Hangry

by Lily Kate

  We finish together, riding out the last of the waves, easing gently into a blissful calm, and it’s official. My mind has exploded.

  “Sweet Jesus.” Bradley collapses onto the bed and drags me onto his chest. He nuzzles against my neck. “That was insane.”

  “Incredible.”

  “I knew it would be fantastic, but that...”

  I stretch, basking in the comfort of his arms, curled together at last. “I’m not leaving tonight.”

  “Or in the morning.”

  “Oh, shit. The morning. I have to work, and the diner is a disaster—”

  “Took care of it,” Bradley says. Then, with a naughty little nip on my neck, he pulls me tight against him. Somehow, he feels ready again. So soon. I’m still swimming in the aftershocks of the first time.

  “You took care of it?”

  “Rick is opening, and the girls are going to help him clean up,” he murmurs. “You didn’t think I’d let you get up and leave in the morning, did you?”

  I blink. “Um.”

  “Sweetheart, now that you’ve opened the floodgates,” he says, perching on his elbows and trailing kisses across my cheek. “The fun has just begun.”

  Chapter 28

  BRADLEY

  “No. No, please,” I groan, waving my hand frantically over the toaster. “Shit. Stop. Please go away.”

  No amount of praying, bargaining, or cursing, will stop the smoke from rising. Unfortunately, this is not the first time I’ve been in this position. I know that there are exactly fourteen seconds before the fire alarm will sound.

  I am shit at cooking. Horrendously horrible. Still, I decided to try and make Lexi breakfast in bed this morning, and now it’s backfired. Her first memories of waking up in my apartment will be forever charred. Instead of waking up to the delicious scents of breakfast food, she’ll wake up to the screeching of the smoke detector.

  “Lexi,” I yell, determined not to let that happen. “Good morning, beautiful!”

  I hear her stumble out of bed in the next room. Seconds later, she’s rushing into the kitchen and waving her hands. “Are we on fire?”

  I wince as the smoke alarm sounds now. Fourteen seconds, right on time. “I’m so sorry.” I grab the broom and knock it against the alarm a few times. The alarm and I have been around this block before. It’s a relationship that unfortunately just won’t quit, and eventually, it stops screaming at me.

  “What’s going on?” Lexi has my bed sheet wrapped around her body. It’s thin, which means I can see that underneath it she’s naked. I don’t even realize I’m staring until she calls my name for the third time.

  “Sorry,” I mumble. “What?”

  A slow smile creeps over her face. “Distracted?”

  I cock my head to the side and stare some more, just in case I haven’t convinced her already. Yesterday might’ve been the most intense, erotic, and yet incredibly sweet evening of my life. Somehow, I’m more enthralled than ever. More desperate than ever for more.

  “Okay, okay, I get it,” Lexi says. “Stop staring already. When you do that for thirty seconds straight I start to get creeped out.”

  “No creepage. Sorry.”

  “No creepage,” she agrees. “But in all fairness, I think I should get to creep on you. Take off your shirt.”

  “What?”

  “Take off your shirt.”

  I like where this is going. My shirt is gone.

  “Have you gotten even more in shape since your accident? I didn’t think that was possible. Yes, I looked before,” she says. “It wasn’t a secret you were hot.”

  “Hot, huh?”

  “Oh, shut up before you get too full of yourself. What were you doing in here, anyway?”

  I turn and gesture toward the tray behind me. It’s a sad mess of toast crumbs, sugar, a chunk of butter that I’d intended to use for something that I’ve since forgotten, and a bottle of champagne.

  “Breakfast of champions, huh?” she says, leaning behind me and grabbing the champagne. “I assume you have orange juice to go with this?”

  “Oh, right.” I jump to attention because when Lexi reached for the bubbly, the sheet slipped down to reveal a hint of creamy white flesh above her breasts. Just a hint, and that sneak peek had my mind spiraling toward other places. “OJ is in the fridge.”

