The First Taste (Slip of the Tongue #2) - Jessica Hawkins Page 0,150
gratitude.”
She frowns and turns back to the table. “Thank you for the presents,” she says to the kids around her, half of whom aren’t paying attention. “I love them.” Sheepishly, she returns her eyes to Andrew, imploring him.
“I think there might be one more,” he says. “Yo! Pico.”
Bell puts her hands in her lap, squirming on the bench. “I know what it is,” she says. “I just know it.”
Pico comes through the back gate wheeling a tricked-out pink metallic bike with tassels hanging from the handles and a white, woven basket on the front.
Bell gasps and maneuvers out from the picnic table to run over to Pico. “A bicycle.”
Andrew and I walk over hand in hand. “This is a big-girl bike, Bell,” Andrew says. “It doesn’t have training wheels. We’ll have to teach you how to ride it.”
She bounces up and down, and then latches onto his leg. “Thank you, Daddy. It’s exactly how I wanted.”
“I know. It’s a custom bike.”
Her eyes light up. “Like yours.”
“Exactly.” He laughs. “Thank Randy and Pico too. They helped build it.”
“Thank you,” she says to them, then reaches up to Andrew.
He removes his arm from around my shoulder to pick her up. “You’re getting too big for this,” he says.
“No.” She frowns. “Not yet.”
“No. Not yet,” he agrees. “Give me an Eskimo kiss.”
She brushes her nose against his without the slightest concern that all her classmates are watching. She looks at me. “Do you know how to do it, Mila?”
My chest tightens. I’d given my own dad Eskimo kisses as a little girl. A surge of emotion makes my throat thick, so I just shake my head and pretend I don’t.
“I’ll teach you.” She leans over as Andrew supports her. “Come here.”
I meet her nose with mine. Her big blue eyes are open, trusting, and innocent, and I know in that moment—I’ll do whatever it takes to keep them that way. “Like this?” I ask.
“Yep. Just brush your nose against mine.”
I do as she says, and she giggles. “Your nose is a lot smaller than my dad’s.”
“Hey,” Andrew says, knitting his brows. “My nose is a normal size.”
“Okay, let me down,” she says, suddenly impatient. “I want to sit on the bike.”
Andrew puts her down and Pico holds the bike steady as she climbs on. Andrew throws his arm back around my neck and turns me into him. “You’re amazing.”
“I didn’t do anything.”
“You did everything. And I’ve repaid you with a string of bad dates, ending with my ex physically assaulting you.”
I smile a little. “Yet I’m still here. That says something.”
“It does. I’d go on a hundred bad dates if I knew they’d lead to you.”
I flush at the sincere, if slightly left-field, compliment.
He leans in to kiss me, but I pull back. “You’ve got frosting on your face.”
“So? Lick it off. You haven’t even tasted the cake yet.”
Hesitantly, I lean in and run my tongue along the corner of his mouth. It’s barely anything, but I make sure to get it all.
“How’s it taste?”
“Like you,” I say, “but sweeter.”
“Is there any leftover icing?” he asks.
“I think so. Why?”
“It’s only fair that I get to taste you too, but sweeter.”
I blush when his insinuation occurs to me. “What makes you think I’d let you put sticky, dyed icing on me?”
“You’ll let me, because I’ll promise to clean off every last bite—with my tongue.”
I clench my teeth against the flutter making its way through me. “Are we being inappropriate considering we’re at a child’s birthday party?”
“Life is about to get very hectic for us. Have to squeeze it in where we can, right?” As he says it, he crushes my front even more tightly to his. “Stay the night. We can teach Bell to ride the bike later.”
I bite my bottom lip. How can I say no with his arms wrapped around me, his sweet-frosting mouth on mine, his sugarcoated promises to lick me clean? A month ago, when he wanted to stay with me, I couldn’t do it.
Now, I tell him I will.
I can’t imagine spending tonight without him.
EPILOGUE
Andrew’s head pops up from under the cotton-white, puffy comforter. He makes a show of licking and smacking his lips. “My favorite flavor. Apricot vanilla crème pussy.”
I laugh, sated from my first orgasm of the night, third of the day, fiftieth of the trip. Fifty might be an exaggeration, but our vacation feels as though it’s been one, long marathon fuck—with some watersports and whale watching in between.