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"For you," he said, handing me the box. "For me," he said as he settled, opening up the cookies, and taking one out. "Open it," he demanded softly.
Excited, I slid the top off, finding at least a hundred small cards inside.
Business cards.
My business cards.
"You had them made up?" I asked, turning to look at him, touched.
"I did. What do you think?"
"Aside from you being the nicest person ever?" I asked, shooting him a wobbly smile. "I love them. It feels so real now. Very official. I have business cards," I said, holding one up with a grin.
"You do. There's no stopping you now," he agreed over a mouth full of cookies.
"How are they?"
"The best. Why don't you sell your baked stuff at the diner? The shit in the cabinet looks like it went bad back in the nineties."
"My boss gets those desserts for next to nothing. He would need to pay me. And he's the cheapest person I've ever met."
"You won't have to work there forever," he told me, reaching out to stroke a finger down my jaw, giving my chin a little squeeze.
"Yeah. Hopefully, Shep's recovery stays on track, and he will be able to go back to work eventually."
"I'm sorry you're having issues with him using. Gotta be stressful."
"I think the resentment he has for me for bringing it up is the worst part right now."
"It's hard. He needs the medicine right now. He might not see that he is relying on it too much yet. He will come around."
"I hope," I agreed, taking a deep breath, making the stress wash away with my exhale. I didn't want to be thinking negative thoughts right then, not with a naked Malcolm sitting in bed with me, eating cookies. "So, are the girls in trouble?" I asked. "For going behind your back," I clarified.
"Got you here in my bed," he said, shrugging. "Think I might actually owe them. Though I am going to suss out how Hope knows where I live."
"You didn't tell her?"
"No. I like having my privacy here. Love the girls, don't get me wrong, but I like my quiet."
"Oh," I said, chewing my lower lip. "I'm sorry I am interrupting that."
To that, a slow, sexy smile tugged at his lips. "Definitely think I like you not quiet, Holly," he told me, making my belly wobble.
"Stop looking at me like that," I demanded, giving his knee a little shove.
"Like what?" he asked.
"You know what."
"Why would I want to stop doing that?" he asked, putting the cookies on the nightstand, but not before grabbing a couple, and tossing them out into the hall, a move that made the dogs climb off the bed and go retrieve them.
"I have to get to work soon," I told him.
"How soon is soon?" he asked, already pulling me down on the bed, rolling me onto my side, facing away from him, my butt nestled against the proof of his growing desire as his hand slid over my hip.
"Forty minutes."
"How many times you think I can make you not-quiet in forty minutes?" he asked, hand slipping between my thighs.
The answer to that question was three.
And by the time I was making my way into the diner, I was sore in places I hadn't felt sore in a while. My hips, my thighs, between.
But I found I enjoyed the ache in a strange way, having that constant reminder of his hands on me, his body inside mine.
I felt like I was floating through my shift. Not even Don's mood or my boss's unannounced appearance to handle paperwork could dull the shine.
Then, sometime after eight, a familiar trio of faces made their way up the steps and into the diner.
"Uh oh, she's mad," Gracie said, grimacing at me as I shot them a raised brow, trying really hard to look annoyed, despite my good mood.
"Nuh-uh," Billie said, shaking her head, making her giant penis earrings dance. "She just had sex," she declared.
"What? How could you possibly know that?" Hope asked, rolling her eyes at her cousin.
"It's a gift," Billie declared. "So, he was happy to see you, huh?"
"We're going to, you know, give it a chance," I told them. Unable to hold it back, the smile broke free. Big. Happy. God, yes, happy. I hadn't known even a hint of happy in so long. I almost didn't recognize it for a minute.
"Yay!" Gracie said, beaming at me.
Billie sent me a smile as well.
But Hope looked a little concerned.
"Is he pissed at me?" she asked.
"He's curious about how you found where he lived. But he said he couldn't be mad at you." I went ahead and left out the part about that being because I had been naked in his bed.
"Are you pissed at me?" she asked, grimacing a little, guilty after the fact.
"No. I was for a couple minutes there, but mostly because I thought you guys were only pretending to be my friends to pull a prank on Malcolm."
