“Nick, I’m really, really sorry for freezing up back at the store.” I bowed my head, unable to look him in the eyes. “Seeing that ring just caught me off-guard, and—”
“Hey!” He leapt to his feet with a reassuring frown. “You have absolutely nothing to apologize for—do you hear me? At any rate, the fault was mine. I should never have ambushed you like that with the ring.”
A pair of warm fingers tilted up my chin. A pair of twinkling eyes coaxed a smile.
“Forgive me?”
All the stress and anxiety rushed out of me in one breathless laugh.
“Forgive you?” I repeated. “Well I still maintain that I acted like an idiot, but yes—if that’s what you want to hear. I forgive you.”
He flashed me a bright smile, and picked me up right where we stood. I caught my breath with a little gasp as he locked his wrists around my lower back and we continued the conversation with one of us in the air.
At this point—I should hardly have been surprised.
The man was as impulsive as they come. He did what he wanted, when he wanted. No thought to conformity. He was all action, with none of the consequences.
“That’s very good to hear.” He kissed me squarely on the lips, pulling back with his signature grin. “And you weren’t an idiot. I thought you were adorable.”
“Adorable? Really?” I asked sarcastically, as he kissed me again. Was I ever going to get used to it? These casual displays of affection? “Because I thought that you were about ready to throw me over your shoulder and make a run for it—right there in the store.”
He chuckled softly. “Well, I’m always ready to do that...” he let me hang for a moment, “...just for slightly different reasons.”
My heart skipped a beat, as I wrapped my arms around his neck and started playing with the back of his hair. “Oh yeah—and what might those reasons be?”
An almost competitive glint flashed through his eyes, as he rose automatically to the challenge. But as quickly as it came, it took a backseat to a more immediate craving.
“You are insatiable,” he said appreciatively. Then he set me down. “But I’m starving.”
I laughed aloud and followed him to the kitchen. The second he said the word, I realized how hungry I was myself. All my normal routines and schedules had been thrown to high hell since I moved in. And I’d never exactly gotten to eat on my catastrophic lunch break.
He pulled open the refrigerator, and the two of us stared bleakly inside. A second later, his eyes flickered to me self-consciously, and he closed it shut.
“I have a confession.”
>
“You always order in?” I guessed.
“I always order in.”
I giggled and pushed past him, opening the door once more. “Really? I would think that you could probably do a lot with that solitary lemon pushed all the way in the corner...”
He grinned, closing it up again, “I rarely have company.”
I rolled my eyes sarcastically and hopped up onto the counter.
“Somehow, I highly doubt that...”
Wisely choosing to ignore this, he pulled a stack of take-out menus from a drawer by the sink. They were well-worn, and he scanned through the briefly, before setting them back down.
“Why don’t I just order in some groceries and cook for you?”
My eyebrows rose. In two years I didn’t think I’d ever heard a more ridiculous thing come out of his mouth. And that was really saying something.
“Cook for me?” I echoed incredulously, wondering suddenly if the penthouse was insured for things like fire damage. “Are you insane? Hasn’t the day been bad enough?”
He laughed loudly, but started pulling things out of the cabinets—already set on the idea.