Chapter Six #2
"I fell asleep." Yep, those were the first—utterly lame—words out of my mouth.
"You did," he agreed.
"I barely did anything today."
"You needed sleep. Almost as much as you need food. Your stomach has been growling for the past half hour."
"Sorry..."
"Are you apologizing for being hungry?" he asked, smile spreading.
"What time is it?"
"Nine," he said, rolling a crick out of his neck. "I finally spotted the guy she saw. It wasn't her stalker. I snapped a picture and sent it to her to ease her mind. We can head back. You still want Chinese?"
"I want peanut butter & jelly in bed."
"Well, that I can do," he told me, turning the car over. "Just reconnecting Padfoot," he told me, voice low as his body curled over mine, stealing all my air, making my belly flip-flop at his nearness, at the way his eyes were all gooey and warm.
I wasn't entirely sure I took a proper breath until he put the car into drive.
"The bread is expired," King told me twenty minutes later after I had taken the world's quickest shower and climbed into pajamas.
"Is it moldy?" I asked, moving in beside him, reaching into the plastic sleeve to pull out slices, holding them up to the light. "I will risk it," I decided, watching as he reached up for the peanut butter. "Do you want some too?"
"I don't like peanut butter."
"What?" I didn't realize it was a bit of a, well, shriek until he turned, white teeth showing.
"I know, blasphemous, right?"
"If you don't like it, why do you keep it?"
"I was trying out that biscuit recipe you gave me."
I didn't ask if it was a hit. Half the peanut butter was gone. "Do you like jelly?"
"Jelly, yeah."
"Okay, here. Let's try this," I suggested, finding the jelly, spreading it on two slices of bread, sandwiching them together, then going into his spice rack, coming back to sprinkle the top with a cinnamon.
"Where'd you come up with this?"
"My parents wouldn't let me get an E-Z-Bake oven when I was a kid.
Something about burning myself. Like the light bulb could do that much damage.
Anyway, they got me this little sandwich maker thing.
It pressed bread together to seal in whatever you put inside it and cut off the crust. The recipe book had a jelly suggestion with cinnamon sprinkle. I remember really liking that."
"Sounds good. Were your parents over-protective?"
"Um, maybe it is more fair to say they liked order?" I suggested, following him toward the living room, giving a smile to Padfoot as he destroyed his delayed dinner. "Like I said, they were older when I came along. They got used to their life being just-so, everything calm and predictable."
"There's nothing calm or predictable about a kid."
"Yeah, but they didn't really realize—or accept that. I didn't learn to ride a bike until Jamie taught me as an adult because the idea of scrapes and trips to the emergency office would be an inconvenience. I mean, that makes them sound almost cruel. They weren't cruel. Just... detached."
"Selfish."
"Yeah, I guess that is fair to say. I think that's why I started working as young as I did. I wanted to be around animals."
"So they didn't let you have pets either, huh?"
"Not even a goldfish. My mother didn't want them stinking up the house.
My father is allergic to just about everything.
He used to make me come home from work and shower right away, stuffing my work clothes in a bag until laundry day, so I didn't set off an allergic reaction.
It was a bit of a relief to move out, honestly.
My parents aren't bad people. We are just... very different people."
"How'd you manage to move out on your own so young?"
"Jamie. She'd been working at the shop that was always servicing my car.
We became friends. She wanted to be able to start dating, but knew her parents—as accepting as they may have been—wouldn't have been entirely comfortable with her bringing girls home to their house, so she suggested we pool our money and get a place together.
So that was what we did until I inherited the farm. "
"Did you have any plans to turn the farm back into, well, a farm?"
"I want to restore everything back to what it was once.
And I wouldn't mind maybe having some of those pygmy goats and chickens.
Oh, and maybe a pig. The pig rescues are always so full because people are idiots and think mini-pigs could possibly stay the size of a Yorkie for its whole life.
But they're super sweet. We have someone who brings her guy into the store and he makes all these little grunts and he even squeals when he gets excit...
I'm rambling," I realized, shaking my head at myself.
If there was ever a way to make my mouth run away with me, it was to get me onto the topic of animals.