  Lexi opens the fridge and then, to my shock and wonder, lets the sheet fall all the way to the floor. I’m stunned as she bends, reaches for the orange juice, and then straightens.

  She turns to give me the full view, and I’m almost knocked unconscious by the sight before me. Turns out I was wrong, however—she wasn’t naked under there, just pretty damn close. Scraps of lace cover her essential pieces, and if anything, the light barrier makes me determined to see the rest of her.

  “Who needs breakfast when we have Vitamin C and grapes?” She holds up the champagne bottle and the jug of juice and gives my dumbfounded face a wink. “Now that you’ve startled me awake, why don’t you calm me down in bed?”

  “I’m sorry I startled you,” I apologize profusely and follow her like a zombie. “And I’m sorry I yelled to wake you up.”

  “Why did you yell? I mean, the alarm would’ve woken me just fine without your help.”

  “I didn’t want your first memory waking up here as my girlfriend to be the smoke alarm screaming at you because I burned breakfast.”

  “So, you thought yelling at me would be better?”

  “I wanted to be the one to wake you up.”

  “Bradley Hamilton...” she sets the fixings for mimosas on the bedside table, and I set the two glasses I swiped next to them. “The way your brain works amazes me.”

  “It’s a mess, but it’s all I have.”

  “That might be the sweetest thing anyone’s ever done,” she says, leaning in for a kiss on the lips. Her scent, floral and sweet, pulls me to bed with her, and it’s all I can do not to let my lips continue down her neck, dusting her collarbone, tasting her breasts.

  I stop daydreaming when she straightens and gives me a funny look.

  “What’s wrong?” I look into her bright green eyes, trying to decipher her expression. “Did I say something? I’ll stop ogling you, I swear.”

  “Girlfriend?” She turns the word over in her mouth, just now putting it together. I’d already forgotten I’d called her that. “I suppose that makes you my boyfriend.”

  “I shouldn’t have said that before asking you—I’m sorry if it was too much.”

  “Brad. Relax.” Lexi grasps my shoulders with her hands, her fingers delicate against my skin. “I like it. I’m just getting used to it. Making sure it’s not a daydream.”

  “It feels like a daydream,” I say, watching as she gently slides the athletic shorts down from my waist. I’m left in only my boxers and a very obvious signal of my arousal. “What are you doing?”

  “Making sure you know this isn’t a daydream.” Her hand reaches inside my boxers, and I’m about to tell her to wait, that we have plenty of time for this later. Then her fingers circle my length, and I very nearly die of happiness.

  “Lexi,” I groan. “You don’t have to do this.”

  “I don’t do anything I don’t want to do,” she says with a smile on her face. That same smile of utter bliss she wore after the first taste of the hamburger in the elevator, so long ago. “Admit you like this.”

  “Like it?” My hands find her waist and hold tight. “I never want you to stop.”

  Her mouth finds mine, and her body crushes against me. She lets my hands explore and touch and massage and feel, and I cherish every brush of her skin.

  When she wriggles down the bed, her hands resting against my chest and pushing me back, I’m positive this is the best day of my life. I’ve never been so ready. I’m a steel rod against her hands, her touch, and... oh, her lips.

  When she takes me in her mouth, it’s game over. I know I can’t last long, not with whatever she’s doing to me. I try to count to a hundred i
n order to make this last, but I only reach seventeen. Then I succumb to the need to have her. Entirely. Thoroughly.

  “I’m not going to finish without you,” I tell her. My voice is throaty and hoarse. I reach for the condom. “Just let me—”

  “Do you trust me?” she interrupts.

  “Of course I trust you.”

  “I’m on the pill, and I’m all good.”

  “Me too. I mean, I’m not on the pill, but—”

  “Brad, stop talking.” Her eyes darken to a shade of jungle green as she raises her body over me. She dives into a kiss, dark and delicious as she aligns her body with mine. I unhook her bra, then snap off her panties with a flick of my finger.

  “Those were new,” she says, a hint of dismay. “You broke them.”

  “You bought them for me?”

  “For me,” she corrects. “For you to look at.”

