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His gaze darkened. She was positive he was about to respond to that, when something warm and wet licked her foot. “Um, I think we have a visitor in bed.”
“Hector,” he said firmly. “Stop trying to steal my girl.”
“Your girl?” She said, grateful for Hector’s playfulness. For a minute there, things had gotten a bit too…serious for a first real date. “Just how did he climb up on the bed anyway?”
“Step stool.”
“What?” Lauren leaned over the bed to find a small step stool wedged against the lower frame. “How did that get there?”
“Sometimes he whines. I put it there so I won’t have to get up to put him in bed with me.”
“Softie,” she said to Nate. She planted a kiss on Hector’s wet nose. “Does Lanie know Hector has his own step stool for your bed?” she teased.
“No. And please don’t tell her. I’ll never hear the end of it.” He got out of bed, naked, and stretched his arms over his head like some big cat. Men were always so much more at ease in their skin than women. At least, this woman. “What do you want to do this morning?” he asked.
“Hmmm…that’s kind of a loaded question, don’t you think?” She tried not to gawk at him, but could he not put some clothes on?
He saw the direction her mind was going. “I thought we’d get breakfast first. A man needs his energy.”
“Well, yeah, we could do that.” She cleared her throat. “But I usually meet Henry and Tom for brunch. After church.”
“Church.” Nate blinked. “I thought Tom had Henry for the weekend.”
“He does. It’s just we kind of do it as this family thing. You know, Tom’s dad is a minister, so Tom takes Henry to church service and sometimes, I go, and Allie joins us now that they’re engaged, so it’s not like it’s just Tom and me with Henry.” Why she added that last part, she didn’t know, except she didn’t want Nate to get the wrong idea. “What do you usually do on Sunday mornings?”
“I go for a run. Do the crossword puzzle. Relax. Sometimes I go to my mom’s later for dinner.”
“I don’t want to interfere with your regular routine,” she said.
“I could join you for brunch. If you wanted. No big deal.” He said it casually, like it really wasn’t a big thing. She wished she could read him better, but he had an uncanny way of keeping his face so perfectly composed that it was impossible to guess what he might be thinking. Of course, he always seemed to say exactly what he thought, so maybe Lauren was just reading too much into it.
“Oh, that would be lovely…it’s just, I think it would confuse Henry right now.”
“Because you don’t want him to know we’re sleeping together? I don’t think going out to brunch signals anything other than the fact we’re hungry.”
“Of course not,” she said. “It’s just, you come over sometimes with food, and I think he’s suspicious of our friendship. And of course, now he walks Hector for you, and everything is going at a nice pace. I just think it would be wrong to rush things.”
“All right.” Once again it was impossible for Lauren to tell whether or not he was disappointed. She hoped he understood where she was coming from. Taking him as her date to couples Bunco was one thing. So was having sex with him. But it was simply too soon to run around town acting like an old established couple in front of their families.
Now that they’d gotten that out of the way, she could lean back and appreciate the view. Nate opened his dresser drawer and took out some clean clothes. “By the way, you’re going to have to loan me something to wear this morning.” She pointed to the floor, where what remained of her white dress lay in shreds. An image of him cutting through her dress, and the feel of the cool scissors against her heated skin made her shiver.
He turned around and tossed her a shirt.
Lauren tried not to stare at him. But really, if you were going to parade around naked in front of someone, then you were asking for it. She started to laugh. She’d seen it last night, of course. She’d had it inside her, for Pete’s sake, but she hadn’t really taken note of it. No wonder she was sore this morning.
“What’s so funny?”
“Okay, so…you remember the night we had dinner at The Harbor House?”
“Of course. That was the night I knew we were going to sleep together.”
“What?” she asked, momentarily distracted. “How could you have known that?”
“It was the best first date I’ve ever had. I wasn’t completely sure you were feeling it like I was, not until I kissed you.” He shrugged. “Then I knew.”
“Because of our kiss, you knew we’d have sex?”
He seemed uncertain for a moment, then he shrugged and said, “Something like that.”
