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Normally, I’d have the coffee ready to roll the night before so I could just flip a switch after I’d stumbled out of bed and down the stairs.
Normally, my coffeemaker had a cup under the spout, rather than a pot, so I could just stand there and wait until it was done filling the cup, and then switch it over to the pot so I didn’t have to wait until the pot was full.
Normally, I didn’t function properly until cup number two.
Caffeine was my drug of choice.
It took me a while to find all the coffee paraphernalia. I lucked out because obviously Lee liked his coffee and he had a high-quality bag of java.
I made it strong and did the cup thing. It was pretty clear from his Mr. Grouch impersonation that Lee wasn’t getting up anytime soon, and there was not a sound from the couch so I could be greedy and selfish with the coffee.
I was concentrating on the stream of life-affirming joe filling the cup, so I was a little surprised when hands settled on the counter on either side of me and I felt the warmth of a body against my back.
They weren’t Rosie’s hands.
I looked over my shoulder.
Lee had fenced me in.
His dark hair was wild in a very sexy way, and his eyes were soft, as were his features. His chest was bare. I knew this because I could see his shoulders.
I didn’t dare look down.
After ten years of practice, I was able (barely) to put the wild, sexy hair out of my mind and to ignore (barely) the fact he was bare chested. However, it was kind of hard to ignore his proximity.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
He glanced over my shoulder. “You makin’ coffee for everyone, or just you?”
There were certain times when honesty was the best policy. In my life those times didn’t come very often, but if there was the possibility that you might not get the first cup of coffee, and brutal honesty would get it for you, you had to be brutally honest.
“Just me, for now.”
I turned back to the coffee, deciding I didn’t want an answer to my question about what he was doing. Something was going on and I was three quarts low on caffeine, not to mention sleep. I could hardly think past the next second, much less figure out what game Lee was playing. Likely he was still pissed at me for bringing trouble to his doorstep and decided to make my life miserable as repayment. I could understand that. I’d probably do the same.
I went back to ignoring him, as the coffee cup was full. I expertly switched out the cup for the pot, intent on my first sip, all the while wondering why Lee still hadn’t moved.
Then he did. A hand disappeared and a second later I felt my hair being swept off my left shoulder, around my neck and over my right.
I jumped at this intimate gesture and so did other parts of my anatomy. I didn’t even try to ignore it. Any effort would have been futile.
Lee’s chin went to where my hair used to be just as his hand slid across my abdomen and pulled me to him.
My entire body went still.
“We need to talk,” he said into my ear.
I stood there, frozen, coffee cup aloft, nowhere near awake enough to process his extraordinary actions, and also in kind oftotalshock.
I said the only thing I could think to say.
“I need milk.”
Without moving his body or head his hand left my middle. I heard the fridge open and the glug of milk against plastic and then the fridge closed again. Lee set the milk in front of me and his hand went back to the counter, keeping me where I was.
Real slick.
My stomach fluttered.
