10. Everleigh

Chapter ten

Everleigh

I t’s a universal fact that you can’t sleep on an empty stomach. We had dinner at a normal time, six in the evening, but I was too busy talking and laughing and catching up with Darius and Hans to actually eat much. Excitement makes for the worst appetite, and I was excited. I have to say, it was good being back in Philly with my family. Really, really good. The amazing kind of good. But being back here? Well, it shouldn’t feel like I’m coming home, but I was excited, and the excitement bubble still hasn’t burst yet. I know I was only gone for a few days, but there was this strange sensation I kept feeling the whole time I was away, and it felt kind of like loneliness. For Darius. Because I was missing him.

Now I’m paying for all my excitement, bottled-up laughter, and barely eating anything at dinner. It’s two in the morning, and I’ve been awake this whole time, half buzzed by the excitement of having my family here, half by my belly groaning and rumbling, and well, I guess also half by not-so-chaste thoughts of my husband that have me burning up.

I eventually shove myself out of bed and leave my room. I haven’t really gone down to the kitchen for anything yet since meals are always set out in the dining room because, apparently, rich people have that luxury. But I still find it easily enough. The kitchen isn’t like most of the rooms in the house. Instead of having a big wooden door, it has a set of double metal doors that swing inward, just like a real restaurant. There isn’t a window in them, though. I think there usually is. Anyway, I know what I’m going to find behind those doors, which is an industrial-style kitchen complete with metal prep tables and walk-in coolers. It seems very likely—again, just a rich people thing.

A low growl reaches me just as I’m about to push the doors open and go on a raiding party that hopefully Darius’ chef can forgive me for in the morning because I’ll undoubtedly leave a trace in my wake, even if I’m careful.

Low growls should not come from the kitchen at two in the morning.

I freeze, my hand brushing up against the metal door.

Either there are really big mice in there having a party, or someone is up to something they shouldn’t be doing. I don’t want to walk in on a middle-of-the-night tryst or really big mice doing really big mice things. Are really big mice actually rats? Okay, I’m probably really overtired. Nothing good comes from having an empty stomach, and this just proves it.

That low growl comes again, and this time, it’s followed by words. “Damn it. Now, listen up, and you listen well. You’re going to obey me, fucker.”

Oh, well, that sounds ominous.

Definitely something I seriously don’t want to intrude on. It sounds like someone is threatening someone else. And if that’s happening, it’s probably dangerous. But also, if that’s happening, I don’t think Darius would be very happy about it. Maybe I can just push open the door and steal a peek to get a better idea of what is going on.

“You will listen to me and listen well. You’re going to get in line and shape up, or else there are going to be consequences. I will break you open and lick out your insides. Don’t make me do that. It will go badly for both of us.”

Yikes! Everything in me says to run the other way, but someone could be in real trouble in there. I push on the door just a fraction, leaning my shoulder into it so that it gives way and makes the tiniest crack. However, what I see in there is nothing like what I expected I’d find.

A smile jumps to my lips as I spot Darius’ bowed back over, yup, a stainless-steel prep counter that extends along the whole middle part of the kitchen. There are pots dangling overhead, and on the table, there are various cooking implements. Everything is gleaming and spotlessly clean, including the grills on the far side, the big oven in the wall, a bank of cabinets, and a huge walk-in fridge. I pegged the rich-person industrial kitchen spot on.

My super hot husband, whom I have definitely not been thinking about all night, has a jar of jam in one hand, and the other is straining at the lid. When he angles to the side, I can see how red his face is. He’s probably been working at popping that lid for a while. When it wouldn’t come off, he did what I would do and resorted to threats. Clearly, the jam isn’t taking him seriously.

Suppressing a giggle, I push open the door and walk in. He doesn’t hear me or see me coming until I’m standing by his side. “Having some trouble?”

“Argh!” He leaps about half a mile vertically and sideways, and the jar nearly explodes out of his hands. “Shit, you nearly gave me a heart attack.”

“Sorry.” I grin sheepishly. “What are you doing down here? Late night craving?”

