He reached over and laid a hand on her knee. “If you do, I need you to tell me. Honesty, remember?”
Dammit, why did he have to be so gentle and reasonable about it? It would be far easier to ignore him if he were being an ass about things. She heaved a heavy sigh. “It’s not unreasonable.”
“Good, I’m glad we agree,” he said evenly. There wasn’t an ounce of smugness in his tone, nothing to suggest that he knew perfectly well that she had agreed with him the whole time yet at the same time, she wouldn’t have bet money against it. Somehow, he knew exactly what she was doing. How in the world was it possible for him to be so adamantly against spanking and yet still have what she couldn’t help but think of as HOH instincts that she kept butting up against? Caine was nothing if not a mystery, and he just might drive her crazy one of these days.
“Anything else?” Caine asked. “Any other basic rules that I need to know or that you think are important?”
Norah shook her head. “I think that covers it.”
“It seems pretty thorough,” Caine agreed, “and we can always add things later if we need to.” For a long moment, they lapsed into an awkward silence. Neither one of them seem to know where to go from here. Finally, Caine asked, “So, does this mean we’re dating?”
Norah nodded, a little uncertainly. “I think so. That’s what I thought we were talking about.”
“Good” Caine said. “That means I can do this.”
Before Norah even had time to register what was happening, Caine leaned over and pulled her into his lap. Then, he caught her chin in his hand and turned her to face him before leaning down to kiss her. The kiss was gentle at first, almost tentative, their lips barely touching, as though neither one of them was quite sure that it was real. Then her hands came down on his shoulders, drawing them closer together. His hand left her chin and came around to cup the back of her head as the kiss deepened and grew stronger. The attraction she had been trying to tamp down on for weeks lit like a fire within her, the first few tentative sparks sprang upward and quickly grew into a raging inferno. Before long, she was gasping and whimpering and reaching blindly for the buttons on his shirt.
To her utter shock, rather than encouraging her as she had anticipated, Caine broke away and pulled back, grasping her wrists gently and removing her hands from his chest. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” he said quietly.
“Of course,” Norah said quickly, looking away and swallowing on a lump of mortification, even as she felt furious color burning its way from the base of her neck up over her face. What was she thinking, throwing herself at him like she had no morals at all? Clearly, he didn’t want her like that–at least not yet. She swallowed hard against the nausea threatening to rise in her belly, feeling like the world’s biggest fool.
“Hey,” Caine said gently, lifting her head with a finger under her chin so that she was looking at him again. “Don’t think I don’t want to. There’s nothing I would like more than to let this go just as far and as fast as we wanted. I’ve thought of you nonstop for weeks, and I’ve taken more cold showers than I have since I got out of my grandfather’s house and no longer had to hide my ‘sinful, lustful’ thoughts from him.”
“What’s the problem then?” Norah asked. They were both adults. If they both wanted it, why stop? God knows she wanted it, and it sounded like he did too. So why were they sitting here discussing it instead of getting on with the program?
“We don’t need to move too fast,” Caine told her. “It’s too easy to burn hot and fast and end up getting burned. I haven’t even taken you on a proper date yet.”
Norah rolled her eyes. “We both know we’ve been de facto dating for weeks now. We just haven’t been calling it that.”
“Yes,” Caine agreed, “but now we are. Now it’s official.”
“Exactly,” Norah said. “Now that we’re officially dating, we can do all the other things that being couples do, like have sex.”
“We can and we will,” Caine replied, “just not now. I want our first time to be right and to be special, not some hot and heavy quickie because we were both too horny to wait.”
“There’s nothing wrong with a quickie now and then,” Norah grumbled. She saw his point and could even concede, in the privacy of her own mind, that he was probably right in the long run, but right now the long run could be damned. She’d been celibate for far too long, and dammit, she wanted him.
“No there’s not,” Caine conceded, far too reasonably for Norah’s taste, “and I’ll be more than happy to prove that point one day, but not now and not the first time.”
