He kissed her softly as he ran one hand up the side of her body. “Happy?” he asked.
She smiled and reached for him. “Very.”
Afterward, they lay there together, warm, comfortable, happy. She rested her head on his broad chest and moved her fingers through the springy hair there. She turned her head and kissed his chest, and he took her hand and raised it to his lips.
“Hey, Beau?” she said.
“Mmm?” She could feel his chest vibrate against her.
“Do we have the ingredients for more of those waffles?”
He laughed and turned so they were face-to-face. “Are you telling me that after everything I’ve already done this morning, you want me to go into the kitchen and make you waffles?”
She traced his freckles with her finger. “That’s exactly what I’m telling you,” she said. “Remember, I like them with butter and—”
“Maple syrup,” he finished as he threw the covers back and got out of bed. “I bet you want coffee and bacon with that, too, don’t you?”
Izzy pulled the covers up to her chin and grinned at him. “Oh yeah. I definitely do.”
They didn’t work in the library that day, for the first time in over a month. They had too many distractions. The next day, though, Izzy turned to Beau after he’d brought her breakfast in bed again—pancakes this time.
“I feel guilty about yesterday,” she said.
He raised an eyebrow at her, and she giggled.
“Not that part of yesterday. We didn’t—”
“Oh, we can change that right now,” he said, and reached for her. She put her hand over his mouth.
“Oh my God, no, that’s not what I’m saying! We didn’t do any work yesterday, that’s what I mean. We both have work to do—I’m going to take a shower and meet you in the library in thirty minutes, okay?”
Beau’s lips curved into a pout. Izzy forced herself to resist the impulse to kiss him.
“You mean the room I’m not allowed to touch you in?”
Izzy nodded. “That’s exactly the room I mean. One hour. Maybe two. You can hold out that long. You did last week.”
Beau put his hand on her hip and smiled at her. “Yes, but that was before,” he said. “It’s going to be a lot harder now that I know—”
Izzy jumped out of bed. “Finish that sentence after we leave the library.”
They went out to dinner that night, to a small place where they sat in the garden in the back, surrounded by heat lamps and the smell of jasmine. The waiter smiled at them as he took their order—if he recognized Beau, he didn’t show it.
“We’ve spent a lot of time talking about my book,” Beau said, “but not much time talking about yours. Can I ask you how it’s going, or do you not want to talk about it?”
Izzy liked the way he’d phrased that. “Yeah, you can ask,” she said. “It might be just the honeymoon period, or I’m reenergized about writing because of working with you, or, I don’t know, just being here, but it’s really flowing, in a way that feels so rare.” She tried to figure out how to explain what she meant. “I feel like I’m living with these people, not just writing them. Like I can’t wait to see what they do next. I wake up in the morning happy that I’m going to get to work on the book that day. I’ve even been waking up a little early to work on it…well, except for today.” They grinned at each other. “I guess I’m falling in love with it in a way, and it feels wonderful.”
The waiter brought their appetizers just then, thank God, because Izzy could feel her last sentence hanging in the air. Falling in love with it. Did she have to use those exact words?
Had she used those exact words for a reason? Was she falling in love with more than just her book? She didn’t want to think about that right now, with Beau sitting across from her, the candlelight from the table warm on his skin, his strong hands reaching for his water glass, his chuckle at a bad joke from the waiter making her smile.
The waiter walked away, and Beau put some of the salad they were sharing on her plate.
“That’s great that it’s going so well.” She breathed a sigh of relief that he’d brought the conversation back to writing. “Are you working on the other one, too?”
She shook her head. “I made a bunch of notes for myself on it, but now I’m trying to let them marinate. I don’t want to rush it.” She grinned. “Plus, I’ve been a little busy this week.”