"It's sweet," he declared, lifting his sandwich for another bite, making me realize he was more than halfway through with it. "This is really good, by the way," he told me with a somewhat surprised nod.
"Now you have a quick midnight snack option that doesn't involve your rather impressive supply of potato chips. I didn't know dill was even a flavor option."
"They're new," he informed me, shrugging off his salt addiction.
"Pickles are gross," I told him, nose wrinkling. "In my opinion, nothing should be pickled ever. What?" I asked, watching his smile slowly fall, his eyes going thoughtful.
"My mom hated olives," he declared, voice almost a little guarded. "My dad loved them."
"That's cute," I told him, picturing a happy couple across from one another in a restaurant, the woman pushing the olives off to the side of her salad plate, the man reaching across to stab them with his fork.
"Hey, Savvs..."
I knew.
I knew what he was going to say, what he was going to do.
It was in his voice. The soft rawness there. Something I figured for discomfort but determination despite it.
"We don't have to talk about it," I offered, gaze staying stubbornly forward, sure I would implode into a ball of embarrassment if I saw the rejection on his face.
"The thing is, sweetheart, we do," he told me, his hand closing around my thigh in a way that was becoming familiar. "You're really not going to look at me?" he asked, a hint of humor in his tone.
"No." My voice was barely even audible to my own ears.
"Come on," he tried, giving me another squeeze, his body leaning forward to catch my gaze. "There you go. I just need to know something."
"Okay," I agreed, taking a steadying breath as I met his eyes a little more willingly.
"Did the reality live up?"
"I'm sorry?"
His eyes warmed. "I'm not blind, Savvy. I know there have been some... feelings over the years. Lots of build up in the head..."
Was he being... insecure?
I mean, it wasn't crazy. I could picture it.
Unlike the cocky boyishness of Atlas and Rush or the collected don't-give-a-damn confidence of Nixon, Kingston—to me—always seemed the most down to earth, the most grounded.
And with that came all the pesky human weaknesses. Like occasional lapses in confidence.
"You're serious?" I asked, head shaking. "Were we in the same office earlier?" I asked, watching as the tension in his jaw slackened, a small sign of relief. His hand squeezed again, his touch a little higher up than before, more intimate.
I don't know where it came from.
I had never been accused of being aggressive.
Certainly not in past relationships.
I was never the instigator, the impulsive one, the type to act on their first impulses.
But something deep within, something long-buried, something that had never surfaced, rose, overtook me entirely before I could even realize what was going on.
Before I was cognizant of my brain telling my body to do so, I was curling around toward him, one hand pressing into his shoulder to steady myself as my knee pressed into the cushions, the other moving over his waist to settle on the other side.
My gaze held his, finding surprise mixed with anticipation, heat as I straddled him, my other hand settling on his other shoulder.
My fingers slid inward, feeling the strong line of muscles beneath his shirt, then gliding up the back of his neck, planting there, thumbs framing each side of his face as my body curled, as my head lowered, hesitating only for the shortest of seconds before pressing my lips to his.
They were pliant for a second before taking it deeper, demanding more. His hands curled around the middle of my back, folding, tightening enough that breathing became more of an idea than an actuality.
Not that I cared.
Or noticed.
All there was in the world was him. The scent of him all around, the feel of his hard lines to my softer ones, the pressure of his lips, the scrape of his scruff.
My body heated from my lips down. Desire was something fluid and burning somehow at the same time, liquid fire that swirled my chest, coursed through my belly, culminated at the juncture of my thighs.
Kingston's teeth nipped my lower lip, drawing a throaty whimper out of me, my lips parted just enough for his tongue to move inside, claim mine.
A spark of need burst through my core, pure, primal desire making my hips drop down fully onto his lap.
Another moan moved through my chest, lower, rougher, at feeling his hardness press against my need.
His arms uncrossed, sliding down my back, sinking into my ass, using it to guide me over him again, his cock grinding against my sex.
My lips ripped from his on a moan, my heavy-lidded eyes finding his equally heated with desire as his fingers made me slide over him yet again.
My head moved forward, hiding my face in his neck as the confession bubbled up and tripped out. "My imagination could never be this good," I told him, squeezing my eyes shut, my lips pressing into the side of his neck just below his ear.