Finally.
The words echoed through Lucy’s mind in time with her racing pulse. She wanted to move—to close the distance between them—but he was still scowling, so she kept her feet still. “Do you have any idea when that might be?”
The question startled a chuckle out of him, clearing away the frown lines. “Maybe when I can wrap my head around why it’s not a bad idea.”
“Oh, it’s totally a bad idea. We live together, so if it’s a bad kiss, it’ll be incredibly awkward. One of us will have to sleep on a pile of blankets in the shed.”
Nick’s mouth quirked up at the corners, making him look almost smug. She hadn’t seen that expression on him before. “It won’t be a bad kiss.”
“You sound very sure of yourself.”
“I am. Partially because if one of us has to sleep in the shed, you know it’ll be me. And there’s no way you’re going to let me take all the blankets, so that’s a lot of pressure on me to succeed. I’m good under pressure. But mostly because I’ve spent enough time thinking about kissing you to know it’s going to be good.”
“But it’s still a bad idea.”
“Absolutely.”
Her resolve was crumbling like a stale cookie. “I’m the one who drove three thousand miles to see my grandmother without calling first, so if one of us is going to respect an idea being bad, it’ll have to be you.”
Nick was so close to her now, she was afraid he’d be able to hear her pounding heartbeat, and his dark eyes gleamed with promise. “Do youwantme to kiss you?”
“Yes,” she whispered.
Nick put one hand on her waist, and with the other, he cupped her cheek. He watched his thumb stroke over her bottom lip, and a shiver went down her spine. Then his hand slid to the back of her neck and he lowered his mouth to hers.
Lucy melted against him, her hands sliding up his back as his fingers bit into her waist. His other hand slid from her neck into her hairline as his tongue dipped between her lips.
She lost all sense of time as Nick kissed her with a hunger that matched her own. It was even better than the kisses he’d given her in her daydreams, and she never wanted it to end.
But eventually, Nick released her hair and broke off the kiss. His hand still at her waist, he rested his forehead against hers. They were both breathing too fast, clearly wanting more.
“Thank goodness we finally got that out of our systems,” she whispered, and he actually laughed before standing straight.
“Totally out of our systems,” he repeated, the lie as obvious as hers had been.
“The lasagna’s getting cold,” Lucy said, because she didn’t know what else to do. Going in for another kiss before ripping off his clothes would have been preferable, but pasta was a decent consolation prize.
“Right.” He pulled out his chair but didn’t sit down. “You know there are only two of us here, right?”
She considered the huge pan of lasagna. “We’ll definitely be having leftovers tomorrow. But I can freeze it in portions, too, so we don’t have to eat it for the next three days.”
“I won’t be here for supper tomorrow, actually. I’m going out.”
Going out?Lucy wasn’t sure what that meant. If he was going out with his brothers, wouldn’t he just say, “Hey, I’m going out with my brothers tomorrow,” or something like that? He’d said goingout, not goinghome.
But he couldn’t be going on a date. He’d just kissed her, and he might have said it was a bad idea, but he hadn’t said it was a bad idea because he had a date lined up for the next night. She wouldn’t have kissed him if he had, no matter how much she wanted to.
“Okay,” she said when she realized she had to saysomething. “Thanks for letting me know.”
“My brothers want to cook out in the backyard,” he told her while he held up a plate so she could drop a chunk of lasagna onto it. Then he set that plate in front of her chair and lifted his own. “You want to go? It’s just burgers and dogs, but there’s no sense in you making something for just yourself when we always grill too much.”
“I’d love to go,” Lucy said without hesitation. She wasn’t about to pass up an opportunity to meet Nick’s family.
“This is delicious,” he told her after taking his second or third bite. “Thank you for making it. I know lasagnas are a lot of work.”
“I’d love to take all the credit, but it was a frozen one.” She chuckled. “And it gave me a good excuse to warm up the cottage without touching the thermostat.”
“Oh, I noticed,” he said, and his voice was grumpy, but the corners of his mouth twitched.
