AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“After you fell asleep last night.”
“How?”
“I took the key with me and headed to that all-night grocery store just around the corner. I’m totally going shopping at two o’clock in the morning from now on. Other than a couple of drunks hanging out front, I swear I had the entire place to myself.”
I curl over onto my side to look at him. “Tell me honestly, when’s the last time you went grocery shopping?”
He smiles like he’s been caught. “I guess it’s been a while.”
“You have people for that too, huh?”
He doesn’t answer me. Instead he rolls over onto his side so that he’s facing me, leaning up on his elbow, propping his head on his hand and his hair is all floppy and messy. And adorable.
He’s close, our bodies just inches apart and I’ve never before felt more self-conscious. I look a total wreck, and I can only imagine how delightful my breath is right now.
But Reed’s looking into my eyes, and then his eyes do a quick sweep down to take in my lips, hovering there a moment longer than normal, before he eventually finds my eyes once again.
“I didn’t know what you liked,” he says serenely, which somehow belies his strong, masculine demeanor. “So I grabbed a bit of everything. The cold stuff I put in the refrigerator when I got back. I didn’t want to wake you by rustling around through your cupboards, so I left the packaged stuff on the table. I’m guessing the meds did their job, because when I got back, I came in here and checked on you and you were totally out to it.”
We don’t speak for a while and the silence stretches out between us. I can’t make my eyes look anywhere else but at Reed’s face, and for reasons that make no sense, his eyes seem to be having a little trouble with the very same thing, because he hasn’t stopped staring at me either.
He leans in so slowly that I don’t think he’s even moving at all, but I feel the mattress shift and for a split second I think he’s about to kiss me.
“Brinley,” he says on a whisper, and my heart totally swoons.
“Yes?”
“You want syrup or sugar on your pancakes?”
He kisses my nose–my freaking nose–and before I can blink, or answer him, he’s sitting up quickly and climbing off the mattress with clumsy movements that would almost be comical if I didn’t feel his loss like a sharp punch in the gut.
It would be so easy to allow myself to get lost in this man, so complicated, so complex. It would be so easy to just have him lie down beside me and fall into him, maybe kiss him softly, and lose myself in the feelings associated with kissing him.
I bet he’s a really good kisser.
He turns to look at me and then smiles that sexy crooked smile of his, all alluring and tempting, and completely out of my league. Then he quirks his eyebrow up, before he disappears from the bedroom, closing the door behind him.
Oh Lord.
I have the most overwhelming urge to chase after him, to throw my arms around him and hug him tightly for everything he’s done for me. Not since I moved from Ohio have I felt so… so what? Sosafe.
Reed Devlin is a nurturer.
But that’s the thought that worries me the most, because as much as I like Reed’s company, and as much as I look forward to spending time with him, I don’t want him to think of me as a burden or a problem he needs to solve.
He might be older than me, but I don’t want him thinking of me as a child that needs taking care of. Because, let’s face it, Reed Devlin is most definitely not some kind of a father figure to me.
Oh god, no.
Trust me, with his endless tattoos and his heavy muscles, and his black shirts and his sexy, deep voice, and the way his eyes were just looking at me like he wanted to strip me naked and play around with me a little…
He’s anything but that.
Brinley
Three days later…
Thankfully, I’m feeling much better.