  “I’ll buy you ten more. But I’d prefer you don’t wear any of them.”

  She laughs, which is a delicate sound in the otherwise confident aura she’s projecting this morning. The laughs, the smile—I’m in awe that a moment like this can be sexy and fun and intimate all at once. The combination drives a new facet to this thing we’re calling love.

  I slide a hand down, feel how ready she is for me. The second my finger slips inside, we groan together. “Have I told you I love you yet?” I murmur between peppered kisses. “Even more than yesterday. And more than the day before.”

  She acknowledges me with a whimper as her core rests over me and slowly, perfectly, she locks her gaze on mine. Her lips are parted, her eyes cloudy, and while she’s the Lexi Monroe I know and love, she’s also something more. A confident, beautiful woman that’s driving me wild in every way.

  I’m transfixed by her face as she slides onto me, the way her back arches as she descends and her head is thrown back. Tendrils of her gorgeous hair dangle over her back, and the sight of her on me, taking me, driving me to the brink of insanity, is something I could’ve never imagined.

  She moves, rocking her hips against me. I hiss as we connect fully, her little gasps as I fill her completely driving me to madness.

  “In case I didn’t tell you,” she says between ragged breaths. “I love you too, Brad.”

  “I need you,” I say, as her hips grind against me. I grasp her thighs. “Forever.”

  She can’t respond, the pulse is too fast, too perfect. We’re both lost to the rhythm, the beats, the waves. I sense her losing control as she grips my arms, sailing beyond, into some endless sea carrying us both further and further until we crash, as one, into the depths of it all.

  She cries out my name, a sound I’ll never tire of hearing. Then again and again as she rides the momentum of her climax. My release comes a second later, and I tense, hold on to her, and sink into oblivion.

  When reality finally eases its way back into my bedroom, back into our lives, I’m still in awe. There is something so colossally grand, so indescribable, in watching another person shatter before you into pieces.

  We shattered together, and from now on, I’ll have it no other way.

  “Now that,” Lexi says, her limp body malleable and soft in my arms. “Is a wakeup call.”

  Chapter 29

  LEXI

  “That can’t be sanitary.”

  “Whaaa?” I’m startled out of a daze, surprised to find my elbows resting on the counter at Minnie’s while a small fire burns in the background. “Oh, crap!”

  “I was talking about you drooling all over the place,” Sasha says, sliding onto a stool opposite me. “But yeah, I suppose the smoke is a problem, too.”

  “Whoops.”

  “I can’t believe you couldn’t wait a few more days.”

  “A few more days for what?”

  “To hook up with Bradley Hamilton! Now, thanks to your love life, I owe Kitty a bunch of cookies.”

  I flip the piece of bacon off the stove and quickly toss on some more, casting a guilty glance at the older gentleman in the corner who’ll now need to wait a few extra minutes for his breakfast plate to arrive.

  I turn and, already distracted, slide the plate of burned bacon over to Sasha. Luis is scheduled for a day off, and at the moment, I don’t have a lot of backup.

  She wrinkles her nose and pushes it to the side, reaching up to feel my forehead.

  “I’m fine,” I say, swatting her hand away and dumping the bacon into the trash. “Just distracted.”

  “If you’re not feverish, you should fire yourself,” she says. “You’d be better off handing the reins over to Rick and just taking a cut of the profits.”

  “Ha-ha.” I roll my eyes, finish up the order and, thankfully, by the time the food is delivered and I’ve checked on the rest of my customers, we have a moment of quiet.

  “So?” Sasha says. “I haven’t seen you for two days!”

  “I’ve been here!”

  “Physically, maybe. But your head’s in the clouds.”

  I give her a mischievous grin. “Oh, my head’s not in the clouds.”

  “The gutter, then! Pull it out for a second and talk to me.”

  I blink, fold my hands in front of my body, and lean forward. “What do you want to talk about?”

  With exaggerated formality, she mirrors the folding of her hands and leans toward me. “How does it feel being Bradley Hamilton’s girlfriend?”

