Page 14 of Poppy Kisses (Return to Coal Haven #3)

A lot would’ve bothered me when it came to him back then.

He was a lot more now. Bigger. Stronger.

Kinder. He’d never been mean unless he was comparing me to Hassie.

No, a little stain wasn’t what would get me worked up about Jensen.

“Well, I don’t have a feature in a magazine, but I can figure out something for dinner if you have to work. I don’t have any sessions today.”

“Auggie asked for spaghetti. It’s his favorite meal, so he wanted something special for you. If you cook, he’s going to be upset with me. You get the night off.”

“Aw, he’s a sweet kid.” I tapped my chin. “Who does he get that from?”

Jensen’s smooth grin sent all sorts of tingles down my spine. He had to go past me to leave the room, and he stepped closer to me to miss a stack of books.

My breath caught as he leaned in. He put his mouth by my ear. “The real question is, how sweet can I be?”

* * *

Jensen

Poppy stopped beside me at the sink, her sunshine-and-peaches smell wrapping around me, tightening my gut. Fuck, she was like my very own summer day. Her presence brought me back to a day spent outside, doing nothing but having fun, tossing a ball around, playing in the pool.

“I insist on helping with the dishes.” She opened the drawer with the ladle and spatulas, closed it, then pulled open another drawer full of knives. “Where are your dish towels?”

“Right here.” Auggie tugged one out for her on my other side.

“You’re not doing dishes your first night in the house,” I insisted.

“I’m not sitting and watching you,” she said and accepted the dish towel from Auggie.

“You haven’t changed at how well you listen.”

She snickered. “And you haven’t installed a dishwasher, cabinet man?”

I ticked up a brow at her moniker. “I had to make a decision about destroying the old cupboards and messing with old plumbing. Decided the two of us don’t make a lot of dishes.”

She took a step and studied the cabinets. “Seriously? These are the originals?”

She sounded impressed, and goddamn, that made me glow inside.

I washed and rinsed a plate, setting it in the drying rack.

Auggie had taken advantage of Poppy’s offer and vanished.

“I painted them. I might regret it later, but the cabinet style is just dated. An eighty-year-old house is going to show its age no matter what. I wanted to preserve some of that and did it by using the shape but making the color bright.” I looked around at the pearl of the cabinets, the opalescent tile backsplash, and the pale-blue walls. “Farmhouse chic.”

“I like it. It’s bright.” She dried another plate and guessed the correct cupboard to put it in.

A lump formed in my throat. She was learning my home, making it hers. Temporarily.

But I liked it. I hadn’t had this with Hassie. Auggie got his energy from her, ping-ponging from task to task, barely sitting idle. I’d been alone while I’d been married. I wasn’t alone now.

She leaned against the counter and twirled the towel while waiting. “I’ll test out the office tomorrow. I have a few sessions.”

“Recruiting your own clients yet?”

She didn’t look at me. “Not yet. I’d like to be able to get into the house first.”

Made sense, but also, wouldn’t she want to be recruiting her own client base? It wasn’t my business to run, but if she wasn’t successful, she might decide to move. My roots were here. Hers could be anywhere. “What are you calling your center?”

“Um…”

I stopped with my hands still in the water, halfway through washing the pasta pot. “You don’t have a name yet?”

“I had to find a place to live and work first.”

No office. No name. Had something happened to make her jump in with half a plan? “Was this a sudden decision?”

She scowled at me. “No.”

I bumped her shoulder, my hands still buried in suds. “The four-ten I used to know liked to have a plan. She planned the shit out of a science project.”

“I’d like you to know that I got second place in the science fair in sixth grade.”

“After the girl who tested different flavors for medicine?”

“When it’s something that’s already out there and tested?” Outrage filled her face. Just the reaction I was going for. I chuckled, and she shot me a glare. “I’m still mad.”

“You don’t say?” Her anger had been epic the next school day. She’d ranted so long that the playground monitor had to threaten her with detention if she didn’t quit holding audience and go inside. “So? Your decision wasn’t sudden. Was your move?”

I wanted to know more, and I’d keep scrubbing the already clean pot to make it happen.

