Christian (The Casanova Club Book 11)

by Ali Parker

  “Maybe,” I said shakily.

  “Maybe?” he challenged.

  I gazed up at him before running a hand up his chest to the back of his neck, where I slipped my fingers into his hair. “What are we waiting for?”

  Chapter 18

  Christian

  “How is it already the twenty-second of October?” I wondered aloud as I stared at the date and time on my phone.

  Dwayne, one of the other Harvard professors of Ancient Civilization and History, arched an eyebrow at me. “Having a short month?”

  “You could say that again.”

  Dwayne gave me a cocky smirk before leaning back in his chair at the staff table in the faculty lounge. He clasped his hands over his ever-growing belly and rolled his thumbs around each other. The gold wedding band on his left ring finger pinched some of his skin beneath a dark hairy knuckle. “Does it, perchance, have anything to do with the pretty girl who’s been staying in your house all month?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Maybe?” He scoffed and shook his head at me. “Christian, come on. Let’s not pretend this is something other than what it is.”

  “Which is what?”

  “You like this girl.”

  “Yeah? And?”

  “And,” Dwayne said slowly. His thumbs slowed their incessant twirling as he leaned forward, a couple of inches of belly pushing over the top of his jeans. “If I were to hazard a guess after seeing you two together at the bar the other week, I’d say she has a little something burning for you, too.”

  “Don’t get my hopes up.” I wasn’t one to be vulnerable. Not like this. But Dwayne and I went way back, and he wouldn’t use something as mundane as my feelings for another woman against me. He’d have my back.

  “Isn’t that what the whole point of this Casanova Club charade was in the first place?” he asked. “To get your hopes up?”

  “It was to find a wife.”

  “And you might have done that.”

  I wasn’t going to tell him what I’d learned from Piper on our flight back from New York. It wouldn’t serve any purpose, other than to potentially make him angry that she’d been dishonest. Initially dishonest. Things could change fast over the course of a year like this, and part of me hoped whatever this was flourishing between us was strong enough for her to re-evaluate the decision she made when she signed up to be our lady.

  Maybe she would see there were other solutions she could pursue to help her family financially while still finding the love she deserved.

  With me.

  Those were the key words.

  With me.

  “I might have.” I sighed, pinching the bridge of my nose. I’d had a headache for the better part of the day. I’d missed my morning coffee, and the lack of caffeine had resulted in a feeling of immense pressure behind my eyes. The dim lights of the faculty lounge were much preferable to the bright lights of the rest of the campus. “But I can’t get ahead of myself here, Dwayne. There are eleven other men in this, after all, and I’m—”

  “The best of the bunch,” he said with a confident nod.

  I chuckled. “I appreciate your gusto and enthusiasm, but I assure you, there is real competition in the other men. And if I know some of them, which I think I do, I can easily assume they care about Piper just as much as I do. In which case, they would have pulled out all the stops to show her that. At least, the smart ones would have. This year is no time to sit back and hope for the best. It’s time to act.”

  “So act.”

  “I have been.”

  “And this party?” Dwayne asked. “What’s the deal with that?”

  “It’s a chance for Piper and me to play host and see what happens. Maybe she’ll like how it feels. Maybe she can see herself living with me when this is all said and done, cooking meals, entertaining guests, hosting Christmas parties, and—”

  “Whoa, Christmas parties? Who are you, and what did that girl do to my buddy, Christian?”

  I afforded myself a small laugh. It was true. Piper was changing me. But not in the way I’d have expected a girl to do. I cared more. I paid attention more. I was still me, but it was like someone had turned the volume up on my life and I was more here. More present.

  More alive.

  Even in my own head, it sounded bogus.

  The only time I wasn’t present was when I was away from Piper. Like right now. All I wanted was to finish my last lecture at the end of the day, pack up my things, and get home to her. My girl.

  “Look alive,” Dwayne muttered under his breath. He ran a finger along his brow, shielding his eyes, and cast his gaze down at the table.

  I glanced at the door. Heather had just walked in. She was walking side by side with another female professor, a woman whose name currently escaped me, and she was talking animatedly with her hands as they made their way to the coffee machine on the back counter. Heather fixed them a pot and leaned one hip against the counter as they talked, and at some point in the conversation, her eyes slid over to me.

  She smiled.

  I smiled back.

  Dwayne sighed. “Now you’ve done it.”

  “Done what?” I asked.

  “She’s going to come over here.”

  “So? You don’t like Heather?”

  “Oh, I like her fine, when she’s alone. But when you get added into the mix, it’s like pouring vinegar on a wound.”

  I frowned. “I’m not following.”

  Dwayne waved me off with a dismissive hand. “Forget it.”

  I wanted to press him to explain further, but as I was about to ask, Heather said goodbye to the other professor, picked up her steaming mug of coffee in her navy blue Harvard cup, and came over to join us. I pushed out the chair beside me with my boot, and she dropped down into it with a gracious smile.

  “Thanks,” she said. “How’re things?”

  “Good,” Dwayne and I said in unison.

  She wrapped both hands around the mug and took a sip. “Can’t beat a cup of coffee after a long lecture.” She sighed contently, setting the cup back down.

