Yes, he replied casually. I’d known him, essentially, a day!
“You crawled in bed with me when I was asleep.”
“Yep,” he said again and we hit the stairs, he let me go but put his hands firm to my waist and propelled me down.
“Max!” I snapped.
“Coffee,” he said yet again.
His hand was now between my shoulder blades and he wasn’t stopping. I was forced to descend the staircase with him behind me or be shoved down them by Max.
Seriously, he was so annoying!
“I’d like to put on some clothes,” I snapped.
“You’ve got on some clothes.”
“I have on a nightgown.”
“That’s clothes.”
“It’s a nightgown,” I said, hitting the foot of the stairs and whirling on him.
He grabbed my hand and headed toward the kitchen. I pulled back but he was stronger than me and he was apparently on a coffee mission.
He yanked me into the kitchen close to the coffeepot which was filling, turned and tugged at my arm so I was close. His hand dropped mine but his arm went around my waist, pulling my lower body into close proximity with his.
I looked up at him, opened my mouth ready to let him have it but he got there first.
“Oatmeal with one sugar or satisfy your hankerin’ for some toast with grape jelly?”
I pulled in so much breath I felt my chest expand with it, filling me up, warm and sweet.
Men didn’t remember things like you saying you missed grape jelly. Not if you just muttered it in passing. Charlie would remember that but he wasn’t just any man. He was Charlie. There’d never been anyone like him.
Niles didn’t remember things like that. In fact, the incident that drove me to deciding to take this Colorado adventure timeout was when I had trouble sleeping one night, dragged myself exhausted to his kitchen the next morning and Niles, in an unusual mood, offered to pour me a cup of coffee. When I’d gratefully accepted, Niles asked me how I took it.
Since I’d known Niles for two years, had woken up in his house so often there was no way to count, been to breakfast with him, dinner, to his parents house for lunch and dinner and he didn’t know how I took my coffee, didn’t pay even that amount of attention to me, it hit me I needed to think about our situation and I needed to do it fast.
“Duchess?” Max called and I blinked at him, fighting back that warmth in my chest.
“Toast and jelly,” I whispered.
“Gotcha,” he said, letting me go but his hand came up, his fingers gliding along my jaw in a touch that was there then gone physically. But the feeling of it remained, it tingled and it tingled in a nice way.
He turned to the counter and slid the toaster from the wall along the counter. Then he opened a cupboard and took down the bread.
“Thought I’d show you the bluff this morning,” he said and I stood there, watching him put slices of bread in the toaster, my mind blank.
Well, my mind was blank except for the fact that he was wearing flannel pajama bottoms, drawstring, a checked pattern in navy blue and charcoal gray on a lighter gray background. With these he was also wearing a gray t-shirt, it fit snug across his chest and tight around his bulging biceps.
I didn’t think much of men’s pajamas, ever. Only Max could make pajamas, even every day, normal pajama bottoms and a t-shirt like the ones he was wearing, look so darned good.
Then my mind moved to my nightgown, which was another purchase I’d made for the trip. Cotton, pale pink, spaghetti straps, the bodice fit close to my br**sts, the back cut low, under my shoulder blades. The rest was empire waist, an A-line down to my upper thighs. The hem and the bodice were edged in a teeny-tiny line of cream lace.
Then my mind moved to wondering what Max thought of my nightgown and me in it.
Then I noticed he wasn’t paying a lot of attention, he was getting out the butter and jelly. This was disappointing since it came to me that I wanted him to like me in my new, cute, little, Colorado adventure nightgown. I didn’t normally wear nightgowns. I usually wore mostly what he was wearing except in girl style.