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Chapter 22
I have a lot of jokes about unemployed people but none of them work.
Cole
Iwake with my arm thrown over a warm and naked Ellery. She fell asleep after our first round of sex last night, but I woke in the middle of the night at the feel of her warm, wet mouth swallowing me.
She drove me out of my mind with pleasure using her mouth. After I came, she grinned up at me, told me she’s been wanting to get her mouth on me for months, before curling up next to me and promptly falling back asleep.
I tighten my arm around the woman who’s been driving me absolutely insane for the past months. I’m done fighting the pull of Ellery Promise West. She’s got me ensnared and I’m not going anywhere. But I know I can’t blurt out anything of the sort. She’ll run away before I have the chance to put my jeans on.
She squirms in my arms. “Breakfast. I need to make breakfast.”
I kiss her hair. “Shush. Get some more sleep.”
She freezes. “Cole. What are you doing here?” When the memories of last night come to her, she slaps her forehead. “Ow.”
I chuckle. The rest of the world sees professional Ellery West who has it together all the time. I’m the lucky bastard who gets to be there when she’s not trying to be perfect. And I plan to be there with her for as long as she’ll let me.
“I need to help with the breakfast service.”
“No, you need to catch up on your sleep.” The woman works way too hard. She needs to learn to rely on her employees more. She’s not a one-woman show. She needs to stop acting like one.
“Don’t you start,” she grumbles. “It’s my business and I’ll operate it the way I want to.”
“I’m not trying to tell you how to run your business. I’m trying to ensure you get enough rest. You’re pregnant or have you forgotten?”
She elbows me and squirms out of my hold. “I haven’t forgotten. How could I have? I’m the one who was sick every morning for months. I’m the one who can no longer fit into any of her clothes. I’m the one with all these feelings and hormones running rampant in my body. You haven’t been here. You don’t know.”
Wrong thing to say. I sit up in bed and cross my arms over my chest. “I would have been here if I had known. I phoned and texted you after I had to return to Chicago. You ignored me.”
She grabs her pajama top and puts it on before whirling around to glare at me. “Because I…” She trails off and throws her arms in the air.
“Because what?”
She ignores me to dig on the floor for her panties. “Forget it. It was just a one-night stand.”
I throw the covers off of me and prowl to her. “I told you I wanted more than a one-night stand from the very beginning.”
I’m not lying. I may have known Ellie for mere days before we fell into bed, but she fascinated me from the start with the way her eyes laughed at me when I thought she was the cleaner to how utterly sexy her curvy body is.
“I don’t have time to rehash this yet again. I need to get to work.”
“Moon is covering the breakfast service.”
She narrows her eyes on me. “How do you know?”
Maybe because Moon covers the breakfast service every day? I keep my snide comments to myself, though. I know better than to rile this woman up any more than she already is.
“She told me.” She also asked me to help convince Ellery to give her a chance to handle the breakfast service without her boss hovering over her and commenting on every single thing she does.
I try a different tactic. “It’s New Year’s Day. I bet all of the guests are hungover and sleeping it off.”
“You’re not hungover.”
I smirk. “I had better things to do than tie one on last night.” I lean forward and sip from her lips for a brief moment. “Happy New Year, Ellie girl.”
“Happy New Year, pain in my ass Cole.”
