Page 24 of Slide
Chapter Six
“Would you like to stay for dinner?” Bella asked, walking into the living room. She was sore. She was also well and truly wrung out. She needed a shower and a nap.
She found Travis staring out at the lake, but he turned when she spoke. He smiled and her insides gave a little flip. The man was dangerous to not only her sex drive, but to her heart as well. She needed to tread light and easy, but she wasn’t sure how. Her dream man had given her free reign to crawl all over him anytime she wanted. At least for as long as their arrangement lasted.
That was the kicker. For as long as their arrangement lasted. That was where the careful consideration for her heart should come in, only it hadn’t. And she was in danger of losing it to him.
Travis was as magnetic as she had built him up in her mind to be.
“Are you cooking?”
Relief settled in. She hadn’t realized how much she wanted him to stay, or how disappointed she’d have been if he’d said no. “Well, I was hoping you would.”
“And what would I be cooking?”
“I’m assuming you know how to use a grill?”
“Are you now?” A teasing smirk lifted the right corner of his lips. “Isn’t that a little sexist?”
Bella shrugged. “I don’t think either of us is in any position to be lobbing those kinds of words back and forth.”
He pulled her close for a quick kiss that left her weak in the knees. “You’re probably right, in which case, yes, I know how to use a grill. And yes, I’d love to stay for dinner,” he confirmed with another tempting but too short kiss. “What am I making?”
“Pizza.”
“Huh?” Confusion laced his question and she had to grin.
“Pizza. It’s something I learned about in Nashville several years ago. Grilled flatbread pizza.”
“I’ve grilled a lot of things but I have to say, pizza is not one of them.”
“Are you chicken?”
“Please,” he scoffed. “Do you grill your own?”
“Yep.”
“I see. Well, anything you can do, I can do.”
“Oh?”
“Within reason,” he qualified.
She did her best to bite back a smile. “Nice save.”
Travis nipped at her nose. “I thought so. How long do you need before I start the grill?”
“You can start it now. You only have to grill the flatbread. We’ll top it after.”
“You don’t melt the cheese or anything?”
“You can melt it, but I usually don’t.”
“You’re a strange woman, Arabella Drake.”
“Good strange or bad strange?”
“That all depends, I guess.”
