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I felt my stomach sink.
“I’m sorry,” I murmured.
He shrugged. “It is what it is,” he admitted. “Do you want a drink or something?”
I blinked sleepily at the kitchen and then felt myself nodding.
I shouldn’t stay.
I should go back home.
Only, I found myself delaying.
I didn’t want to leave. I wanted to stay here, with this man, and do things I shouldn’t be doing.
Not that I shouldn’t be ‘doing’ Slate, but shit, the man was my neighbor. He loved to give me shit. He worked with my father. Doing anything with him, and it not working out, would make everything about this situation a pain in the ass.
Only…my body wanted him.
I wanted him.
Who was I to deny myself something it wanted as badly as I did Slate?
Experiencing the feelings that I hadn’t felt in so long felt refreshing. Like I was a functioning woman once again.
I’d been frozen since the night I’d had everything almost ripped away from me.
“Ready?” he asked.
I swallowed hard, looked at his kitchen one more time, then turned on my heel.
I didn’t want to leave his house.
It felt like a place that I could be safe in.
Why, I didn’t know.
But I wanted to stay.
I also wanted him to wrap me up in his arms, pull me into his hard body, and do things to me that I’d only ever dreamed about someone doing.
He looked at me curiously when I brushed past him.
“You okay?” he asked.
I nodded, not trusting myself to speak.
Then, as if the universe knew that I was being forced out of his house, the bottom opened up in the sky and rain started to pour out in great sheets.
The force of which the rain hit the tin roof of the house we were standing in was honestly quite startling.
Then a boom of thunder sounded, followed by multiple streaks of lightning.
Over and over again, the power of Mother Nature sounded around us.
“Well.” He stopped at the front window. “Guess we can hang out here…or on the porch. What do you want to do?”
I sensed that this was a test of some sort.
If I chose one, I’d be making a decision. One that was the right one, and one that was the wrong one.
I licked my lips and said, “I like the porch.”
His mouth kicked up at the corner. “Me, too. Always have.”
I felt pleasure rocket through me at knowing he liked the same things I did. I liked it even more that I got that smile aimed at me.
Slate never smiled.
A smirk here and there, sure. But a smile? No.
A half of one? Because of something that I said? That felt like I’d won the lottery.
He held up his finger for me to wait, then walked to the kitchen.
“Are you sure you don’t want a drink?” he pushed.
I hesitated. “Do you have coffee?”
He gestured to a coffeemaker on the counter.
A Keurig.
“My sister got me this fancy one. If you can figure out how to work it, you’re more than welcome to coffee,” he said. “Honestly, I’m not sure what’s wrong with the old way. It was a rare day that I was ever satisfied with just one cup of coffee. So having a maker that only makes one at a time, and you have to litter the world with these plastic little cups each time you want one, seems absolutely silly to me.”
I grinned, understanding where he was coming from.
“But for me,” I said as I walked to the coffeemaker and lifted the reservoir out of the holder and taking it over to the sink. “Who only usually drinks one at a time, hours apart, it makes perfect sense. Though, I use the reusable little cups. I don’t ‘litter the world.’”
His mouth twitched.
“Would you make me one, too?” he asked. “Are you hungry?”
I thought about that for a second as I went about setting his machine up and getting us both a cup of coffee.
“Do you have anything sweet?” I asked.
He snorted and walked to a container he had on the counter next to the fridge.
When he came back, he opened the lid showing me a peek, and I literally felt like I had died and gone to heaven.
“Oh, man,” I said, looking at the motherload of sweets. “I’m going to be so fat tomorrow.”
He scoffed. “A little padding never hurt a woman.”
I had a feeling he really believed that, too.
Grinning, I reached for a cookie that had a slice of an apple on top of it.
“Can we bring the whole thing?” I asked as I looked at the cookie I had in my hand, then back at the blueberry muffin.
“Sure,” he said. “But don’t eat my chocolate thingies. I never get many of them.”
“Thingies?” I teased as I switched my cup for his underneath the coffee pot. “Is that a formal name for those?”
His lips twitched. “I’ve always called them thingies. When I was younger, I couldn’t pronounce the name, so thingies it was.”
