enough of those animated eyes. He chuckled now, remembering how she’d attempted to cover up the fact that she’d gotten into his cologne. “Mold my ass,” he whispered, shaking his head with a smile as he turned onto his street.
Only it’d excited him too much to know she’d been that curious about trying his cologne. But it’d been too close. Too damn close. If he wasn’t more careful about how much he wanted to taste that mouth now, she was going to catch on and he might ruin everything. Pulling into his driveway, already excited about seeing and spending more time with her again, he started to check his texts because he’d heard the notification when he’d been driving. He did a double take when he glanced up and saw the smoke coming from the open window, and his heart nearly stopped. He jumped out of the car in an instant panic.
Running up the stairs of his porch like a madman, he was reminded this wasn’t the first time that week he’d done so. He rushed in the house, surprised to see Danica doing the same thing he’d caught her doing that morning. Only this time she was in the smoke-filled kitchen with a dish towel. “What’s on fire?” he asked, anxiously looking around.
Danica froze again the way she had that morning. “Nothing is.” She turned to face him with a wince that almost had him smiling. “I was just cooking, and it got a little smoky, so I opened the windows to let some of it out.” Orlando glanced at the blackened sausage and oddly shaped pancakes that were also burnt along the edges on the stove. “I made hotcakes and sausage.” She winced again as she motioned to them. “Probably had the fire on too high.” She shrugged, biting the corner of her lip. “I’ve never been able to make just a small batch of them, so there’s enough for both of us. Are you hungry?”
Clearly, cooking was not her forte, but Orlando didn’t have the heart to pass on her offer. “Yeah, actually, I could go for some pancakes.”
“And sausage,” Danica said, walking toward the stove.
“And sausage,” Orlando repeated as he eyed the charred sausage he’d now be forced to eat as well. “There’s a vent for the smoke.” He turned it on just under the over-the-stove microwave.
“Oh, is that what that is?”
Smiling now, Orlando turned to her. “I take it you don’t spend a lot of time in the kitchen.”
She turned to him, crinkling her nose, and God damn it if even that didn’t have him wanting to take her in his arms and devour that mouth. “My sister does most of the cooking at home. Well . . .” She pulled a plate out of the cupboard. “She does all the cooking. But there are some things I can cook.”
Curious, Orlando smirked as he watched her plate the pancakes and scorched sausages. He wanted to ask what things because it sure as hell wasn’t this, but he nodded instead. “Oh?”
“Yeah.” She turned to him wide-eyed and smiled. “I bake stuff with my brother sometimes.” The smile waned a little as she seemed to ponder something, and her teeth sank into her bottom lip again. “Course even he’s better at it than me, and I usually just assist, but I’ve made cookies on my own before, and they’re not always burnt on the bottom either.”
Orlando chuckled as she walked the plates over to the dining room. “Well, you can’t be good at everything, and we’ve already established you’re awesome with the baby. Speaking of . . .” He glanced in the direction of his bedroom. “Is he down for a nap?”
“Yeah, we were at the park a little longer than usual, and I guess it wore him out.” She walked back into the kitchen and came back holding a carton of orange juice and two glasses. “It’s what threw my cooking off a little. I had to go put him down when he started getting fussy and forgot to lower the flame.” Trying his best not to laugh as he glanced down at his plate, Orlando braced himself. “Oh, almost forgot.” She rushed back into the kitchen as Orlando poured the juice. She came back with the syrup. “Can’t have hotcakes without syrup.”
“Nope, you can’t.” He gulped as he poured the syrup over his pathetic-looking pancakes. She watched him anxiously as he brought the piece he speared with his fork to his mouth. He chewed slowly,