  My hands clasp to my chest and my head sails right back into the clouds. Or the gutter. Some mixture of both, maybe, as I give a loud and happy sigh. “It’s perfect.”

  “As good as you expected?”

  “Better.”

  “Wow.”

  “Right? I’ve been dreaming of this day for years. Even if I didn’t exactly know it, and now it’s here. I don’t think anything could ruin my day for the rest of my life.”

  “Don’t jinx yourself, Lex,” Sasha says. “It’s only been two days.”

  “Two amazing days.”

  “Did you stay over there both nights?”

  “Sort of.” I make a silly face at her. “We like to switch things up.”

  “Lexi Monroe! How many times have you guys had—”

  I wave her off as the older gentleman from the corner flags me over for the check. After I run his card, chatting politely for a few moments, I return to the counter and face Sasha’s impatient expression.

  “Seven,” I whisper with no shortage of glee. Then I hold up one full hand of fingers and two more, just in case she can’t count.

  “Seven?! Get outta town.”

  “Well, twice the first night, twice the next day, twice yesterday.”

  “That’s six.”

  I give her googly eyes.

  “This morning?” Sasha’s mouth is wide open. “You two need to get a life. Normal people don’t have time for that.”

  “You’re just jealous.”

  “Damn right I am! Where do I find a guy with that sort of stamina?”

  “I’m sure Lucas has some teammates. Bradley might know some guys from his gym, or—”

  “I don’t mean right this second,” she says with an eyeroll. “It’s rhetorical. Anyway, do you guys ever talk? Or eat? Sleep?”

  “We talk plenty,” I say, waggling my eyebrows. “Does champagne count as fruit? We’ve mostly been ordering pizza. Now that we’re hanging out again, Marcello is ecstatic. He only has to make one stop.”

  “You should really leave him a great tip. He’s the one who reconnected you guys in a way.”

  “Well, the elevator reconnected us, but you have a point. We will leave a generous tip tonight.”

  “Again? You can’t eat pizza, have sex, and repeat for the rest of your life.”

  “I sometimes work in there. I’m here now, aren’t I?”

  “Yes, drooling over your counter and burning the bacon.”

  “That, too.”

  Sasha finally cracks a smile and lets up on the inquisition. “I’m really glad you’re happy, Lex. Brad seems great, a
nd you two are perfect for each other.”

  “I hope so, I really do. But it’s soon.”

  “Is it? The two of you have known each other for years. If I’d have known you guys in your younger years, I would’ve called the two of you ending up together.”

  “Apparently everyone already has,” I say, ticking off my fingers. “My mother, Kitty, now you...ninety percent of our high school. We were the last ones to figure it out.”

  “That’s how it always goes. Lex? I think you have a new customer.”

  I groan, not quite ready to dismiss this conversation. Lately, I like everything to do with Brad. Talking to him, talking with him, talking about him. Savoring the moments when we can finally be together, which has been every moment for these last few days excluding work hours.

  My groan fades to nothing, however, when my eyes land on the gentleman at the table in the furthest corner. I recognize him, and his sleazy little suit, and the smirk on his face.

  Bill’s the name. I read it on the printout from the last receipt. “Jerk,” I mutter under my breath. “I don’t want to go over there.”

  Sasha’s eyes widen. “Did I miss something?”

  “The real estate guy,” I hiss. “He’s back.”

  Sasha sneaks a glance. “Oh, hell no. What do you think he’s doing here? I figured he gave it up.”

  “Me too. Chalked it up to a weird coincidence.”

  “Want me to go over there?”

  “No, last time Kitty figured things out. This time I have to do it.”

  I take two steps toward the man in the suit, but I’m stunned into silence before I move past the counter. Walking through the front door, his eyes landing on Bill, is none other than Chris Krause, my landlord.

  “What’s Chris doing here?” Sasha whispers, the panic gathering in her eyes. “This can’t be good.”

  “The jerk is probably trying to buy the property out from under Chris,” I say, the pieces finally connecting.