Page 5 of Always Be My Baby

“Are you okay?” she asked while snickering as I climbed in beside her. Her eyes crinkled and shined with humor.

Woman…Nice of her to worry about me. I shook my head and set to buckling my seatbelt.

“It’s good to see my girlfriend so concerned over my wellbeing,” I jokingly deadpanned. In truth, if it hadn’t been me who slipped, I’d be laughing my fool head off.

The snicker exploded into a full-blown belly laugh. “I’m concerned,” she said while she swiped away the tears that formed in the corners of her eyes at my expense. Levity made Lee even more beautiful if that was possible. I stared at her a few beats too long then started as I realized I should say something.

“Very convincing, “I deadpanned once again, raising an eyebrow to push home my point. “Now you owe me a kiss.”

The woman never let me down. She bit her bottom lip as her gaze narrowed in onmylips, and she seemed lustfully happy to oblige, leaning over the console, grinning, about to press her mouth to mine just as I got overzealous and took the kiss she was preparing to give. I kept kissing her until feeling her soft sigh against my skin. A sigh like that meant Lee was in the mood. I shoved the key into the ignition and shifted into drive to get us home as quickly and safely as my truck could get us. As much as I wanted to get her naked, I wanted so much more.

She drove me crazy in all the best ways. She made sense in my life. Sawyer was my good friend. Marilee—my best friend.

Once we arrived home, Lee took Floyd out while I set us up for dinner and got the fire going because she loved sitting in front of a fire.

I’d only rarely used the fireplace before her. Now we used it practically every day.

Floyd’s clicking claws against the hardwood got me to look up. Lee stood by the French door watching me. The look on her face just about brought me to my knees.

“Thank you,” she said, softer than her usual tone. More vulnerable.

Choked by her sincerity, I cleared my throat. “Go change into something comfortable.” I ordered. “Then meet me back here for a meal that’ll blow your mind.”

“Pretty confident,” she teased as she kicked off her shoes. She tossed her coat over a chair in the corner. Marilee showed me this side of herself, open and exposed, but she couldn’t hold it. Too raw. But she gave it, and that was what mattered. For me, she tried to put herself out there. Exposed her thoughts, her feelings.

A few minutes later, she joined me in a sexy pair of soft cotton leggings that curved around her ass, hugging it like they were lovers. And she’d commandeered one of my raglan T-shirts probably the second week she’d moved in, not that she’d officially moved in. All her clothing hung in my closet and sat in my drawers, but she continued to keep her apartment as a “just in case.”

I’d let it go for a while, but as I had no intention of lettinghergo, it was time to end that agreement.

Marilee sat on the sofa closest to the fire and pulled her favorite quilt over her legs while giving Floyd his ear scratches with the other hand. I walked a tray carrying her meal over to her. “Sorry, buddy,” she cooed to Floyd, ending her scratches to take the tray.

After a moment, I returned with my tray full of deliciousness, sliding onto the sofa at the opposite end and getting comfortable under the same quilt before digging in. And yeah, it was every bit as good as I thought it’d be.

“You never disappoint.” Lee took another bite of food, chewed, then smiled with a piece of green bean stuck between her teeth.

“You’ve got a little something there—” I pointed out the green bit. Her face dropped, pinking brightly as she threw her hand over her mouth and used a fingernail from her other hand to attack it. It was cute the way she blushed at something like that in front of me.

Please, I’d been intimate with every part of her body. I loved her. Of anybody in the world, she had no reason to blush around me. A bit of rogue food wouldn’t scare me off, not when I was absolutely planning on forever with her.

Pressing my advantage, I swiped her tray, placing it with mine on the coffee table and reached to link our hands together, pulling her up from her spot on the sofa and spilling her into my arms. Then retrieving my phone from my jeans, I opened up a love song playlist, hittingshuffle. “Always Be My Baby” by Mariah Carey filled the room while Lee and I began swaying. Mostly me, but seeing as I held her captive on my lap, she pretty much had no choice.

“What’s gotten into you?” she asked.

“You,” I whispered. She dipped her head, snickering, but I caught her smile and captured the hand she tried to lightly swat me with. I flipped her around so we were face to face and pressed her hand between us. We continued to sway as she straddled my lap.

Two songs played through while we danced from our spot on the sofa. The third song just started when she pushed up on her knees to gain my full attention with one hell of a kiss. “You want to go to bed?” she asked.

And as I’d already made plans for us in that bed, I gave her lips a lingering press back, then whispered my, “Yes.”

Together, we cleared the coffee table of our trays, got the leftover food put away, and loaded the dishwasher. With our fingers linked, I led her to the bedroom, ushering her over to the bed to undress while I retrieved the items I’d already set aside for tonight in the cupboard under the sink basin in the bathroom to keep them hidden. She only ever went in there for her tampons and it wasn’t that time of the month.

Lightly fragranced cinnamon oil poured into a battery-operated warmer. The scent filled the whole room. Our sommelier, Harrison, his woman ran a massage parlor—the legal, therapeutic kind. She’d given me a few pointers for an at-home, romantic massage. Clearly not what people paid for in her shop, but as she’d gone to school and gotten licensed, and Harrison always had a smile on his face these days, I trusted her abilities.

Lee watched me walk back to her holding the oil warmer in my hand, narrowing her eyes as if to ask, “What’s that?”

“You’ll see,” I answered her nonverbal question. “Bra off. Roll over onto your stomach.”

“Why?”

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