Starfire (Peaches Monroe #3)(16)
Author: Mimi Strong

I asked her, “Speaking of kissing and telling, who or what did you have in your bed that night I heard you singing the O song?”

“Don’t burn the lemon sauce,” she said, changing the topic.

“You’d better not be zooming your boss again.”

She smirked. “Oh, I’m not.”

We tidied up the kitchen as best we could, since our only table was also in that room.

The doorbell rang, and I got so nervous all of a sudden, my legs actually quaked.

Shayla ran out the door, car keys in hand, telling Adrian not to do anything she wouldn’t do. She disappeared, leaving the two of us alone for our date.

Adrian whipped out some flowers from behind his back and handed them to me. The tag showed them as being from Gabriella’s, the fancy florist, and the bouquet was a small but exotic blend of flowers that weren’t orchids.

“Please, come in,” I said. “I’m glad these aren’t cut orchids or both of our mothers would be mad.”

He chuckled. “Those orchid nuts.”

Adrian stepped over the threshold, a drip of sweat running off the side of his brow. Was he feeling guilty about our open arrangement, nervous to see me, or had he rushed to get there? I started to ask, but he gave me an awkward kiss immediately, his lips brushing my nose and landing on my chin as I turned.

“You look beautiful,” he said.

I pulled out my phone to take a photo of the pretty flowers. “For my mother,” I explained.

He grinned. “I already sent a picture to my mom.”

“Hey! We’re Bodwives* buddies.”

*Bodwives is a modified version of the acronym for the Beaverdale Orchid and Dandelion Wine Society, which both of our mothers were part of.

The ladies love growing orchids, and abhor seeing them used as cut flowers in arrangements.

I put the flowers in a tall water glass of water and set them on the table.

“How’s Golden?” I asked. “Did she have a bunch of exciting news and scandalous gossip that turned out to be nothing but the neighbor’s mail-order catalog arriving at her house by accident?”

“I’m here with you,” he said firmly, his pale blue eyes momentarily as stormy as his last name.

“One time she took twenty minutes to tell me that her single guy neighbor gets Victoria’s Secret catalogs. Big shocker, right? How about you, Adrian? Do you get anything in the mail you want to tell me about?”

“Not yet.” He looked up and down my body appreciatively. “But I’m on the mailing list for one of Victoria’s Secret’s strongest competitors. I hear their models are extra hot.”

“One of them is.”

“I can hardly wait to see your pictures.”

“I guess I’ll have to autograph your catalog for you,” I said with a sigh.

“If you can pry it out of my hands.”

“Why slobber over a photograph when you can have the real thing?”

He shrugged. “A photograph doesn’t talk, and doesn’t make you feel sixteen and totally freaked out again.”

I put one hand on my hip. “You’d like me better if I was silent?”

He pointed a finger at me. “Nope. Not taking the bait. We did nothing but argue back in school, and look where that got us.”

We stood in the kitchen, and I moved away from him, putting the peninsula section of the counter between us.

CHAPTER 7

I had all the preparations for gin and tonic drinks, including cucumber slices, set out between us. Without asking, I poured us one each. We clinked glasses, and quickly downed the drinks, the same way we had at DeNirro’s on Saturday. Combined with the two shots I’d had with Shayla while getting ready, the drink made my body hum at a pleasant frequency.

Adrian seemed to relax, tilting his head from side to side and rolling his shoulders back.

“Candy is dandy, but liquor is quicker,” I said.

He looked down at my fidgeting hands, then grabbed one of my wrists gently and brought my hand up to his face. He stared deeply into my eyes as he rubbed the tip of my thumb across his swollen lower lip. Still giving the f**k-me eyes, he slipped my thumb into his mouth and started sucking. My legs quaked again as an electric current shot down my spine and into my pu**y.

“You like sucking on things,” I murmured.

“Take off your shirt and find out.”

With my free hand, I squeezed my sweater puppies together from the side. The top button of my blouse popped open as though I’d planned it. “You want a taste of these, big boy?”

He gave my thumb another suck and grazed it with his teeth, making me shudder. I could feel all of my lips swelling and watering. So much for my plans to keep things casual until he picked a girl. I’d lusted after Adrian for so long, and it was time to find out how my fantasies compared to the real thing. He released my thumb and dared me with his eyes to make the next move.

“Hmm?” I trailed my wet thumb across my collarbone and down the crease of my chest.

“Mmm,” he growled, his gaze moving down to my br**sts. “You know I want a taste, but I don’t want to be rude, and you’ve made all this dinner for us.”

“It’s just a deli chicken staying warm in the oven. The chicken won’t mind if we start with an appetizer.”

“I did have a late lunch, so I can’t say I’m all that hungry… for dinner.”

I slowly unbuttoned my blouse, eager to get his mouth on me again.

“Is that a Peaches Monroe bra?” he asked, his eyes lighting up at the sight of the midnight-blue underwire bra.

For a second, I was confused by the question. I’d not fully adjusted to the idea of being a brand name.

“They’re still in production, but this is a sample. Funny story, actually. They test-marketed some of the designs, and this is going to be purple, but they’ll just shift the color on the photographs rather than re-shoot. Apparently, clothing lines do that all the time, and—oh. Mercy. Oh, mercy.”

He’d leaned across the counter and buried his face in my bosom, his big, warm hand slipping under my loose blouse and landing on my back to keep me in place. He inhaled deeply and audibly, making every part of me shudder in anticipation.

When he came up for air, his eyes heavily lidded, he said, “What’s that sauce on the stove?”

The burner was turned off, but the warm lemon sauce was still fragrant. “Lemon butter.”

He pulled away from me, turned to the stove, and returned back to the peninsula counter between us, setting the sauce pan down before hunting around in the drawer for a spoon.