  “Tough day?” I asked.

  Heather shook her head. “Not particularly. Just one of those days where the students weren’t super into the subject material and the time just kind of crawled by. I’ve been thinking about this cup of coffee for three hours. And hallelujah, victory is mine.”

  I chuckled.

  Heather grinned. “There’s some whispers going around amongst some of the staff that Christian Peterson has decided to throw a little get together at his humble abode. Is there any truth to these rumors?”

  “Yes, actually,” I said.

  Her eyes widened a bit. “Really? I’m shocked. I thought you were steadfastly against it.”

  “Well, to be honest, I kind of was. But after you left my class the other day, Piper got me thinking it might not be such a bad idea after all. She seems excited about it, at least. She likes hosting and cooking, and in all fairness, I would like to create opportunities for us profs to get together and have some drinks and not have to worry about running into students.”

  Heather’s smile was tight. “I’ll have to thank Piper for her pieces of wisdom.”

  Dwayne let out a sigh on my other side, and both Heather and I turned toward him.

  He looked back and forth between us. “What?”

  “Something to say, Harrison?” Heather asked. For as long as I’d known the two of them, she’d always referred to him by his last name.

  Dwayne stroked his jaw. “Nope. Not a thing. You just tell me where the party is, and I’ll be there with a case of beer in hand.”

  “Beer?” Heather asked. “I think it’s going to be a bit classier than beer.”

  “Beer is fine,” I said. “And it’s not going to be some fancy shindig. Piper and I just want to make some good food, have some laughs, and make everyone comfortable. It’ll be fun. Bring your beer, Dwayne.”

  “I was going to, regardless of what Miss Uppity ove
r here says.” Dwayne nodded his chin at Heather.

  She rolled her eyes at him. “Oh please. Everyone knows you bring wine to a dinner party, not beer. This isn’t football Sunday.”

  “It’s Christian’s house,” Dwayne said flatly, like that explained everything.

  “Yes, and he’s going through the effort to host a nice evening for everyone, most of whom are probably not going to be interested in drinking your shitty IPAs.”

  Dwayne looked at me out of the corner of his eyes.

  I chuckled. “Don’t sweat it, buddy. Bring the beer. I’ll have one with you before things get going and we open the wine.”

  Dwayne looked at Heather as if to say, suck it, and he relaxed against the back of his seat. “There you go, Heather. The boss has spoken.”

  This conversation had lost my interest nearly as soon as it began, so when I checked the time and saw that my next lecture started in twenty minutes, I seized the opportunity to stand up, grab my bag, and toss my jacket over my shoulder. “I’m off to my last class of the day. I’ll see you guys around.”

  Heather waggled her long fingers at me. “See you around, Christian.”

  “Later,” Dwayne said.

  As soon as I turned my back on them and started to leave, I heard them beginning to bicker in hushed tones. Their relationship had always felt a bit tense, almost like they were brother and sister, always at each other’s throats, but no harm had ever come from it.

  And even if it had, I wasn’t going to waste my time lingering around trying to show them how to be civil to one another.

  I had bigger fish to fry.

  Like finishing this lecture so I could get home to Piper. She’d texted me earlier in the afternoon to tell me she had a surprise waiting for me when I got home.

  That was probably why time felt like it was going so slowly today.

  Chapter 19

  Piper

  “Damn it,” I grumbled as I tried to strike the fourth match on the side of a matchbox I’d found in a drawer in Christian’s kitchen. The stupid things wouldn’t light, and I couldn’t find a lighter anywhere to save my life. The dinner table just didn’t look right without the candles I’d set out flickering with little flames.

  I scowled as the match broke.

  “How have we not improved these?”

  I slid open the box, drew out another match, and narrowed my eyes at it. I wasn’t falling for this shit again. The striker was dead, clearly, and it wasn’t creating enough friction. I needed a solution.

  My first thought was the stove, but it wasn’t gas. It was an electric glass top. My second thought was the pilot light in the water heater, but that sounded like a hell of a lot of effort to light a stupid little match. Then an idea struck, and I padded into the living room, opened the glass door on the fireplace, and lit the match with the tiny blue pilot light in there.

  I grinned victoriously as I walked slowly from the living room back to the dining room, creating a shield for the flame with my other hand. “Easy does it. Easy does it. Almost there.”

  The heat was crawling up the match by the time I reached the table, but I managed to get all three candles lit before I shook the match out.

  I stood back to admire my work. The table looked lovely. A bit overdone, perhaps, but I wanted this to feel like a romantic date night, not just a dinner at home, and I was pretty sure I’d achieved that.

  It had taken a good four or so hours to pull it off, too.

  Living in someone else’s house was always strange. Going through all their shit looking for tablecloths, napkins, candles, candleholders, and fine cutlery was downright bizarre.

  But I’d done it. And it was worth it. And Christian wouldn’t mind at all.

  In fact, I was sure he’d love it.

  And he’d love the meal, too. Potatoes Romanoff, pork tenderloin, and crispy baked veggies. There was a pot of homemade gravy bubbling softly on the stove, and I’d even run out to get us a nice bottle of wine that paired nicely with the pork.