He gets an equally sheepish, adorable little boy look on his face, and my god, it makes him so handsome that I nearly lose the jar I’m not even holding. Thank goodness my hands are devoid of any objects because I’d send them crashing to the floor. His dark brown eyes are the color of chocolate, and the one kitchen light that’s been turned on illuminates the amber flecks in them. He’s rocking a major stubble shadow on his rigid jaw, and he’s clearly been sawing at his bottom lip with his top teeth because it’s red and swollen. My eyes go there immediately, and places that should not be tingling start tingling and lighting up. My whole body is awake now, and my mind soon catches up, making me realize I want to kiss him. I’d like to take that jar out of his hands and have him crack me open instead.

Ummmm, okay, that’s too far.

Alright, so maybe I’d like to have him saw at my bottom lip instead of working so hard on his own and then run my tongue over the stings he’s made, soothing them. Maybe I’d like to—

“I can’t believe you just heard me cussing out this jar of jam.”

I shrug, offering a small smile. I’m slightly embarrassed myself because I’m standing here in a gray tank top, sans bra, and a pair of fuzzy blue pajama bottoms with cartoon hearts and polar bears holding hands and dancing all over them. “I think opening jars is pretty much one of the most difficult and universally hated things. Everyone struggles with it.”

I scan the kitchen for a bank of drawers, but instead, I find a big ass knife block on the counter, so I walk over and pull out a huge, deadly-looking one. Darius’ eyes widen slightly, and I say, “Relax. Murderous wife isn’t a title I want to have anytime soon.”

“What exactly is the timeline for anytime soon?”

I grin and reach for the jar. Darius slides it along the countertop. He’s very dubious and isn’t taking any chances with me practically wielding a sword. I get it. “This sometimes works.” I take the jar and whack it a couple of times with the back end of the blade. It makes a few indents in the jar’s red lid. I place the knife aside and try to twist it off, but nothing.

I’ve seen my mom do the banging trick a few times, so I turn the jar over and knock it viciously against the prep table’s edge. Then, I give another few twists after. Still nope. That baby isn’t budging.

I walk over to the double sink against the wall, a big stainless bay of compartments, and turn the hot water tap on. When it’s flowing and steaming, I run the lid under it for a few seconds before pulling it out, waving off the heat tendrils, and giving it another go.

“What a damn asshole this jelly is,” I declare, my frustration getting the better of me.

Darius sidles up beside me and takes the jar. “It’s okay. Just leave it. I can make do with peanut butter.”

“You were going to have a peanut butter and jelly sandwich?” Be still my heart.

He glances around the kitchen like he’s been caught doing something he shouldn’t, and then he nods.

“You’re one-upping me,” I assure him. “I would probably eat it with a spoon and not tell anyone and put both jars back. Then again, if I lived alone, it wouldn’t be a big deal.” I let my eyes scour the kitchen furiously again because it’s either that or start ogling my husband, who is way too hot at two in the morning, haunting this kitchen like a scruffy, sexy, tall, dark, broody, jam-cussing ghost. “There has to be something in here that opens jars. Like an actual opener or a freaking garlic-peeling mat. Those are grippy, and they work amazing.”

“I looked. But I didn’t find anything.”

I blow air out past my lips. “Well, that sucks. I guess peanut butter it is, then. Is there bread? Or wait, bananas? I could make us peanut butter banana sandwiches!”

“There are bananas over—” Darius goes to point, but his breath hisses out in a rush at the end, and he grasps his shoulder. “There,” he finishes with a gasp as he rubs the spot, rolling it and pretending like it’s not so bad.

“Your arm hurts. Did you wrench it trying to get that stupid jar open?”

I can tell he hates that question. Of course he would. He’s a dude, but I have to say, if someone asked me if I hurt myself trying to open a jar of jelly, I’d be pretty mortally offended, too. “Here.” I reach for him before I can tell myself it’s a bad idea. “It’s probably just locked up. Let me massage it. That might help make it feel better.”