“No, I planned it.” She shifted her weight on her feet. She was still wearing shoes. What would it be like to see her in her pajamas? Or would she treat her room like a hotel? She’d leave fully dressed, and I’d never see her less than presentable?

Did she wear a nightshirt? Would it be long, to her knees? Or short enough that her ass cheeks hung out? Heat curled through my blood and headed south.

I rinsed the pan. “Then why do you make it sound like you packed up and moved on a whim?”

She didn’t look at me when she shrugged. “Kinda felt like I did when I didn’t have a secure income before leaving my job and breaking my lease.”

“Why didn’t you open officially if you can remote work?”

“Are you going to compare notes with my dad?” Her tone had an edge that went beyond joking. This was a sensitive subject.

I finished a saucepan and rinsed it. Then I took the towel from a startled Poppy and dried it, keeping my attention on her. “I’m not criticizing you, Poppy. I just feel like we should get to know each other if we’re going to be living and working together.”

She considered me with wary eyes. Her sharp mind was working. “I want to make sure I get it right,” she finally said. “I’ve heard all of Debbie’s horror stories. Did you know that Debbie had to move almost as soon as she opened?”

I hadn’t seen the place she worked out of now. “Doesn’t she work from home too?”

Poppy nodded. “So do all of her full-time tutors. It can be hard to get people to trust a company based out of a house, to pay all that money to a tutor they’ve never met.

Most people don’t have experience with Orton-Gillingham-based teachings like Barton uses, so they don’t know how to verify the center isn’t scamming them.

It can take time to see improvement in their child at school. ”

“Why’d she quit renting the space?” I preferred having my own shop.

I had assumed Debbie functioned as she did because it worked best for her.

Mostly I wanted Poppy to keep talking. She had moments where she was open and I got to see that fearless girl I knew.

Then other times, she closed up. A riddle I wasn’t supposed to solve.

“A law office was on the lower floor of the office she’d set up,” Poppy continued and I soaked up her lilting voice.

“An accounting firm was next to them and then some sort of certification office was on the other side. No one who was used to kids who maybe can’t monitor their volume and want to do wind sprints down the hallway. ”

I would’ve been one of those kids. Auggie too. “They complained.”

“Debbie furnished an office with a waiting room and two tutoring rooms only to be told to leave when her six-month lease was up. You know how much that set her back?”

A lot. And now Poppy was driven to have her own place. She was also scared of failing. The girl who used to take on any challenge must’ve had a few hard knocks on the way.

“Well, dishes are done.” She brushed her hands down her leggings. Could I write the makers of athleisure wear a thank-you card? The way the material clung to her legs and I could witness the flex of her quads was a vision I’d never forget. Then she turned, and I nearly groaned.

Her ass. My palms tingled to touch it, to run my hands over those globes and feel how tight her glutes were. The room grew uncomfortably hot, and I was so busy getting myself under control that I almost missed what she was saying.

“…for the night. Let you be and have your house to yourself.” She threw a parting wave as she headed for her room.

Having this place for just me and my son had never been the plan. “What do you normally do?” I stopped myself from speeding after her. I was casual. Nonchalant. Not at all hoping she wouldn’t squirrel herself away for the entire evening.

“Hey!” Auggie charged in from upstairs. “Can I play outside?”

He knew he could go out whenever he wanted. We’d talked about the rules, and I would often go out with him. As an only child, he could get bored and ten-year-olds with nothing to do usually found trouble.

“I’ll go out with you.” Then I wouldn’t pant after Poppy like the lonely fucker I was.

If only I could blame loneliness. The blood gathering in my dick and my inability to take my eyes off her round ass and her high tits might be an influence.

“Mind if I go out to play with you?” she asked timidly, like she was afraid we’d tell her it was boys’ night.

I’d never exclude her. Every night could be a Poppy night.

I found Poppy Duke sexy as hell.

Shit.

This was a problem. She trusted me. I had to be a good roommate and keep my lusting to myself.

But it’d been a while since I’d taken notice of a woman.

Sure, my body had been telling me that it’d been more than a minute since I’d been with anyone, but there was no one particular person I fantasized about.

That had changed with Poppy under my roof.