Page 44

“So chivalrous.”
“That isn’t exactly what I have in mind.”
He watches me eat for a moment, his gaze never leaving my lips. “You make eating look so wrong.”
“I think you just have a dirty mind.”
“I have an affliction,” he admits. “I like to imagine you and I together at all times, doing unholy things to the other.”
“Unholy?”
He bites down on his lip. “It’s the only way I can describe what I’m thinking about right now.”
I throw a spare napkin at him while I try to tame the nerves coursing through me. “Control yourself.”
He grins, and we finish eating our doughnuts without talking. It’s a comfortable silence, though. The kind where I let my mind wander and don’t get embarrassed by where it takes me.
I wash the doughnut down with a few mouthfuls of the caramel coffee. The two pair perfectly together. “So, out of curiosity, what is your room number?”
“Oh, don’t do this to me.” He grins. “You can’t tease me like you’re going to come over one day and then just not show up.”
I shrug. “You never know.”
“I’m in 323, and I’ll welcome your company whenever you want to bestow it upon me. In the middle of the night. In the middle of the day. In whatever state of dress you show up in…”
“There’s an option?”
“Clothes are fully optional in Casa Farmer.”
“How do you always know the right thing to say?”
His gaze smolders. “They’re not the right things. It’s just the truth, Sunshine, which is easy to say when you’re beingyourself.” He holds his coffee cup between his hands. “I’ve been dying to know if you’ve thought about us since Friday night.”
His question is loaded, and by the way his eyes twinkle, I’m sure he doesn’t mean any variation of us other than when we were together. “I’ve been really busy…” I tease, and though that’s one hundred percent true, I had time for my mind to wander, to dream, and I’d be lying if I said Cade wasn’t involved in any of those moments.
“But…” he leads.
“But if I’m being honest with myself, then yes. I did.”
“Did you think that maybe you’d like to do something like that again?”
“It crossed my mind.”
He takes a deep breath. “Good. But let’s change the subject before I’m too uncomfortable to walk out of here.”
A picture of Cade stroking himself for me makes my mind blitz out and heat scorch my insides.
I make myself look away, mentally fanning my face. I don’t know who I am anymore. Off to my left, a couple maneuvers to a table of their own, laughing and talking, and it hits me. That’s probably what outsiders see when they look at me and Cade. The picture he took on his phone was evidence of that.
I’m…alive with him. And I like it.
13
Cade
Gunshots from the video game ring out as Lex laughs in my ears. “Gotcha.”
“Asshole,” I grumble.