“No, that really won’t—oh god.” My hand slides up his arm to his shoulder. I try and mentally remember where the worst of the scars were, but I can’t, so I just cup his big muscular shoulder blade in my palm and then slide my fingers over his muscles, looking for a knot. When I find something by pressing in and searching, I massage it using slow, even strokes. “Wow, that feels pretty good,” he groans. I watch what I’m doing, paying close attention. I can see a few of the scars sticking out from under his shirt sleeve, twisting like road lines on the map of his perfect skin.

He’s wearing a T-shirt and jeans, so I fully take that in for the first time. I was too fixated on his glorious, godlike face when I first walked in, but now I’m not so fixated on that anymore because I have a brand new part of his body to focus on. Yummy biceps, huge shoulders, cut muscles galore, and a tight tush in jeans. Jeans. I haven’t seen him wear those before.

His skin is hot. It’s not feverish hot, but it feels that way to my fingertips. They’re flipping out, along with the rest of me, and that includes all my lady bits. They’re having quite the good, unexpected two in the morning, not a big mouse but a sexy man in the kitchen, hurrah.

The noises he’s making are way too sexy. Little grunts of pleasure as I work the muscles of his shoulder and bicep. “You should go for massages more often. I’m no professional, but if it feels okay, maybe it would help.”

I get a long, low sigh in response. “They want me to have another surgery.”

I momentarily stop because I’m shocked. “Another one?” I make my hands work again, getting the other one in on the action.

“Yeah, another one. There’s always some cutting-edge this or that that’s supposed to work miracles, and of course, it never does. Plus, the recovery time always sucks. It’s always painful, getting cut open and stitched back together. I’m just…really tired of it.”

I hear the resignation in his tone, and I can hear how wounded he is. How he has very little hope of ever getting back to whatever his normal used to be.

“Even if they can fix my arm, they can’t fix my head.”

“Hey, don’t say that. Your head doesn’t need fixing.”

“You’ve seen me sit in a car. It definitely needs fixing.”

I take his chin in my hand before I register the fact that I’m moving up from the massage, literally, to touch him somewhere else. I don’t have any right to be doing this, but he doesn’t shrug me away, so I cup his face and make him look at me. “You don’t need to be fixed, Darius.”

“Yeah, you could have married worse.”

I grin, dissipating the tension. “You’re right. I could actually be stuck with Bradford.”

It only takes a second before his serious facade cracks down the middle. “You could have.”

“Him and his pet donkey.”

“I’d pity that donkey, that’s for sure.”

I decided on a universal truth when I was away. I missed him, and I can admit it. Furthermore, he’s lovely. From his brown eyes with the gold flecks, which remind me of those chocolate bars with hard caramel pieces in them, to his upturned lips, which are still kind of gnawed on from when he was concentrating on that jar, to his hard, darkly shadowed jawline, he’s pure beauty. His goodness and kindness, his generosity with me, and his desire to help my family only make him more attractive, and that’s on top of the deep inhale of intoxicating male cologne I’m getting.

God, I really wish he would kiss me right now.

My nipples and hoo-ha echo that sentiment, doing a double down, tightening up, and throbbing.

His smile is so lazy and sweet. He looks so good in that T-shirt with all his muscles on display, and it’s a crime those jeans aren’t edible because I’d like to peel them off his body with my teeth and consume them before I lick him from head to toe. His hair is mussed just a little on the one side as if he rolled out of bed and threw on some clothes to come down here because he was starving too.

My heart clenches up and beats faster and harder, knocking the wind out of me because it’s a little too out of control. I can feel my eyes closing in a please, for the love of god, kiss me now gesture. I don’t actually expect he’ll go for it because we’re friends, and he probably doesn’t want to jeopardize that by taking things up a notch that we’ll both likely regret when it’s not two in the morning, and we’re not fueled by hunger, which can make people do crazy things, but I’m wrong.

Oh god, I’m so wrong, and it’s so, so good.

