“Love you too,” they both echo.
“Don’t forget the jewelry!” Grace yells a second before I hang up.
Just to appease her, I rifle through the jewelry box sitting on top of my dresser and find a thin gold braided necklace and a pair of small gold hoops. Using the mirror on the back of my closet door, I fasten the clasp and slide the hoops in.
I’m on my way to the kitchen when the doorbell chimes again. Grabbing my purse from the kitchen table, I hurry over to the door, pausing for just a brief second to take a deep breath and release it. I feel maybe an ounce more calm as I open the door – until I'm immediately struck mute by the man standing on my doorstep.
With a beautiful bouquet clutched in his hand.
A bouquet ofmyflowers.
Declan always looks good. Genuinely, I think he could wear a paper sack and still turn heads. But standing on my strawberry-covered welcome mat wearing a black short-sleeved button down that hugs his chest and arms, with his hair sticking up just slightly, as if he’d been nervously running his hands through it, and my favorite flowers in his hand…
Well, he’s absolutelydelectable.
“Hi,” he finally says, breaking the silence. I look up to find him grinning down at me. A real grin, not the smug, sarcastic smirk I’ve come to know and love.
“Declan. Hi,” I say back awkwardly.
Elsie Carmichael, wordsmith extraordinaire.
“These are for you,” Declan says, holding out the bouquet of flowers I immediately recognized as being from the delivery we received on Friday. “I had Noah put something together for me when you stepped out to get lunch yesterday. I didn’t want to accidentally pick one out that you had put together. Figured you deserved to have flowers assembled by someone else for a change.”
Swoon.
I take the bouquet from his outstretched hand and inhale, burying my smile in the fresh blooms. Sunflowers, daisies and lavender – the exact arrangement I told Noah I’d been wanting to try putting together.
“They’re perfect,” I tell Declan. “Thank you.” I step back into the kitchen, opening the door a bit wider. “Come in for a minute while I find a vase for these.”
He steps over the threshold and the butterflies in my belly immediately take flight. There’s something about having him here, in my space, that feels like a big step. We’re not just flirting and bantering at work, or hooking up in hidden corners while we’re still on the clock. He’shere, in myhome. This is a real, tangible thing that now exists outside of those redbrick walls on Main Street.
That fact both terrifies and excites me.
“Did you know this lavender actually comes from the field you just drove past?” I ask to fill the quiet while I find a vase under my kitchen sink and begin filling it with water.
“Only because you told me your landlords are your lavender supplier,” Declan says, surprising me. I can’t believe he remembered. “It’s pretty cool that you can get stuff like that locally.”
“It is,” I agree. “We buy a lot of stuff wholesale and have it delivered, but there are some things we’re able to get from local farmers. If you ever find yourself driving north out of Port Myles, you’ll pass the sunflower farm where these came from. Sunflowers don’t transport well, so we’re lucky to have a farm nearby to buy ours from.”
I snip the ends of the stems over the trash and put the bouquet in the blue glass vase by the kitchen sink, where they’ll get plenty of sunlight. I leave the plastic wrap around the flowers for now; I can deal with that later.
“All set,” I say, turning to face Declan. I gasp, startled to find him just a step away from me. I hadn’t heard him move across the room.
“Sorry to scare you,” he chuckles. His eyes bounce between mine, as if searching for something. “Would it be improper if I kissed youbeforeour date?”
“Maybe,” I tell him. Disappointed, he moves to take a step back, but I reach out and grab the front of his shirt to stop him. “But do it anyway.”
Declan doesn’t need to be told twice. He steps closer, eating up the space between us until our bodies are nearly flush. I’d left my hair down today, despite the temperature outside, and Declan wastes no time sinking his fingers into it, cradling the back of my scalp and tipping my face up to meet his. He plants a searing kiss on my lips, one that has my back arching and my lips gasping against his.
Every time we kiss, it feels as shocking as the very first time. I’ve had some decent kisses in my life, but nothing likethis.As his lips devour mine and I feel the stroke of his tongue against my own, I clutch at his sides for something to anchor me in place, so I don’t dosomething foolish like fling my arms around him and climb him like a tree.
I don’t know how much time passes – seconds or minutes, who can keep track? – but finally, Declan nips lightly at my bottom lip and leans back. When he cradles my jaw in his hand and brushes his thumb across my lower lip, I nearly purr.
“We better get out of here,” Declan laughs. “I swear, I have a real date planned and everything. I didn’t come here just to maul you in your kitchen.”
I swallow, moving my eyes to his throat to avoid his eye. “I think I’d let you, if that was your plan.”
“Fuck,” Declan mutters. “Don’t tempt me.” He takes a step back to create some distance between us and I grab my purse from the counter where I’d set it.