“What difference does it make?” Norah insisted. “It’s not like either of us is a shy virgin. We have both had sex before. At least I assume you have.”
“I have,” Caine told her. He looked thoroughly amused, and that made it all the more irritating. “But not with you, and if I’m going to do it, I’m going to do it right. You mean far more to me than some one night stand in a bar.”
As sweet as that was and as much as Norah appreciated it, it was the last thing she wanted to hear right now when the nearness and heat of his body had fire burning in her blood. She opened her mouth to argue once more, but he silenced her by putting a finger against her lips.
“I thought we just agreed that I was to be the head of household in our relationship?” he asked.
“We did,” Norah replied. But not about this, her brain protested. This was different. It wasn’t as if it was a rule. It was just...
“Then I need you to respect my decision please,” Caine continued. “I know you don’t like it. Trust me, I understand, but this is important to me.”
Norah sighed. “Fine,” she conceded reluctantly. She would respect it, but she wouldn’t like it. Not at all.
Chapter 9
Not much changed over the next few weeks. The bookstore was coming closer and closer to completion. Norah and Caine continued to spend most of their time together, although they were able to be much more open and public about their relationship. They went out more, thoroughly enjoying quietly exploring all of the restaurants in Corbin’s Bend. They ‘officially’ let their relationship status be known by attending one of Jonathon and Benjamin’s summer cookouts together. That got the word out faster than publishing an announcement in Ettie’s community paper. Both Quincy and Ben were unabashedly delighted. In fact, Norah seriously doubted she would ever hear the end of it from Quincy.
They touched more. Norah soon discovered that Caine quite liked casual touch. If he were standing near enough to reach her, he would often be touching her in some way—an arm around her waist, a hand at the small of her back, a casual touch to her shoulder or the back of her neck. He also had absolutely no qualms about pulling her into his lap every chance he got. It wasn’t that Norah minded, quite the opposite in fact. She thoroughly enjoyed his attentions, but they also had the unfortunate effect of keeping her on edge all the time, and through it all, Caine continued to insist on his stupid moratorium on sex. It was driving Norah crazy. What’s more, unless she completely missed her guess, she wasn’t the only one it was driving crazy yet Caine stubbornly refused to back down.
Her friends, damn them, seemed to find the entire situation hilarious. “Have you told him how you feel?” Dina asked one day when Norah complained as they walked home together from book club.
“I’ve tried,” Norah said, frustrated. “He just insists that it needs to be the right time, and it needs to be special.”
“You have to admit that’s really sweet,” Abby, who was also walking with them, put in.
“I know,” Norah agreed, “but I’m tired of waiting, and every time I try to tell him that he pulls the ‘I’m the HOH and you need to respect my decision’ card.”
“He does have a point there,” Dina pointed out.
“I know,” Norah said. She was perilously close to whining but couldn’t bring herself to care. “But it’s just not fair. A lot of men seem to think that going out to
dinner entitles them to sex whether I want it or not. That’s ridiculous of course, but how did I managed to get with the one man who doesn’t feel entitled, even when I do want it. It’s just not fair.”
“That’s because you got a good man,” Abby said. “An honorable man.”
“Sometimes honorable isn’t all it’s cracked up to be,” Norah muttered. Dina and Abby both seemed to find this hilarious. “It’s not funny. I’m serious.”
“Maybe you should just seduce him,” Dina suggested. “Honorable or not, he’s still a man. At some point, he’ll give in.”
“I think you overestimate my skill in that area,” Norah told her. “I was with John from the time I was in college until he died, and until now I haven’t really dated anyone seriously. I haven’t exactly had a lot of practice.”
“It’s like riding a bicycle,” Dina assured her. “Once you get started, just go with the flow, it all will come back to you.”