He doesn’t do one of those crushing kisses. My hands are still on his warm, scruffy cheeks, and he leans in, and I basically guide him to me even with my eyes closed. He takes his sweet time, and all I can smell is him. I know he’s getting close because I can feel his warm, minty breath on my cheek, and then he grazes his lips over mine. Yes, grazes. He barely touches me, but that quick scrape of the softest lips makes me whimper, and then all bets are off because I’m threading my hands through his hair, dragging his face to me, and vacuuming his lips into my mouth. Alright, so I have a little more tact than that, but the lip-crashing thing happens now. I throw my arms around his neck and wriggle up against him, needing to be closer. Closer. Still not close enough.

The fire that sweeps through me burns hot and fast like the kindling was already laid, all the paper scrunched up and the driest possible sticks waiting for the first strike of the match.

“Thank you for being so nice to my family,” I gasp out as I take a nano-break to catch my breath.

Darius sweeps his thumb along my bottom lip, making me ache all over in response. “You don’t have to thank me.”

“No, I do. Thank you for everything.”

“Is it okay if I kiss you again?”

“Yes. Please. Please do that, Darius. I want you to kiss me so much more than I want a peanut butter and jam sandwich. Speaking of which, by the way, are you down here because you couldn’t sleep because you’re hungry too?”

His eyes darken, his pupils eating up the chocolate parts until they’re almost black. “Yes, Everleigh,” he says thickly, darkly. “I’m absolutely starved .”

He kisses that word into my mouth, feeding it to me with his tongue along mine. I whimper and slam my body up against his, and he responds by grasping my hips and lifting me onto the prep table. Oh, I see how this is going to go. He’s all super nice, which wasn’t unexpected in normal life, but in the bedroom, he’s probably all dark and mysterious, and yes, please, god, yes, I want that. I want him.

I want him so badly that my hands are already working my pajama bottoms off. Darius is helping me, which is a good thing because I’m becoming hopelessly entangled in the fuzzy fabric. He peels them off of me, exposing the plain, slightly ugly set of black cotton panties I have on below. What? I don’t wear freaking lace to bed. I’m not sure I wear lace, period. Because I’m a boring, comfortable, cotton type of girl. What’s wrong with that?

Darius sweeps his hands up my legs, sending showers of sparks scattering through me. He nudges my thighs apart, and I spread them for him. I’m apparently much easier to open than that cursed jelly. “What are you doing to me, Darius?” I ask that with my head thrown back, leaning hard on my arms with my hands splayed over the stainless steel surface, which was cold but is now warming up with the heat of my body.

“I’m going to worship your sweet pussy with my tongue, my lips, and maybe my teeth. Is that okay?”

I thrust my chest out and roll my hips off the table, lifting up and letting them slam back down. “Yup. Yup, that’s okay, but uh…teeth?”

“Don’t worry, you’ll like it,” he utters, a raw spoken promise that sends shivers up my spine. I love the way his voice just changed. As if staring at my panties, my thighs, my spread legs, and the rest of me that’s already so freaking ready for this has made his breath hitch, his throat raw, and his tone darken up, moving over for the night to take its place.

I open my eyes when nothing happens, and the first thing I see is the giant bulge at the front of Darius’ jeans. Okay, so I don’t think he’s changed his mind. Maybe he’s not sure about how I want this. Or how much I want this. We don’t really know each other that well, and we kind of agreed on a friend zone within the zone of our kind of inconvenient marriage of convenience.

I tear off my own panties, which isn’t as sexy as it sounds because doing it while sitting down isn’t easy. I have to lift one butt cheek and hip, then the other butt cheek and hip, and shimmy and slide, but then they’re finally off. I kick my legs up, intending to launch them onto the floor, but they fly up in the air and go sailing overhead in a shocking arc before landing on one of the hooks on the pot rack above our head.

“Well, shit, I don’t think I could do that again if I were trying—oh god. Oh my god, wow.”

I lose all capability of speech as Darius lowers his head and pulls me forward on the prep table. My legs are already spread around his broad shoulders, and then his tongue, his mouth, and even his teeth are working me like he promised. I can’t keep myself upright, so I fall back on the table. Darius tucks my legs up, setting my feet on his shoulders so my back isn’t bent at such an odd angle, then his mouth seals over my clit and back to the sweet, amazing torture he was doing before.

