little heart out and every night he came home to find a collection of plates and goodies waiting for him. He still wasn’t sure how she’d managed to get his cousins and their children to keep their hands off his food, but he was thankful. There was honestly nothing better than coming home to a home cooked meal at the end of the-
“Yummy?”
“Yes?” he managed to get out groggily.
“Do we have a deal?” she asked, clearly needing to work on her negotiating skills.
“Will you make me that triple chocolate cake from your website?” he asked, because he clearly didn’t have any problems negotiating.
“The one with the fudge or the pudding?” she asked, sounding hopeful, which was sad, really sad.
“Fudge.”
“Deal!”
“Fine,” he said, sighing heavily and making sure to sound putout as he rolled over onto his side, making her squeal as the move tossed her off the couch.
“Bastard!” she gasped as he climbed off the couch, tossing the blanket on top of her as he made his way to the kitchen to see what kind of goodies she’d made him this morning even as he wondered what she was going to do to him when she found out that he had absolutely no intentions of giving up the best part of his day.
Chapter 28
Five Long, Frustrating, Yet Amazing, Weeks Later…
“Get up.”
“No!” she whined, uncaring that she was bitchy since she’d literally just fallen asleep.
“Kasey,” came the heavy sigh as Reese tried to pull the covers away, but she refused to release her hold on the covers that she desperately needed in order to fall back into the unsatisfying sleep that had been leaving her exhausted and cranky for the past month and a half.
“Go away,” she said, rolling over onto her stomach so that she could bury her head under her pillow where she would either pass out or cry.
God, she was so exhausted.
“Let’s go,” the person who was responsible for her exhaustion said, plucking the pillow off her head.
“No!” she snapped, almost missing the days when he sent Eric in here to do his dirty work.
“Kasey, I need you out of here,” Reese said, emphasizing his words with a light slap on her ass and a, “Come on.”
“No, I hate you. Go away,” she groaned, curling up on her side and blindly reaching out to grab another pillow to pull over her head, but Reese, who was now used to their early morning routine, took the pillow and blankets away, leaving her exposed to the early morning air.
There was another heavy sigh and then, “Are you ever going to give me back my shirts?”
“No, no I’m not,” she said even as she reached down and pushed down the hem of the tee shirt that she had rightfully claimed as her own.
“Are you planning on getting up anytime soon?”
“No.”
“I need to work,” he said with a heavy sigh as she reached out, blindly searching for her pillow and comforter, but the large bastard had taken them away and most likely threw them on the chair in the corner, probably hoping to force her to get out of bed.
“No one’s stopping you,” she pointed out, giving up on trying to get her blanket back and settled for curling up on her side and using her folded arms as a pillow.
“You are,” he said, as she felt his hand close around her ankle and-
“No, Reese, no!” she gasped as he dragged her to the edge of the bed, picked her up and threw her over his shoulder.
“I gave you a chance to do the right thing.”
“You gave me nothing!” she snapped with a resigned sigh, because she knew that fighting this was pointless.
“I gave you the same chance that I give you every morning,” he said, walking into the bathroom where he would drop her in the middle of the room, give her a look that told her what would happen if she tried to sneak back into bed, and then leave the room, giving her exactly fifteen minutes to get ready before he came back pounding on the door and demanding that she move her ass.
“Did you pack a bag?” he asked, placing her on her feet.
“No,” she said with a groan as she ran her fingers through her hair, mussing it up even more than her pillow had during the few minutes of sleep that she’d managed to get this morning.
“Kasey, I need you out of the house,” he said, leaning back against the sink counter as he folded those insanely large arms of his over his chest so that he could scowl at her as though that was going to somehow intimidate her. “And I told you that you needed to be out of the house by today.”
“I know,” she said, rubbing her hands down her face.
“Then why are you still here?”
“Because my website crashed last night, Mikey forgot to pack for her stay with Sara, and for some insane reason, I stupidly believed Eric when he said that he knew what he was doing, which resulted in me having to spend most of the night on the phone with tech support,” she said, shaking her head in disgust as she listed excuse after excuse, but never once did she mention the real reason why she was here, too exhausted to do anything more than grumble, bitch, and moan.
Him.
In the past month, he went from being the person that made her nervous to the only thing that she could think about and she had absolutely no idea how it happened. He’d been sweet, patient, and kind, always smiling when he saw her, always there for her, and so…
There.
He’d been there for her, never taking it personally when she backed away, never getting angry with her or trying to push her for too much, too soon, he’d just been there for her.
There was really no other way to describe it.
She loved seeing him first thing in the morning, teasing a smile out of him, spending time with him, and making him glare at her. She just loved being around him. She was also afraid that she was already half in love with him.
She was also afraid that if he didn’t kiss her soon that she was going to end up losing her damn mind.
*-*-*-*
“Are you going to leave?” she asked, as he took in her messy short hair, spiking up at odd angles, the shadows beneath her eyes, the exhausted glare she was sending his way and he could honestly say that he’d never seen anything more beautiful in his life.
“Are you going to try to sneak back into bed like yesterday?” he shot back, smiling when she muttered angrily as she turned around, turned the shower on and busied herself with grabbing everything that she was going to need for the shower. Hopefully, she was also grabbing everything that she was going to nee
d so that she could leave for a couple of days and he could get a break before he lost his fucking mind, because he honestly didn’t know how much more of this that he could take.