I look up and meet his eyes.
BIG mistake.
We’re standing so close, and his arms are still holding me. He smiles, and my stomach goes twisty. “You’re always here because you hate living in your sucky apartment. Admit it—you want to move in here.”
I raise my chin. “Never.” Because it’s not true. I stay here while he’s gone because I miss him and everything in here smells like him. Well, and yeah, I want to live here, but only because he also lives here. I don’t care about his fancy stuff or his soft sheets or the really deep soaking tub or…okay, fine, I like those things too. So the real reason I want to live here is because all of it combined is euphoria.
Speaking of euphoria, why are his arms still looped tightly around me? Should I try to wiggle away? My body will never comply. It’s already curled up and made a new home here. Geez, his five o’clock shadow is hot. I bet it would tickle my neck.
Nathan’s eyes dart over my shoulder, and his smile goes wicked. The next thing I know, his finger is covered in brownie mix and smearing across my cheekbones, slowly and with care. “Admit it,” he says with that villainous grin.
I audibly inhale low and long, blinking like, Oh no you did not just do that!
He’s so pleased with himself right now. “You look like a miniature football player.”
Okay, well clearly brownies are off the table for tonight because he just started A WAR!
I reach behind me, dunk my fingers into the mix, and then stamp them onto the center of his face. Nice and slow.
“Never,” I whisper in front of his lips like the bad guys always do in movies.
He blinks, brownie batter clinging to his lashes. I can’t swallow as I watch him pull his lips in, nodding slowly. He lets go of me to put his hands on the counter in front of him, hunching over like a beast preparing his plan of attack.
I’m not an amateur, so I grab the mixing bowl full of brownie batter and make a break for it. Except…I’m not moving. My socked feet are gliding on the hardwood but going absolutely nowhere. Who put a treadmill in this floor?!
I look over my shoulder and see Nathan has the back of my shirt pinched between his fingers. And now I’m being slid backward, closer to him. That large hand reaches over my shoulder, and I watch it dip—his whole entire hand—into the bowl of brownie mix I’m clutching tightly in front of me. There’s nothing for me to do but close my eyes as he slowly presses a blob of sticky batter onto the right side of my face. Hair and all. That’s going to be fun to get out.
Can I just say, this is the weirdest, slowest food fight anyone has ever witnessed? And oddly, it’s making me super hot and tingly.
I spin around to face him, and it’s my turn now. I take a dip of batter then smear it across both of his eyebrows. He looks like Eugene Levy now, and I have to press my fist to my mouth to keep from laughing. With a subtle grin, he loads up his finger then uses the batter to paint brown lipstick across my lips—really…freaking…slowly.
Oh.
Okay, well my skin is on fire now. It’s fine. I’m fine. Everything is fine. Except I’m not fine because I don’t know what in the hell I’m supposed to make of this! Am I completely off my rocker or is the mood just a little bit sexy right now? I try not to acknowledge the way his finger is lingering on my mouth like he has nothing but time. Is he standing closer than he was a minute ago? His hand drops, and I look up. He’s staring at my mouth. He’s inching closer. His head is dropping.
My breath catches.
He leans down and says quietly in front of my lips, “Thanks for making me brownies. Too bad I didn’t get to taste them.”
Someone has clamped a clothespin over my windpipe. Did he really just say that? Am I still napping and imagining this whole thing? Because it feels a lot like some particularly wonderful dreams I’ve had about Nathan.