I let out moans that half the household can probably hear and let him do wickedly wonderful things to me that no one has ever done before. I’ve had a little bit of experience with sex, but just like the basic stuff. I’ve had a lot going on in my life, and it didn’t leave room for dating, but whenever it did, I always seemed to be a jerk magnet who gravitated toward guys who wanted to have five-second sex and then jump up and leave as soon as they were done.

Anyway, I’m not thinking about that now. I’m not thinking about them now. That’s the past, and the past doesn’t matter. Only right now matters. Only Darius and his sinful mouth, the teeth he scrapes over my clit, shocking the hell out of me and making me feel like my soul is going to crash through my skin and literally ghost my body, and his tongue, which smooths the sting of his teeth, matters.

I’m not quiet, and he’s also not quiet, and the fact that anyone could walk in on us here in the kitchen should make me want to stop, but it doesn’t. It’s two in the morning. What are the odds that someone is going to get hungry and come in here looking for a snack? Right. Don’t answer that.

Darius scrapes his teeth along my inner thigh, nipping me gently, and I stop caring about what time it is or snacks or anything other than the path he kisses back to my center. He does something with his tongue, curling it around my clit before sliding lower, and then, oh my god, he fucks me with it. Like, inside. I can feel myself clenching around him, and I can feel the rush of wetness pooling between my thighs. There’s probably a puddle under me on the table. I should be embarrassed, but instead, I twist up, shoving off my elbows and bowing my spine so I’m sitting up again. I bury my hands in Darius’ hair, which is so thick and soft and such a delight to grasp onto, and wriggle my hips forward so he can have more.

I want him to have it all.

He stops, and I think I’ve done something wrong, but then he looks up at me and lets me see just how wet his lips and chin are before he goes back to what he was doing. He wanted me to see it. To see how I’ve coated his face with my wetness and to see the dark twinkle of delight in his widely blown eyes, which are the color of inky dark midnight.

He thrusts his tongue inside me over and over again, and then he reaches up and pinches my clit. It’s more shocking than it is painful, and it’s like being spanked on the most acute pleasure spot I have. I don’t have time to brace myself before a hard climax comes out of nowhere. The orgasm sucks me into blackness as deep as Darius’ eyes. I let it break over me, and yup, my soul totally ghosts my body while I enjoy the insane pleasure of it. I also don’t slam back into my body for some time, which is just fine by me.

When I struggle back to consciousness, I find Darius kneeling back and looking at me, a wolfish grin splitting his handsome face.

“If this is what giving you a massage gets me, then please, let me give you one more often.”

“Sassy,” Darius teases as he stands up. He smooths two fingers over his bottom lip, then sucks them into his mouth. My clit pulses again, watching him lick me off of himself. He spots something beside me, and I turn and see a jar of peanut butter. Immediately, I get on the filthy train of thought path.

Darius twists the lid off the jar, dips a finger in, and brings it to my lips. I don’t hesitate to suck his digit into my mouth, and it’s the best peanut butter I’ve ever had. “Fuck the jelly. I want you and a peanut butter sandwich.”

He laughs and dips his finger into the jar again, feeding me another finger full of peanut butter. I don’t care that it’s kind of kinky or that my mouth is sticking together. I’d eat the whole damn jar off of him if I could.

Hmm, that’s not actually a bad idea…

“Take off your shirt,” I pant, my voice all rough and sex-crazed. “I want to smear that peanut butter all over your chest and lick it off.”

“That would probably glue your mouth together. It’s rather sticky.”

“I don’t care. I can spread it thinly. I’ll grab a knife.”

His eyes widen. “That sounds like a disaster waiting to happen.”

“A butter knife,” I say dryly, but neither of us moves. It seems like a good time to blurt out something honest and embarrassing because my mind is a little bit scrambled since all the blood in my body is still lingering between my thighs. “I’ve thought about your nipples since I almost drowned you in the pool.”

