Chapter 47
Ledgar
I pull out whatever makes sense from the fridge like chicken and potatoes.
Something simple and quick that gives me something to do while she settles onto the barstool at the counter and watches me with her chin propped on one hand like she used to do.
I keep my back to her for a minute, so she doesn’t see what happens when I think about her like that.
“You don’t have to keep cooking for me,” she says.
“I want to.”
“I can order something.”
“Out here?” I glance back at her over my shoulder. “And where would you order food from?” She looks around like she’s just remembered where exactly she is. “Fair point.”
“You can help if you want,” I say.
“I’m good.”
“Are you just going to sit over there and look pretty?”
“Mmhm.” I can hear the almost smile in it. “You seem to have it handled.” I reach up to the cabinet above the stove and my shirt rides up. The kitchen goes very quiet and when I look at her, she is looking at the counter with her thumbnail between her teeth and her cheeks are flushed.
“Are you hungry?”
She looks up. “That’s why we’re in here.”
“For chicken, or something else?” I hear the slide of the barstool sliding across the floor and her feet on the floor before I see her beside me.
She reaches past me for a cooked piece of chicken, close enough that I can feel the warmth of her skin and smell her shampoo.
It’s the same one she’s always used, and for half a second her arm brushes mine and electricity shoots between us.
She pulls back with the piece of chicken and leans against the counter beside me eating it and looking straight ahead at the backsplash like nothing happened. “That’s not ready,” I say.
“I got a piece of bread.”
“I know what you got.” She’s three inches to my left and neither of us moves.
“You going to check on that or just stare at me?” she says.
I pick up the tongs and flip the chicken, watching her from the corner of my eye as she watches me.
She sneaks another piece of cooked chicken and holds out a piece to me.
I take it with my mouth, looking at her as I do.
She sucks in a breath at my contact and moves back to the barstool.
I hear her settle back onto it with slow careful breaths.
“You know,” she says quietly. “I forgot how good you smell.” I hear the smile in her words as I stop what I’m doing and turn slightly toward her.
She’s got the same ole flirty look written on her face.
The one where she knows exactly what she’s doing and is entirely content with it.
“Payson,” I growl in warning.
“What?” The smile breaks across her face slowly but satisfied. Duke looks at me from the hallway.
“Not a word,” I tell him and he puts his head on his paws. I plate up the food a few minutes later and set it in front of her and pour us two glasses of water. She looks down at the food and then up at me with that same look sitting in her eyes.
“Thank you,” she says.
“You’re a pain in my ass,” I say. “You know that?”
She picks up her fork and smiles, real and warm.
“You have no idea,” she says and God help me.
She steals a piece of my chicken when she thinks I’m not looking and I let her.
She moans with satisfaction and I clear my throat.
Fucking tease. She sets her fork down and folds her hands on the counter.
“What do you do? Like actually do. Not the version you’ve been giving me all day.
” I look at her for a long moment. “That’s a conversation for another day,” I say.
“That’s not an answer.”
“It’s the answer you’re getting right now.” The anger from before returns to her eyes.
“Fine,” she says. After dinner she helps me clean up, picking up the plates and carrying them to the sink.
We move around each other in the kitchen like we’ve done this before, stepping around and passing without colliding.
When everything is put away she makes her way toward the living room and I follow.
She takes the corner of the couch, the same corner she woke up on this morning and pulls her knees under her.
Duke jumps up beside her immediately and settles against her side without any objection whatsoever.
I sit at the other end and for a while we just exist in the same space without requiring anything of each other.
Millions of questions left unanswered hanging on a thin line between us.
I know I need to tell her about that email this morning, and tell her what it is I do now, but not tonight.
I want her to trust me again first. She finds something on the television and I don’t pay attention to what she turns on because I’m not watching it.
I’m watching her. The house settles around us with that deep evening calmness and I lean back and stretch my legs out.
At some point she shifts further down the couch, leaving little space between us.
She doesn’t look at me, just barely glances my way, but I can tell the air between has changed into something that requires a lot more attention than ten minutes ago.
Duke hops down as she shifts a little more, looking at the space between us then at me, finally.
Like fighting a battle within herself, she sighs deeply before closing the distance between us, tucking herself against my side.
I put my arm around her and she tips her head back against my shoulder.
I feel her release a long, slow breath like she’s been carrying it ever since she arrived last night.
Maybe she has. I press my lips to the top of her head and she goes still for a second.
Next thing I know she crawls over me, straddling me, and looks at me with a longing I can return tenfold.
I lean my head up and kiss her, and she melts into me.
It’s nothing like the kiss we shared this morning.
It’s slower, more cautious. The kind that asks questions and waits for answers as her hands find my jaw and mine find her waist. I pull her closer to me and she comes without resistance and melts into me like she was made specifically for me.
Her fingers curl into my shirt and my hands move from her waist to the small of her back.
She inhales against my mouth and I feel every bit of her lean further into me and I want her.
Not in a way that has anything to do with the past six years but everything to do with the rest of our lives.
That’s why I force myself to break the kiss.
She keeps her eyes closed for a second and her forehead drops to mine.
Her breathing is unsteady and her fingers tighten in my shirt.
“Ledgar,” she whimpers.
I use every reserve I have not to take her hard and unapologetic right here right now.
“I know,” I whisper back and I do. She isn’t there yet and I don’t want to push her.
I’m not going to be the reason she wakes up tomorrow and can’t forgive herself for giving in, no matter how bad we both feel it.
Not when everything is finally coming together for the first time since I let her go.
I pull back some more and look at her as she opens those beautiful chocolate eyes. “I’ll take the couch,” I say.
She blinks confused. “What? No, you don’t have to…”
“I know I don’t have to, but I am going to.
” She looks at me for a long moment with that same longing in her eyes I’ve felt every day.
Her arms find their way around my neck as I move my hands to cup her taut ass and lift her as I stand.
She wraps her legs around me without hesitation, without question, and it’s the most natural thing either of us has felt all day.
I carry her down the hall to my bedroom.
She doesn’t say anything and neither do I as her head rests in the crook of my neck and one hand curled into the back of my shirt.
I push the bedroom door open with my foot and cross to the bed, lowering her down onto it slowly and carefully, savoring the moment with her.
I pull back and she looks up at me, hair spread out across my pillows and her eyes soft in a way she would never allow me to see in the daylight.
I kiss her lips gently, squeezing her hip slightly as I straighten.
“Goodnight,” she says quietly. I turn to leave, pulling the door most of the way closed.