Page 70 of A Dream for Daphne

“I didn’t mean to wake you,” she said.

“Then you shouldn’t have brought food in,” he said with a lopsided smirk. “It’s hard to sleep with that smell. Damn. No one has ever brought me breakfast in bed.”

“I’ve never done it before either,” she said. “Here’s some coffee.”

He reached for it and took a sip. “Thanks. How come you did it now? And what time is it?” He reached for his phone and saw the time. “Why aren’t you still sleeping?”

“Because I woke up cold and saw that you had the sheets pinned down by your hips,” she said.

Good thing she’d put a T-shirt on before bed. She was covered somewhat.

“You could have nudged me to get them,” he said.

She shrugged. “I’m not used to sleeping with someone. It was fine. Once I’m up I can’t go back to sleep. And I was hungry. Eat up. Or we can go sit at the island. I think I had this image in my head about this but now I’m worried about the mess on my sheets.”

“We’ll go eat in the kitchen,” he said. “It’s a great thought, but I’ve never eaten anything in bed before. At least food.” He was wiggling his eyebrows.

“Phew,” she said. The heat filled her face, but she was going to ignore his comment. “Me neither. It sounded better than it was executed.”

He set his coffee down and threw the covers back. “Looks executed pretty well to me.”

He was in his underwear but grabbed his shorts on the chair and pulled them up. Her eyes stayed on his bare chest.

When he reached for his coffee and walked toward the door, she asked, “Are you going to put a shirt on?”

“Why?” he asked, smirking. “Does the sight of my nakedness turn you on?”

Her eyes traveled the full length of him from his messed up brown hair, dark eyes, facial hair, over his chest, and a sprinkling of hair there, down past his shorts and to his large bare feet.

“As a matter of fact it does,” she said.

“Just like I am looking at your legs now. I think we’ve got a problem between us.”

“What problem is that?”

“That it’s hard to focus when the other is half naked.”

“Might be your problem,” she said. “I focused enough to make breakfast and I’m going to eat it before it’s cold.”

She turned on her heel, grabbed one plate, and left her room with him following.

She was putting up a big front and knew it.

She acted like a slut with Abe last night and didn’t know what came over her.

As if she wasn’t self-conscious enough over their one-night stand, she might have got him thinking that she’d been lying all along about never having done it before.

What woman acted like she did in bed last night?

She’d never done it before.

“Why are you so quiet?” Abe asked five minutes later. They’d been sitting at the island eating their breakfast.

She shrugged. “No reason.”

She put her head back down to continue eating, but when she looked up he was still staring at her.

“I don’t believe you.”

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