to you too!”
“You arranged all my furniture and unpacked stuff.”
“Oh. Yeah.”
I give her a fast, hard kiss on the lips. “Thank you. I didn’t expect you to do that.”
“I did it while pouting about your ex-girlfriend.”
“How did you find out about her, anyway?”
“Lilly thought I was her when we met in the elevator. She said she’d heard we broke up when you left Dallas.” Without looking at me, she adds, “She probably couldn’t believe you had a new girlfriend already.”
I pause. “I kind of can’t believe it either.” Yeah, I’m calling her my girlfriend. “I didn’t plan this.”
And that’s what scares me about it. I like to know what’s going to happen. And much as I have fun with Sara, she’s the last person I should be with if I want to be able to control and plan my life. Come to think of it, things didn’t work out that way with Cora, either…I thought things with her were simple and short-term; she apparently thought otherwise. Maybe I should be avoiding women altogether.
Then Sara smiles at me…affectionate, warm, gorgeous. “You can’t plan everything in your life.”
How the hell am I supposed to resist that? “But I want to.” I huff out a laugh.
“I know.” She sets on the coffee table the bag she’s carrying. She straightens and faces me. “Am I your girlfriend?”
I blink. I swallow. “I…hope so.”
She smiles. It’s sweet and hot and fucking irresistible. “Okay.” She pauses. “Um…I know you like to plan things…and I don’t.”
“Yeah.”
“We’re different.”
I nod uncertainly.
“That could mean things wouldn’t work for us. But…maybe we could try to…accept our differences and be honest if we’re not comfortable and try to compromise sometimes?”
My chest tightens. “Yeah.” I hold her gaze. “That sounds good.”
“Okay.” She beams back at me and I have to smile too.
“I’m sorry you heard about Cora like that.”
She looks away from me for a couple of heartbeats. “Cora,” she murmurs. Then she turns to me. “It’s okay. We haven’t known each other that long, really.”
It doesn’t feel like that, though.
She reaches into the bag and pulls out…a plant. She sets it on the table. “There.”
“A plant? You bought me a plant?”
“Two.” She retrieves another one. “I hope they didn’t freeze on the way over.” She looks around, then moves to deposit that plant on an end table near the big windows. “I thought your apartment lacked something green and alive.”
“They probably won’t be alive for long.” I grimace. “But thank you.” The gesture loosens a small knot in my chest.
“They don’t need much care, I’m told.”
I gather her up into my arms and kiss her again, this time longer…sweeter. “Thank you.” I draw back. “You even made up my bed, so we can get right to it.”
She grins. “That was, in fact, my motivation.”
I smile against her lips. Much as I love fucking her, I don’t want to toss her onto the bed the minute she walks in.
“I didn’t unpack everything,” she says. “The extra bedroom has stuff I didn’t know what to do with.”
“Come on. Let’s go deal with it.” I take her coat, hat, and scarf and hang them up, and we make our way into the spare bedroom. “How are you feeling today?”
“Great!” She wrinkles her nose. “Well. Maybe a tiny headache. An Advil took care of that. How about you?”
“I’m totally fine. So you can’t keep up with me.”
“I totally can! I did!”
I grin. “Okay, I concede. You did. I’m impressed. Or scared. Not sure which.”
We unpack more stuff as we talk about last night and make jokes. Then we walk to the nearby Superette to pick up some basic provisions and she helps me put them away. She stays for dinner, which we order in. The food isn’t the best, sadly.
“I guess I’ll get to know the best restaurants in the area.” I poke at the remainder of the limp fries.
“You could ask Easton and Lilly.”
Ugh. “Yeah. I could.”
And then we christen my new bedroom.
I can’t believe I waited this long to drag her into here. Okay, I don’t literally drag her, because she’s just as hot for it as I am. I love that about her.
We grab at each other’s clothes, tossing them aside, stumbling out of jeans and socks. Sara reaches for my package and fondles me through my boxers. “Mmm. You’re so hard.”
“My skate blade’s not the only thing made of steel, baby.”
She starts giggling and nearly falls down. I hold her up, trying not to laugh myself. We tumble onto the