Total pages in book: 92
Estimated words: 89238 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 446(@200wpm)___ 357(@250wpm)___ 297(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 89238 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 446(@200wpm)___ 357(@250wpm)___ 297(@300wpm)
“Oh god, it’s better,” I say.
His grin is savage. “Yesss.”
He can barely speak. He just fucks me hard and deep. His grunts are long and feral. He takes me urgently, a man needing his woman. But he has other needs too.
Mine.
Even though I came already, he’s got that determined look in his eyes. The one that says his woman comes first and second.
He maneuvers a hand between us, stroking my swollen clit and driving me wild till I’m begging for him harder and deeper. And he gives me everything I need till I shatter again. He’s right there with me, breaking apart on a loud, passionate grunt.
Then collapsing onto me.
Kissing my collarbone. My jawline. My cheek. Sighing against me, a man content. “Gonna call me Maestro now?”
I laugh. “Maybe I will…Maestro.”
He smiles against my neck. “Mmm. That was the best surprise.”
“I’m glad you liked it,” I say.
“I like everything with you, Elodie,” he says, his voice rough with sex, but then soft, too, when he repeats one word: “Everything.”
I don’t think he’s just talking about the sex. I’m not either when I say, “Me too.”
Fifteen minutes later, we’re good boys and girls, dressed and ready to head to work. On the way out, his phone buzzes. “Grams,” he says, then clicks open a text. After a few seconds, he rolls his eyes. “It’s Sebastian.”
I tense, fear gripping me. “What is it now? Did he tell Felix? Did he smear us on social? Did he say we lied about being fake engaged—”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to freak you out. No, he just started this new campaign. He hired a bunch of pretty women to eat chocolate seductively.”
I grimace. “He is the worst.” But then, he hardly matters. “He can do whatever he wants. My chocolate is five million times better, and he’ll never get my recipes.”
“Damn straight your chocolate is better. Also his views suck,” Gage says.
“Karma,” I say, and karma is this too. “And I’m paying off the loan on Friday.”
“Congratulations.” He picks me up and spins me around. “I always believed in you.”
And the thing is, he did.
When he sets me down, his green eyes sparkle with mischief. “Enjoy work today,” he says, and there’s a secret in his voice.
“What’s that for?”
He shrugs innocently. “What’s what for?”
“That!” I point at his crooked grin.
“You’ll see.”
“Gage!”
He drops a kiss to my forehead on the front step. “You’ll find out at the shop.”
“Are you sending me something again?”
“Maybe,” he says, then heads down the steps, waving goodbye.
But I race down after him. “You sent me flowers yesterday.”
“I know.”
“And you just told me you always believed in me.”
“I know that too.”
He’s doing so many things for me. Words and deeds. They’re both terrifying and thrilling.
“I love them all. And I love these secret dates.”
“Me too.”
But I still don’t know what to do with all these new emotions jostling around inside me. I rise up on my tiptoes and kiss him once more. Then I look up. Sigh. Shake my head. “No snow today.”
“Maybe tomorrow.”
He leaves and when I get to work, a delivery woman heads into the shop a few minutes later. “Are you Elodie?” she barks.
“Yes.”
She hands me a white envelope the size of a card. I rip it open. Then laugh. It’s a print of one of the graffiti roosters from our first date. I open it and read.
Remember our first date? That time we went on a ferry ride and had our first kiss. Meet me at the ferry terminal tomorrow morning for our secret date.
I clasp it to my chest, my heart fluttering.
36
OUR SECRET DATES
Gage
“Let me get this straight. You’re recreating the dates you never went on? The ones you used when you made up the backstory of your fictional romance?” Grams asks as she makes an early morning run to the restaurant supply shop with me.
“Creating them,” I explain as I put bags of chocolate chips into a shopping basket.
She shakes her head, but doesn’t try to hide her amusement.
“What’s so funny?”
“Gage Reginald Archer,” she says, like the grand cat who ate the canary.
“Why are you Gage Reginald Archer-ing me?” I ask as I locate some organic coconut in bulk and scoop some into a bag.
“Because you’re falling in love with your wife,” she declares. And before I can even respond, she cackles, then pumps a fist. “And I knew it. I knew it the night you two were flirting at the bar. I knew it when you went to the back of the bar and she was waiting for you, looking for you, hoping you were going to come back out.”
My lips twitch in a smile I try to fight off. “She was?” This detail makes me unreasonably happy.
“Yes. And I told her to keep coming back…so I’m going to take credit for this union.”
“Because you told her to return to Sticks and Stones? You tell everyone to return,” I say, dumping the final scoop of shredded coconut into the bag. “That’s just good business practice.”