I sniffed. “If you say so.”
His laugh was addictive, the man who was usually so serious, so focused.
While he pulled together our dinner, I moved through the other bedrooms, adding items to the baskets and wiping down the mirrors and bathroom counters until they gleamed. Tomorrow, I’d cut fruit, prepare their lunch for when they arrived, and make sure every meal was as ready as possible.
Speaking of meals…
The smell hit me first, and I followed my nose into the kitchen, but I found it empty. I tilted my head and looked out the windows overlooking the back patio. Emmett was setting our plates on the outdoor dining table. First, he had them opposite of each other, then he stood back and set his hands on his hips, pushing one of the plates to the seat next to the other.
I covered my mouth, trying to hide my growing smile. Almost like if I let that smile breathe, I’d have to concede something important.
But whether anyone saw that smile or not, the concession had already begun. It did the moment he took my hand.
In my grubby clothes and messy hair and with my bare face, I walked downstairs and outside, heading straight for him. He was still facing the table, and he started when I wrapped my arms around his waist from behind. With a huge sigh, he slid his hands over mine. I pressed my face against the broad expanse of his back.
He was so warm. The muscles of his back so firm.
There was no fighting it.
Emmett was impossible not to fall in love with.
He turned, wrapping his arms around me, engulfing me completely.
It was the first time we’d hugged like this—different from our dance, different from the night we spent at my parents’—and we stood like that for a long time. His hands coasted up and down my back, his nose in my hair.
“Thank you,” I said into his chest.
“You might want to try it before you thank me,” he said.
I laughed, lifting my face. With Nick, and my family, and my job … I was the one thinking about what everyone might need. It felt so foreign to have someone take care of me this way. And since the moment he reappeared in my life, it was all he’d done.
Showing up in exactly the way I needed him.
He wanted to kiss me. It was all over his face, in the banked heat of his eyes. Gently, I tilted my chin up, eager to feel the weight of his lips on mine and the slide of his tongue over my own. My stomach went weightless, thinking about the whole stretch of evening in front of us.
Emmett’s hand slid over my jaw.
“Not yet,” he whispered, touching his thumb to my bottom lip. “Eat first.”
I curled my fingers into the cotton of his shirt. “Okay.”
Another kiss to my forehead and he pulled back to slide my chair away from the table for me.
The omelet was incredible—melted cheese and rich meat and the fresh bite of the veggies. Maybe I should be taking nutritional advice from the man with the very nice body because he was onto something.
He had me laughing with stories from his time with Parker in Ft. Lauderdale, and I told him about the craziest parties we’d done in the last few years.
His particular favorite was the Louis Vuitton-themed birthday party—for a one-year-old.
We talked about college—his and mine.
He proved to me that he could still build a perfectly stable structure using rocks and woodchips, and I wiped tears of laughter at the sight of his big frame searching around the landscaping for the right kind of stone for the foundation.
When he managed it, the small little building perfectly stable on the table in front of us, he gave me a smile so smug that I almost ripped off his shirt and tested the strength of the chair where he sat.