Page 14 of Just For Me
Instead, those words came not from my lips, but from my hero’s. And they were not whispered softly into her ears, but my heroine’s. My only consolation is I know she’s reading them. Even now, I watch, fascinated, emotions flitting over her face as she holds one of my books in her hands, engrossed in the world I created with her in mind.
I can only hope that she reads this, and feels the same way.
To Bella, with love.
Nick.
I looked up at him. He looked almost as anxious as I felt. “Is this true?” I whispered.
“Every word of it.”
“Not every word,” I countered. He opened his mouth to respond, but I continued. “I did notice you.”
“You did?”
“Yes.” I looked down at the book again. Since he was being so candid, perhaps it was time for a confession of my own. “This is going to sound crazy, but whenever I read one of your books, I felt as though you had written it just for me.”
He grinned, but I wasn’t done. “And... whenever I pictured the hero, he looked just like you. I mean, not you, Nick Penn... but you, sexy laptop guy.” I felt the heat rush into my face at my bumbling admission. Why was I still talking?
“Sexy laptop guy?”
“That’s how I thought of you,” I mumbled.
“Works for me. So...does that mean you’ll have dinner with me?”
I chanced a look at him, unsure of what I’d see. His eyes were twinkling, and his lips were curved in a sexy, close-lipped, half-smile that caused fluttering sensations between my thighs and behind my ribs. I cleared my throat and decided to throw caution to the wind. “Yes, I’d like that.”
“Great! I’ll be right back.”
He sprung up from the sofa and ran toward the door. “What? Where are you going?” But he was already gone.
I’d barely had a chance to process his abrupt departure when my buzzer started buzzing again.
I opened the door to find him looking at me over a huge cardboard box from which absolutely mouth-watering scents were emanating.
“Sorry,” he said apologetically. “I didn’t realize the door would lock behind me like that. Good safety feature, though.”
“No problem.”
I watched in awe as he carried the box into the kitchen and began unpacking the contents. A white linen tablecloth was soon draping my breakfast counter (I didn’t have a dining table), topped with candles, plates, silverware, and a dizzying assortment of covered takeout containers.
“Pretty sure of yourself, huh?” I quipped when I realized how much prep time he’d put into it before showing up at my door.
“Hopeful,” he corrected with a smile. “I figured you might not feel up to going out tonight, so we’ll save that for another time.”
I have to admit, his confidence that there would be another time was damned sexy. “What did you do, buy one of everything from the menu?”
“Well, I wasn’t sure what you’d like, and my mother suggested a variety.”
“Yourmother?”
“She and my father own a restaurant on the other side of town. She let me play around in the kitchen this morning.”
Sexy hot, wrote kick-butt romance,andhe could cook? The Perfect Man wasn’t a fantasy, he was standing right in front of me. I was a goner. It took a moment or two for my hormones to settle down enough for my brain to fully process the rest of what he’d said. His parents owned a restaurant on the other side of town, and his last name was Cerasino... “Mama C’s,” I murmured.
“Ah, you’ve heard of it.”
Who hadn’t? It was supposed to be the best Italian food in the city, maybe even beyond. I shook my head. “Is there anything about you that isnotgoing to impress me?”
