“I knew I’d be leaving soon, so I’ve been trying to finish off my supplies.”
“Oh . . .” His voice was so low and flat that she scarcely heard him. When the only noises coming from the kitchen were the banging of pans and the rush of water, she started through her playlist. Soon the delicious smell of bacon had her belly rumbling. She didn’t need to practice, she decided. She knew every note already. What she needed was to spend every second left of this weekend with that wonderful man in her kitchen.
She headed for the coffee pot and found coffee already brewing. She could definitely get used to this. She sent a grateful smile in Kellen’s direction, but he was so singularly focused on not burning the bacon and avoiding grease popping on his bare belly that he didn’t see. She poured herself a cup of coffee and sat at the breakfast bar to watch him. He didn’t glance up at her once, and she wasn’t sure if he was really focused on cooking or if something was bothering him.
“What are we going to do with our last day together?” she asked.
He went entirely still, a piece of bacon dangling from the tongs in his hand, and lifted his gaze to hers. “Last day?”
“Not our last day ever. I meant of our weekend.”
“This is going to be hard, isn’t it?” He dropped the bacon into the sizzling pan and clamped on to a different slice. “Finding time to be together.”
“Yeah,” she admitted, taking a tentative sip of scalding coffee. “But being together will be worth a little effort. We just have to make the most of the time we do have.”
Kellen began removing the bacon from the pan, laying the strips side by side on a paper towel.
“I thought we could explore the island a bit when we go out to buy steaks for dinner, but maybe we should spend the entire day in bed. We can open the doors to the upstairs deck and let the sound of the waves drive our rhythm. Let the ocean breezes caress our skin. Let the brine in the air enrich your taste, your scent.”
Dawn sighed aloud and rested her chin in her hand. The man was a romantic through and through, and she loved his plan. But she didn’t want their relationship to be built only on great sex. She wanted this to last and knew they’d have to have a deeper-than-physical connection to get them through the lengthy separations they faced.
“Can we do a little of both?” she asked. “Well, more bed time than island time, but we do need to pick up something for dinner. Man cannot live on pussy alone.”
He laughed and used one hand to crack eggs into the hot bacon grease. “I’m not so sure about that.”
“Well, I sure can’t.” Her heart thundered as she considered confessing something that no one but the party involved knew about her. And then her big blurty mouth opened up and said, “I tried it once, you know? Eating pussy.”
Kellen dropped his spatula. “I guess I shouldn’t be surprised after you let that hidden kinky vixen out the other night when you tied me up. So who was it?”
Her face was flaming, but she didn’t waver. “You’ve met her.”
“Chantel?”
Dawn nodded and waited for his reaction.
“Did you enjoy it?”
“The during? Very much. The after was incredibly awkward. We tried it only that once.”
“And did your other roommate—Jimmy—did he get to watch?” His quirked eyebrow was a tad infuriating.
“Of course not! It was a private . . . experiment.”
Her face was now hotter than the coffee in her cup. Why had she brought that incident up? She and Chantel had sworn to never speak of it, and here she was blabbing her dirty little secrets to Kellen while he cooked her breakfast.
“For future reference, if you ever want to eat pussy, I’m fine with it, but only if I get to watch.” He shut off the burner and scooped eggs onto their plates.
“You can’t be serious,” she blurted.
He held her gaze when he said, “You should know me well enough by now to realize how seriously I take eating pussy.”
“I know you excel at doing it, I just didn’t realize . . .” She couldn’t bring herself to finish that thought.
“I like watching almost as much as I like delivering.”
And boy did the man deliver.
She released a nervous chuckle. “Well, the next time I go down on a woman, I’ll be sure to call you as a witness.” Not!
“That’s all I ask.” His tone was so serious that she couldn’t tell if he was joking. Surely he was joking!
He set her plate in front of her, which finally let her off the hook. She was kicking herself for bringing that up, but then . . .
“Have you ever performed oral on a guy?” She bit her lip, cursing her blurty mouth for giving that question wind.
He slid onto the stool beside her. “No,” he said. “Hand jobs are as far as I’ve ever gone with Owen.”
Owen. Right. She’d been thinking with any other guy ever, but of course Kellen would equate her question with Owen. “And is Owen the only one you’ve . . .”
“Jerked off?” He munched his bacon as if they were discussing the weather. “Yep. I don’t find men attractive.”
“Just Owen.”
“Do you really want to talk about this right now?” he asked.
No. “Yes,” she said.
“I’m not attracted to Owen. He’s just been there when I needed someone to touch me. Someone who could make me come but wouldn’t have me breaking my oaths to Sara. Because I never promised her that I wouldn’t let another guy choke my chicken. Pretty fucked up, huh?”
She wasn’t sure if she should laugh or cry. “Are you still fixating on breaking promises to her when you’re with me?”
“Not unless you bring it up.”
She cringed and turned her attention to her plate. She would not be bringing up Sara or Owen again, even if that meant she had to duct tape her blurty lips together.
“This looks and smells phenomenal,” she said, wanting very much to change the subject, knowing damned well she’d been the one to divert their conversation down the path it had taken.
“And tastes even better,” he said, munching another piece of bacon.
His smile was reassuring. The gentle hand he rested on her back doubly so. She felt like she could tell him anything. She’d never experienced that kind of openness with anyone before. This man could be her best friend and confidant, her lover, her muse. This man could be her everything. She reached for the orange and cranberry juice he’d mixed for her without even asking and took a huge gulp. The boundless ocean that was Kellen Jamison had swept her up into its current, and she was drowning in him. Blissfully drowning. And she wasn’t even going to try to fight it.
After breakfast Kellen helped her slather on some SPF2000—she loved the sun, but her ultra-fair skin did not—and then drove them from the more desolate end of the island where they were staying toward the small city of Galveston. Their beachy retreat was surrounded by residential homes and vacation rentals, but there wasn’t a real grocery store for miles.