“That’s what you think,” Norah told her skeptically. Thankfully, she was saved from any further attempts at argument when they reached her store. She said her goodbyes quickly and headed inside and upstairs before they could offer her any more helpful advice.
However, despite her skepticism about the effectiveness of said advice, Norah couldn’t get it out of her mind. The conversation plagued her throughout the evening as she puttered around the kitchen preparing dinner and waiting for Caine to finish whatever he was working on today and come upstairs. Maybe they were right. Maybe it was time she took matters into her own hands. It wasn’t that she felt herself irresistible, by any means, but she had an equal say in this relationship, didn’t she? Just because Caine was her HOH, that didn’t make him always right. Maybe she just needed to show him this stupid insistence on waiting for sex—What were they even waiting for anyway? Some predetermined milestone that existed only in Caine’s head?—was only making them both miserable. To her way of thinking, it should have been obvious, but Caine was being too stubborn to see what was clearly right in front of his face. This had gone on long enough. She was just going to have to make him see.
That decided, Norah set about formulating her plan of action. She wished she had thought of this a little earlier. She could have softened Caine up by making his favorite dishes for dinner. Not that she knew anything about the Cajun cooking he loved, but that’s what the Internet and cookbooks were for. Still, it was too late for that now. The baked spaghetti she had just put into the oven would have to do. A quick check of the refrigerator ensured that she did at least have both wine and his favorite beer. Deciding it wouldn’t hurt to take the edge off, Norah poured herself a glass of wine and nursed it while she put together a salad and made garlic bread to finish out the meal.
Hearing footsteps on the stairs, she set out food and water for Maverick in his designated bowls. Seeing this, Maeve hissed and immediately bounded for the top of the tall bookcase in the living room, safely out of the dog’s reach. Norah was laughing at her antics when the door opened and Caine stepped inside with Mav following close on his heels.
“What’s so funny?” he asked. He heeled off his work boots at the door and came to join her in the kitchen.
“Apparently, Maeve has learned that my putting out Mav’s dishes means he is about to appear,” Norah explained. “As soon as she saw them, she made a beeline for the top of the bookcase.”
Caine chuckled. “Smart kitty.”
“I’m not sure why she’s antagonistic toward him though,” Norah said. “He’s never bothered her, not really.” When they had first met, Mav had sniffed curiously at the cat and made a few aborted attempts to get her to play, but he had quickly figured out she wasn’t interested. Now, he generally gave her a wide berth. Tonight, he didn’t even look in her direction. He came immediately to Norah and demanded to be petted. Then, after Norah had given him his obligatory ear scratch, he padded over to his bowl in search of food.
“She’s a cat. He’s a dog,” Caine replied. “That’s all the reason necessary.”
“Maybe,” Norah said noncommittally. She opened the refrigerator and, after a moment of rooting around, came out with two bottles. “Beer or wine?” she asked, holding up each respective bottle in turn.
“What’s for dinner?” Caine asked, “and how long until it’s ready?”
“Baked spaghetti and about half an hour,” Norah replied.
“In that case, wine so I can have it with dinner,” Caine decided. Norah put the beer back in the refrigerator and set the wine on the counter. She took out another wineglass, filled it, and passed it to Caine. He took it, bending to kiss her. “Thank you. How was your day?”
“It was fine. I finally made a decision on which computer system and software I needed to get. I placed the order today, but it will be a couple of weeks before it gets here. Do you think you can have the front counter ready and installed by then? If not, I can set up a folding table or two to hold the hardware until everything is ready, but it would be easier to have all that in place before it’s installed.”
“I don’t see any reason why not,” Caine told her. “Since I know you need it done by then, I can make it a priority. However, that means I’m going to have to go back to Denver for a few days to finish it. That’s the kind of thing that I really can’t assemble on site. It has to be done in the workshop where I have appropriate tools.”