  There was dessert too, of course.

  But that wasn’t made in the oven. Or served at a table.

  I blushed just at the thought of the sexy little lingerie number I had on underneath my dress. It was a lace black one-piece with a deep-cut V-neck and high cuts on the hips that left little to the imagination. When he saw me in it, I was sure he’d lose it.

  That was what I wanted. I wanted a night where I could take care of him and pay him back for all the kindness he’d shown me over the course of the month. I hated to think about leaving him. There was a different kind of closeness that had formed between us that I hadn’t experienced with any of the other men up to this point.

  He felt outrageously safe to me. It was like we’d been together for years before this, and this month was just us returning to the way things used to be.

  How they were supposed to be.

  “Supposed to be,” I mused, shaking my head at myself and my romanticized ideas. What a cloudy, muddled, messy thought. Especially since, if I was being honest with myself, this was the polar opposite of how things were supposed to be.

  I should have been back home right now. If everything were the way it should be, I’d be helping closing up the restaurant, wiping down tables, unloading the dishwasher, and sweeping the floors. I’d be neatly stacking menus that were already neat because not a soul had set foot in the place all day to disturb them in the first place. I’d be dropping fresh-cut flowers into single vases on the tables and tucking in chairs.

  Just thinking about it now made my skin itch with boredom.

  After all of this, I doubted I’d be able to fully return to normalcy. And, if I did, what would it cost me? Prior to the Casanova Club, I’d already been fairly unhappy with the mundane and exhausting ritual of my life. It was only going to be worse now.

  No Levi. No Joshua. No Wyatt. No Asher. No Christian. No Jeremiah.

  Only the sweet memories of them. And a hell of a lot of wondering what if?

  None of that mattered right now. What mattered was showing my gratitude to Christian in the best way I could, through food.

  And love.

  I was in the kitchen when he came home half an hour later.

  Christian called my name from the front door. “Holy Hell. It smells like a gourmet kitchen in here. Where are you, woman? And what in God’s name are you making?”

  “I’m in the kitchen!” I called. A smile was already tugging at my lips, and I delighted in the sound of his footsteps coming down the hall. Closer. Closer.

  Closer still until he was behind me, wrapping his arms around my waist, resting his chin on my shoulder, and peering down into the pot on the stove. “What is that?”

  “It’s a family recipe.”

  “Damn,” he purred in my ear.

  I giggled and shied away from the tickle of his stubbled jaw on my cheek. “I hope you like it.”

  “Based on the smell alone, I can confidently say I’m going to.” His hands moved down to cup my ass. “Is there dessert, too?”

  “Down, boy.”

  He squeezed harder. I fought against the urge to arch my spine and press my ass into his crotch. If we started down that path, dinner would take a back seat, and I hadn’t slaved away all day to eat a sub-par meal.

  However, a little kiss might not hurt.

  I turned myself around in Christian’s arms. Somehow, he managed to keep his hands on my ass the whole time, and I hoped he couldn’t feel the little lacy number hidden under my dress. I pressed my hands to his chest. “How was your day?”

  “Long.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “But it was worth the wait.”

  I tilted my head back. Christian knew what I was after and lowered his head to mine. His eyes fell closed, and his lips parted seconds before our lips touched. The kiss started out soft and sweet, innocent almost. Then, like every time I kissed him, my skin started to burn, and the world started to blur around me. I worked my hands up his chest and
over his shoulders to drape my forearms behind his neck while the kiss deepened and we explored each other.

  Heat blossomed between my legs. I forced myself to break away before things spiraled out of control. “Wine?”

  “Let me get it.”

  Christian poured us each a glass of wine. We made a toast to our evening together, and Christian wandered into the dining room to admire my handiwork with the table.

  He looked up at me from beneath his brows. “You know how to set a table.”

  “I wanted things to be special.”

  “Mission accomplished.”

  I smiled into my wine glass and sipped. “Dinner is only five or six minutes away.”

  He grinned and moved around the table in a few long strides. Then he took my wine from me, set it down beside my setting on the table, and walked me backward to the sofa. “Sounds like just enough time for an appetizer if you ask me.”

  I pushed at his chest. “Christian.”

  “Come on,” he teased before kissing my neck and pausing to graze his lips across my cleavage. My breath hitched in my throat as he pinned me firmly between him and the sofa. “I’ve been thinking about you all day. And this dress. Damn, woman.”

  “Five minutes,” I warned.

  “That’s all I need.”

  I managed to keep Christian from discovering the lace set beneath my dress by focusing on his lips. Our steamy pre-dinner make-out session left me hungry for more than just food.

  After the timer went off, I served our plates, and we took our meal into the dining room and tucked in.

  “Cheers,” he said, raising his wine before I had a chance to start eating.

  “Cheers.”

  We dug in. I watched him skewer a piece of pork. He popped the bite into his mouth, and I watched the lines of his face ease in contentment.

  “Good?” I asked, my own bite still hovering inches from my mouth as I waited eagerly for his feedback.

  His eyes practically rolled back in his head. “Piper. Holy hell. This is delicious.”