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"I'm sorry, Zander. I want to tell you that there was nothing you could have done, but I have a feeling you already know that. And that doesn't make it any easier."
His response was to once again pick up my hand and kiss my fingers. I was glad I'd somehow managed to say the right thing, but I wished there was some way I could take away his pain. I still had a million questions, but I wanted that smile back on his face. The real one that I felt like was such a gift to be the recipient of.
"Zander, I need to tell you something about myself. Promise you won't judge me too harshly?" I asked in all seriousness.
He sat up straighter, his attention completely on me. "Never, sweetheart. I'd never judge you."
I leaned in and crooked my finger at him. He leaned in as well.
"Sometimes at night when I'm in my bed and I'm feeling particularly naughty…" I began, doing my best to make my voice seductive. I figured it worked when Zander leaned in even closer and his foot began caressing my calf beneath the table. "I do this really bad thing. I try to resist, but the urge… the urge is just too much sometimes."
I barely kept from smiling when I saw Zander shift uncomfortably. I suspected there was a good reason that he no longer seemed able to sit still.
"Sometimes I do it in my room, sometimes the kitchen. Sometimes I even do it in the bathroom because I'm afraid the sounds I'm making will wake Cameron up." As I spoke, I took a chance and took my foot out of my shoe and then ran it up Zander's leg, not stopping until I reached his crotch.
"Understandable," Zander growled.
I began massaging Zander's erection with my toes. Thankfully, the table had a long tablecloth, so there was no chance of anyone seeing what I was doing. I was starting to think that even if there’d been more of a risk of being discovered, I wouldn't have cared. My intent had been to lighten the mood a bit, but now that I could feel how hard Zander was, my own body began to react.
"I always feel guilty afterward," I continued. "And I promise myself I'll never do it again. But then the urge hits…"
Zander's hand dipped beneath the table so he could grab my foot. But it wasn't to stop me from toying with him. No, it was to have me press harder against him.
"Gotta resist those urges," he said.
I sucked in a breath as he dragged my foot up and down his length. The reminder of his size and how good it felt when he was stretching me had me momentarily forgetting what I was talking about.
"You folks need anything else before I bring out your entrées?" the waitress suddenly asked and I nearly jumped out of my skin. Zander was cool as a cucumber and he held on to my foot as he calmly responded to the young woman that we were fine.
"You were saying, my sweet? Something about urges?" Zander said.
I nodded and leaned forward. I dipped my hand into the breadbasket between us and pulled out one of the little containers of butter. I took my time pulling the top off and then I ran my tongue slowly over the top of the container. Zander's eyes were practically glued to my mouth.
I used my fingers to pop the butter loose from the container and then sucked the whole chunk of butter into my mouth. "I'm sorry, Zander. The truth is… I'm a butter addict."
He sat there for a moment just staring at me in confusion, then he laughed. Hard and loud, enough to have more than one set of eyes turning our way. But I didn't care.
"I don't care if it’s Irish or whipped or salted. Frozen, melted, refrigerated… I love it all. Jackson once came home from a late night of working and found me in bed surrounded by butter wrappers."
I drank in the sound of Zander's continued laughter, and when he was finally finished and his eyes were twinkling, a terrible suspicion washed over me as he once again reached for my hand.
"Thank you," he whispered and then he kissed my palm.
And that was when my suspicion turned to full-on confirmation.
I was going to lose my heart to this man. There was no question about that. The only question was, what was I going to do about it?
Chapter 9
Zander
I'd been fully prepared to admonish my woman for disappearing on me again, but the sight of her dancing in the kitchen while singing along to some country music song I didn't recognize had me leaning against the doorjamb instead.
It'd been several weeks since that first morning when I'd woken up in bed alone and had found her weeding while the sun's rays had been breaking over the horizon. In that time, we'd seen a lot of each other, though I couldn't call it typical dating. That was mostly due to the fact that we had to sneak around, since Jolene wasn't ready to tell her son about us. I really hadn't had an issue with that because I was trying to understand why I was still in Eden. Even Pete had been surprised when I'd mentioned that if he needed help on any cars after I finished the custom jobs, I'd be happy to hang around.