Norah’s heart sank with disappointment. Since they had been officially dating, Caine had spent most evenings here with her. Sometimes, if he had something to do the next day, he would drive back to Denver late that evening, but just as often he ended up staying the night with her. Despite the fact that he most often slept on the couch because he steadfastly refused to have sex with her, she had grown accustomed to his presence. She missed that intensely on the days when he had to go to Denver. Even so, she nodded. “I understand, but I’ll miss you.”
“I’ll miss you too,” Caine told her, giving her another longer and deeper kiss.
Norah fought the temptation to melt against him. There would be plenty of time for that later if she had anything to say about it. Instead, when they broke apart, she took down dishes and asked Caine to set the table, all the while keeping up a steady stream of small talk about her day and his, about the latest antics in the community paper, and other odds and ends. It was amazing how quickly this had become normality for both of them. Most of the time it felt like they had known each other years rather than weeks. They had developed an easy and practiced routine for these evenings together. Norah supposed for some people dropping into a routine like that might have felt boring and monotonous, lacking in the breathlessness and adventure that all the romance books said should accompany a new relationship, but Norah found it comforting. Of course, that didn’t mean she didn’t want a bit of spice and excitement either. They would be adding that before the night was over if she had anything to say about it. She just had to bide her time and wait for the perfect moment to execute her plan.
In the meantime, she didn’t want to do anything unusual that would alert Caine to the fact that she was planning something. He’d just go off on his ‘respect my decision’ routine, and they would be right back in this same stalemate. They ate their salads while they waited for the spaghetti to finish. Norah told Caine about the software system she had decided on. He unabashedly admitted that he didn’t understand most of the technical details, but he listened with genuine interest nonetheless.
“Are you glad to have that sorted now?” Caine asked.
“Yes,” Norah replied emphatically. It was a relief to have that decision off her shoulders, all the more reason to relax and celebrate tonight. The spaghetti came out of the oven, and they fell silent.
“This is really good,” Caine said after a while. He was eating with the single-minded intensity that suggested he had been hungry for some time but hadn’t taken the time to stop for food.
“I’m glad you like it,” Norah said. Hopefully, it wouldn’t be the only thing she had plan
ned that he would like tonight. Normally, they took turns with the cooking and cleaning. If one of them cooked, the other one cleaned. Tonight, however, when Caine started to clear away the dishes, Norah waved him off. “I’ve got it,” she told him. “It’s not much, and it’ll only take a minute. You go ahead.”
“It won’t take me any longer than it will you,” Caine protested. “You cooked. That makes cleaning my job.”
“I know,” Norah said, “but I can also tell you’ve had a long day. Let me do this for you, please.”
Caine backed way, spreading his hands in capitulation. “If you’re sure...”
“I am,” Norah said, smiling. “You can return the favor sometime. Why don’t you go find us something to watch?”
Caine snatched a quick kiss and disappeared into the living room. It only took Norah a few minutes to rinse the dishes, stack them in the dishwasher, and wipe down the table and counters. Hopefully, it took just enough time to let Caine relax and get settled. Wiping her hands on a dishtowel, Norah headed into the living room. Just as she had hoped, Caine was sprawled comfortably on the couch. Rather than curling up next to him as she typically did, she instead crawled into his lap, straddling his legs, and kissed him hard.
Caine’s eyes widened in surprise. “What’s all this?” he asked breathlessly when she broke away.
Norah arched an eyebrow. “I should think that would be obvious,” she said dryly, trailing small kisses down his jaw and neck. Her own body was thrumming with heat, and judging from the way Caine was shifting and moving beneath her, she wasn’t the only one affected. With a smug sense of triumph, Norah continued her ministrations, running her hands slowly over his chest and shoulders, deliberately dragging her thumbs over his rapidly hardening nipples.
Caine groaned, his breathing growing harder and faster. “I thought I told you we needed to wait,” he said roughly.
“You did and we did,” Norah said, bringing her arms up to hook them around his neck and licking the juncture between his neck and shoulder.
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