“Hmm. Are we telling truths now?” Darius studies my face, which has to be totally red now. “Okay, we’re telling truths then. Well, earlier today, when your mom and sister were in the room, you were wearing that dress, and you bent over to look in the cat cage. I was standing right behind you, and it rode up and nearly exposed your panties, and your bottom looked delicious in it, and I…uh…let’s just say that slacks don’t have much room when it comes to hiding a big boner. I mean, there’s room, but they go all tent-like and—” he trails off, and his face goes scarlet.

I tell myself not to calculate inches, but of course, that’s what I’m doing. I mean, god, where else is my mind supposed to go after a comment like that? He basically said his pants couldn’t contain his erection. Holy shit, he’s cut, and he’s totally hung. He’s also my husband, and I really want to get him naked right now and ride him right here on the table after I lick peanut butter clean off of him.

Unfortunately, soft footsteps in the hall interrupt that thought, and we look at each other with the same amount of panic at the same time.

“Shit, someone’s coming!” I whisper-shriek. “Pants! Oh my god, my pants!”

“Got them!”

A soft, fuzzy set of pajama bottoms is shoved into my hands, and I fly off the prep table and slide into them in a single glide. Then, I rearrange my messy hair as best as I can—hey, it’s the middle of the night, and no one is expecting perfection—while I try and run my hand over my lips to hide how kiss-swollen they are. But then I figure that’s suspicious, so I drop it right as my mom pushes through the kitchen doors.

She freezes when she sees us. “Oh! I didn’t think anyone would be up at this hour.” Her gaze roams over me, and I swear she can see how utterly transparent I am at this moment and also how kiss-ruined and utterly wanton I look. It’s not a look I’m used to donning, and she can probably smell it a mile away.

Oh god, please do not let my MOTHER smell ANYTHING a mile away. Please, please, please, please.

Mom rubs sleep from her eyes, and it looks like she hasn’t spent the past few hours tossing and turning but just woke up and decided she was starving. That means she’s not on top of her mom-game, which means she won’t sniff out anything amiss. I really need to stop using olfactory references. After what we just did on the prep table, it’s more than slightly disturbing to think that way.

“Are you hungry? Is that why you’re down here?”

“We are, yes, we’re starving. We’re going to make peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Yeah, we’re making them. Getting right on that. Except the jam won’t open. We were trying to figure out a way to get it open.” I give her my best that’s all we were doing in this kitchen, nothing funky or anything innocent look.

It would be so much more helpful if I didn’t catch Darius out of the corner of my eye looking up at something. And that something is the pot rack, which my underwear is still stuck on.

Fuck me with a cursed jar of jelly. Please don’t look up, Mom.

Thankfully, she doesn’t. Not yet, at any rate. Darius whips across the kitchen and thrusts the jelly jar into her hands to distract her. I let out half a sigh of relief because we’ve only dodged half a bullet. I meet his gaze from behind my mom, and his eyes are trying to say something to me, but my telepathic skills are totally lacking. I finally get what it is when he points up at the pot rack and then at my mom and mimes opening a jar, even though it looks like he’s just throttling the air and trying to strangle it to death. He points at me, then back at my mom.

“Mom.” I loop my arm around her waist and steer her to the other side of the kitchen, toward the sink. “I already tried beating it and running it under hot water.”

“I can see that.” She looks at the thoroughly dented lid. “There has to be a jar opener in here somewhere. Or a garlic mat. Those things work awesomely.”

I grin. How can you tell we’re related? “Try running it under hot water while I look for something.”

I search the bank of drawers closest to us, and while my mom’s back is turned and she’s busy at the sink, I glance behind me at Darius. He’s kneeling on the prep table, and he’s so tall and sexy, his body streamlined and his muscles flexing as he reaches up to the pot rack. His fingers curl around my panties, and he frees them before stuffing them into his pocket. They make quite a bulge because they’re not lacy and compact, and my face goes scarlet before I whip around to my mom.

“I haven’t found anything yet.”

The last drawer contains a pair of yellow rubber gloves, the kind that people wear for cleaning and dishwashing. “Oh! Those might work!” Mom is way too excited about the gloves, and she shuts off the hot water.

