Page 58 of Honey Bee Library
Then I shut off my bathroom light and headed out into the kitchen.
I was midway through mixing up the batter for waffles when I heard a soft voice behind me. I startled and turned to see Willow standing there with her hands clasped in front of her. She was wearing a pair of floral satin pajamas, and her hair was pulled up into a messy bun.
My heart instantly took off running in my chest. Every part of me was responding to the sight of that woman, and it was taking all of my strength not to walk over there and kiss her again.
I settled on giving her one of my signature grins. “Morning,” I said with a wink.
Willow’s eyebrows went up, but I could tell that she was fighting a smile. “Morning.”
I glanced behind her. “Jasper up?” I asked as I moved to flip open the waffle maker that had been warming on the counter.
Willow glanced behind her and then back at me. “He’s still asleep.” She brought her wrist up to cover a yawn. “I don’t know what you did with him yesterday, but he is dead to the world.”
I finished mixing the batter and set the whisk in the sink. With the bowl in hand, I glanced over at her. “You could have kept sleeping. I’ve got breakfast handled.” I set the bowl down on the counter and grabbed the non-stick spray to coat the waffle maker.
“I was already up. Besides, I want to earn my keep while we’re here.”
I paused as her words settled around me.Earn my keep. What did that mean? I was pretty sure that wasn’t how friends talked. I was even more sure it wasn’t something people said after sharing a kiss that was burned onto the soul of at least one of them. That was what acquaintances said to each other. Were we back to being acquaintances?
Was that what Willow wanted? It was sure as hell not what I wanted. I’d come too far to end up right back where I’d been when I walked into the diner that first night. And I wasn’t going to let Willow retreat back there either. I’d been on the receiving end of that kiss. If I made her feel half of what I felt while kissing her, there was no way she could stand in front of me and treat me like an acquaintance. I wasn’t going to let her.
She was stubborn, but I was bullheaded. There was no way in hell I was going to let her walk away.
I closed the lid of the waffle maker and turned to face Willow. Her right hand was grasping her left elbow as she stood on the outskirts of the kitchen. I was learning to speak Willow, and this was exactly the same way she started acting that morning when she thought Maddie was my girlfriend.
She was pulling away, and I wasn’t going to let her.
So I walked toward her. At first, she didn’t notice, but I wasn’t hiding it, and soon, her wide eyes met mine as she started backing up.
“Cole?” she asked, holding up both hands, but she only had one more step before she was going to run into the counter behind her. And then she wouldn’t have anywhere else to go.
I didn’t stop walking toward her. I could see her determination to stay away wavering as she stared up at me. It was cute, the way she jutted out her chin and met my gaze head-on as if she were daring me to make a move.
Oh, if she only knew.
“What are you doing?” The dip in her voice betrayed her. I took that as a win. Willow could pretend that she didn’t want me, but her body told the truth. Willow wanted me just like I wanted her.
“Kissing you,” I said as I cupped her face with my hands.
Her eyes widened but she didn’t pull back. I took this moment to admire how beautiful she was. Her bright green eyes, though startled, were framed by her long, dark lashes. There was a splash of freckles across her nose that was turned up ever so slightly at the tip. And her lips…those goddamn lips. They haunted me like a nightmare I never wanted to wake up from.
I lifted my thumb and gently stroked her bottom lip. It curved down in the perfect pout. Her gaze turned hazy as she tipped her head ever so slightly to the side as if begging me to keep touching her. That was all I needed.
She was mine.
I crushed my lips to hers with more passion and desire than I had last night. This time I needed her to feel—to know—that I wasn’t going anywhere. She and Jasper were rapidly becoming my home. The only place I wanted to come back to every night. I needed her to know that my heart pounded for her.
I knew my words would fall of deaf ears, a woman of divorce tended to only trust actions, and that was what I was doing, showing her how I felt.
When her arms wrapped around my neck to draw me closer to her, I knew that the wall she’d managed to throw up last night had come crumbling down. I grasped her waist and lifted her up onto the counter. Her legs wrapped around me, pinning my body to hers as our lips and tongues twirled and danced around each other.
My hands slid down from her waist to her hips and settled on the hem of her shorts. I wanted to feel her skin against mine again. It was warm and soft, and…damn, it did things to me.
She moaned against my lips and it sent my soul singing. Willow could pretend, but I knew she wanted me. She wasn’t that good of a liar.
“Mommy?”
One word. One voice. One kid was the only thing that could stop this kiss. That one kid had me sprinting across the kitchen to put distance between Willow and me as he rounded the corner with half his hair sticking up and rubbing his eyes.
