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She’d spent the last two hours since their phone call sketching, not “having fun” with anything. Maybe it was the pressure, but she couldn’t get the images in her head to obey and jump to the page.
She’d kept the sound turned up on her phone all day, not wanting to miss Renee’s call, so when her screen lit up with sunny Cole on his boat, Whitney sang, “And Iiii-eeyiii will always love youuu.”
“Hi Cole,” she said after silencing her phone again. He definitely didn’t need to know she’d Whitneyed his ringtone.
“Hi Mira. I’m here.”
Dropping her pencil onto her sketchpad, she walked into the bakery and gave herself over to the full-bodied sigh that only Cole standing outside her door—flowers in one hand, a bottle of red in the other, and a smirk curving his lips—could give her.
But then she refortified. If she let him become her in-person source of full-body sighs, of skin-pebbling excitement, of heart-aching relief, then once he went back home, once she spent every night alone in her window again, listening to the echoes of Jimmy’s jukebox, surrounded by the clothes currently trapped in her closet that would be re-strewn all over her floor, she didn’t know if she’d be able to stand it.
His head tilted while he watched her unlock the door, brow creasing like he heard every thought she was trying to keep trapped between her ears.
“Hey,” he said when she let him inside. “Are you okay?”
Not answering his question, because she was perfectly fine, she took his flowers and his wine and set them on the counter. “Thank you for these,” she said, then she took his shirt in her hands and urged his lips to hers. Because this was what they did. This was the agreement. This was what she could stand.
Wrapping her up tightly in his arms, he kissed her like the world was ending, which was exactly how she needed to be kissed. When she started walking backward, he followed her through the hall and into the kitchen, spinning her around after he closed the door behind them, pressing her up against it.
Her hands slid up the back of his shirt while he hitched one of her legs up over his hip, palming her ass.
“Where are Ian and Linda?” he asked, trailing kisses down the side of her neck.
“Upstairs.”
Humming against her collarbone, he said, “So fucking you right here on the kitchen table would probably be a bad idea.”
“Unfortunately.”
“That’s a shame.” Dragging his lips from her skin, his hand from her ass, he kissed her temple, then turned around, reaching into his jeans.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“Just adjusting myself so your mom and kid don’t get an eyeful of erection bulge.”
While she fought the urge to reach inside his jeans and take care of his bulge no matter how many people were waiting for them, he started turning back to her, stalling out halfway. “Holy shit, Mira.” He walked to the table where she’d been sketching and spread her drawings out carefully. “Are these for the senator’s daughter?”
“No,” she said. “Not yet, anyway.”
He slid the sketch she’d just been working on closer, the one with lace and pearl detailing piped to look like embroidery. “They’re amazing.”
“None of them are quite right. Something’s missing.” She just wasn’t sure what. “I have time, though. It’ll come.”
Leaning over, he studied the cake with hand-painted lupine and wild roses. “The only thing missing is the magazine cover these cakes should be gracing. You’ll need to hire more staff to deal with the orders you’re going to get after all those people see what you can do.”
“Cole, that’s”—she placed a hand over the sudden tightness in her throat—“such a nice thing to say.”
“Can I have one of these? If you’re not going to use them.”
“You want one of my cake sketches?”
“I want them all. But I’ll settle for one.” He turned to face her. “If you’re okay with it.”
She could only imagine how red her cheeks were, how many splotches decorated her throat. “I’m okay with it—”
“The pizza’s almost here!” Ian called from the top of the stairs. “You want me to come down and get it or what?”
“Nope!” she shouted, grinning at Cole while he smiled back at her, feeling like they’d just gotten caught doing something scandalous even though they were only looking at cakes. “We’ll get it!”