I take them out and pass them over to her. She slips them on, and I have to say, she can get way better traction on a wet jar with those gloves than I could with my bare hands. She knocks the jar a few times, hitting the lid against the sink’s edge. One grasp of those gloves in her deft and talented mom hands, and the jar gives up the game with a loud pop.

“No fair,” I point out, my arms crossed. “You have mad mom skills.”

She chuckles, delighted with the praise. By the time she turns around, Darius has a loaf of bread, the jar of peanut butter I was just fantasizing about, a knife, and several plates set out on the other side of the kitchen on yet another prep table. One where we didn’t just uh…do very naughty things on.

My mom takes over, whipping up sandwiches that are extra delicious because I wasn’t kidding about those mad skills she has. Everything tastes better when a mom makes it, I swear. At least, it does when my mom makes it. She passes me a sandwich oozing with jelly and thick with peanut butter, and my mouth waters. She gives two to Darius and takes one for herself.

“Have a good sleep,” she says, wriggling her fingers in a farewell gesture over her shoulder and taking the final sandwich with her.

After she leaves, Darius and I breathe a collective sigh of thank fucking goodness. He takes a bite of one of his sandwiches and groans. “Oh, man. This is amazing. This might be the best PB and J I’ve ever had.”

“Yeah, my mom makes good PB and J.”

“The best,” he adds.

“Thank you for getting my gotch down from there before she saw.”

“Oh.” He sets his midnight lunch down and digs in his pocket, producing them for me. I snatch them out of his palm, barely brushing my fingers over his skin. I need to be careful. Because if I’m not then I’ll forget all about this sandwich and pick up where we left off. I’d really like to pick up where we left off. But I can’t. We shouldn’t. Things don’t need to be more complicated. I’m not sure what Darius wants, but the fact that he got himself into a marriage of convenience that’s going to end would suggest it’s not a commitment or a meaningful relationship. I have a lot of things going on the side, too. I mean, I’m not killing myself by working so many jobs anymore, just like my mom isn’t, and Heather is getting her treatment, but I’m still, uh, not available. Kind of?

“Are you okay?”

The soft undercurrent of concern in Darius’ voice threatens to make my knees buckle, so I slap on a shaky smile, grasp my panties with one hand, and grab my sandwich with the other. “Yeah, I’m okay. Are you okay?”

“I think so.”

“We should probably sanitize that table.”

“I’ve got it. You go ahead to, uh…to bed. If that’s where you were going. Or…continue on, at any rate.”

“Okay.” God, this is why I don’t do spontaneously wonderful things like letting my super hot, deliciously attractive, and masculine husband of convenience lick my lady bits in a big industrial kitchen in the middle of the night. Or anywhere. At any time.

This is why I have to turn and make a fast retreat because I’m afraid if I stay, I’ll abandon my resolve and this sandwich, and I’ll throw down another peanut butter offer that involves my mouth and, okay, probably my lady bits again after, and also Darius’ man nipples, all his muscles, and maybe his man bits.

God, it’s been a long time since I’ve done this with anyone. I’ve always been on the shy side, and then life just got…busy and out of control. Finding a boyfriend was the last thing on my mind. Getting busy was also the last thing on my mind because I was already busy enough. Thank you very much.

Tonight just reminded me of how much I love peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and also how lonely I’ve been. In a sexual dry spell kind of way. And in other ways, too, but I didn’t just find that out tonight. I think I’ve known that since the minute I locked eyes with Darius for real, back when I was tied to the bed and wondering what the heck was going on. As he was explaining himself, he got this look on his face that I recognized—a look that my heart felt, synced up with, and beat all the more heavily after knowing.

I wasn’t alone in the world, but man, sometimes I felt like it. And Darius had that same look.

Tonight didn’t feel like an accident. It didn’t feel like something wrong or bad. Even if I really should keep it from happening again because I know this has an expiry date on it, and sexy time wasn’t part of the deal, I can’t convince myself that I’m not looking forward to the next slightly awkward, hella wonderful chance encounter we might have.

You know, even if I have ironclad control, and my lady bits are not going to be getting themselves involved in any more sticky, or not so sticky, situations.