Her smile lit up the room as she went to the top of the refrigerator to grab her lighter. The incense smoke curled up around her face as her face soured. “Today, I woke up with the need to finish that file.”
Ah, that was the true culprit of her bad mood. Morina hated that file like a sculptor might hate being given paint instead of marble. She was the type of person who thrived in action, not in reading about it.
“I’ll do it with you.” I shrugged and took a sip of my coffee.
First, a grin spread across her face, then it dropped like a ton of bricks. “You should work.”
“Should I?” I grabbed the plates of food I’d made while she was sleeping. “Here are some crepes and strawberries.”
“Strawberries and what?”
“Crepes.” I nodded to the thin, folded over pancake.
“Okay.” She dragged the word out like she always did when she was unsure. Still, she went to fill two glasses with water and set them beside each other on the island counter. Then, she turned to me and winced. “Are you eating with me? Sorry, I assumed because it felt like you–”
“I’m eating meals with you as much as possible from now on.”
Combing a hand through her long dark hair, she sighed before grabbing us silverware and laying the table. “You honestly don’t have to. I know I was a little crazy a few days ago, but I am okay.”
“Well, it’s good for us to get to know one another. We can go over the rest of our arrangement timeline.” I went to sit on the stool beside her. “We need this all laid out. That’s why we’re going to go over the rest of this file together. No issues, okay?”
She cut into the crepe and shrugged as she put a piece in her mouth before continuing the conversation.
Except the conversation came to a screeching halt when the woman moaned over my food.
“Oh my Lord, what is in this?” Her eyes rolled back like she was in ecstasy.
It was just a thin pancake with a little vanilla extract, powdered sugar, and maybe a few hidden ingredients. Mom had taught Cade and me well over the years.
And a little piece of me was pleased that she followed her emotions head-on in this exact moment, because the woman made the best sounds of pleasure.
My dick immediately recognized them.
Jesus, the way her skin glowed when she was happy, a hint of color on her cheeks like she responded to satisfaction of any sort. I honestly believed she did with each of our encounters.
Morina was free-spirited and I think she had been with sex before me. She’d indulged probably like I did. I just had more years of experience.
It made her even more appealing, the fact that she knew what her body wanted and yet hadn’t even begun to understand what I could do to her.
Jesus fuck.
I wasn’t doing anything more to her.
I was marrying her and doing this hand off legally. That was all.
I cleared my throat and shifted in my chair, trying to calm my damn dick down. “It’s just a thin pancake, Morina. I can get you the recipe if you want.”
She nodded, staring at her plate with pure adoration. “Yep. I’ll take it. Normally, I’d say no. I don’t cook that much. Just shakes, you know? But this…this, I will take. I will master it somehow because it’s so good. So, so, so good.”
My dick wasn’t calming down to save my life.
I shoveled my food down and didn’t say another damn thing. I let her eat while I went to find the godforsaken file.
I plopped down on the couch and said over my shoulder. “Let’s summarize where possible. I’ll give you the highlights and then you can forget about this damn thing hanging over your head.”
“It’s a very large thing.” She held up her fork like she needed to point it out. “I still don’t understand what I should and shouldn’t be doing.”
“Do you want to make a plan for the rest of the six months?”
Her nose wrinkled like the word plan made her physically ill.
I chuckled. “It’s not that complicated or binding, Morina. Don’t look that appalled.”
“I just… plans make me crazy. They always veer off track or someone lets somebody else down.”
“Did someone let you down?”
“No.” She answered way too fast. “Just tell me, how are we going to pull this off? I’ll do whatever. I just need to know.”
She was flowing down whatever river I wanted her to. Honestly, the girl was a little too trusting and free-spirited. Until it came to certain things. God forbid I try to take her salt lamp or grandmother’s plants out of the damn house.
The plants were coming back to life after our talk though. Or maybe after I’d taken to watering them instead of letting her do it. I was quite pleased with how much better the orchid was looking after some of my research. I told myself she needed them alive for her grandmother and to feel comfortable here but her smile when she was them was reason enough for me.
“We will attend the gala for a charity the company does every year. It will be a great place to announce our engagement. We’ll make sure to get married quickly, live here, get through the legal probate of the will. You can attend board meetings and work at the food truck once we’re married.”
“I can go back to the food truck?” She stopped eating for that.
“Yes. We found the guys who ransacked it.” Cade had tracked the underground gang down. “They won’t be a problem again.”
Her blue eyes widened. “Please tell me you didn’t…”
I smirked at her hesitating to ask. “Kill them?”
She bit her lip.
“What if I said I did?” I tilted my head and waited. I’d wanted to kill them, I’d admit to that.
“Well, I don’t know.” She dropped her fork and threw up her hands. “It’s concerning, that’s for sure.”
I chuckled. “I didn’t kill them. I did have them beat badly enough that they won’t make the mistake of touching anything that’s mine again though.”
“They touched my food truck, not yours.”
“What’s yours is mine, love.” Thinking of someone harming her now made me want to destroy something, made me want to resort back violence in a way I hadn’t wanted to for a long time.
“Well, I guess all these plans and me going back to the food truck like we’re living normally is great for the cameras.” She sighed but waved away her disdain. “Okay, you said there’s a gala with some of your business associates.” She emphasized the words like she felt they were complete fiction. “The board will also be there. And we’re making a statement. If you’re proposing there, what’s pushing you to do that so fast? I mean, they’ve only seen us living here and visiting the park. Seems sort of quick.”
“What makes a man act quickly then?”
“My grandma always said you were all led around by measuring how big your…” She turned back to her food.
“My ego, Morina?” It was a small tragedy that I didn’t get to see her skin blush because I knew she was thinking about my dick right then. She’d teased me about it on the plane that first night. I remembered the way her mouth had dropped open, how she’d taken it down her throat so well.
I adjusted my trousers. “We can figure out the logistics later. The fact is we need a proposal there. We need to marry within a week after that, and then you’ll attend the first board meeting.”