Text (Take It Off #4)(38)
Author: Cambria Hebert

When I pulled back, her eyes looked a little dazed, and I mentally patted myself on the back. Good job, Nathan.

“You have any ice cream?” I asked, snooping through her freezer.

“No.”

“You know that’s like a crime. Pie with no ice cream.”

“I’m sorry?” she asked.

I sighed heavily. “I’m still eating pie.”

“I’d tell you to make yourself at home, but you already have,” she quipped.

I grinned and rummaged for a bowl and a knife. I did feel at home here, from the second I stepped through the front door. I felt like I was where I belonged, like this wasn’t my first night here. It felt perfectly natural for me to be making coffee and kissing her good morning. This was what I wanted. Not just today. Not just next week…

“Nathan?” Honor said from across the room.

I glanced over. She was giving me a puzzled look. “Where’d you go?”

My thoughts had stilled my movements and I was standing in the center of the room, clutching a knife and a bowl. “Nowhere.” I lied and cut a huge piece of pie. I wondered what she would say if I told her I was already thinking about forever.

“You’re putting pie into a bowl?”

“There’s no ice cream,” I explained.

“Yes, I realize the error of my ways.” I heard the smile in her voice.

I reached into the fridge, pulled out the milk, and poured some into the bowl, over the pie. “A man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do,” I told her and heated up the bowl in the microwave.

“Apple pie. It’s what’s for breakfast,” Honor said, as I sat down beside her.

“It’s got milk. It’s like cereal.”

She shook her head and drank more coffee.

The first bite exploded onto my tongue. “Oh my God.” I groaned. “This is the best thing I’ve ever eaten.”

She laughed.

“No really,” I said as I shoved another bite into my mouth. “You are a pie genius.”

Honor rolled her eyes. I scooped out another bite and held it to her lips. “Try it.” Her lips parted and I slid the spoon over her tongue and then pulled it back out, watching the way her lips hugged the silver. My body tightened all over again.

“It’s good.” She agreed.

Pie this good deserved some silence, so I didn’t say anything as I shoveled the rest into my mouth.

“Usually by now I would be on my way home from my morning run,” she murmured, looking out the sliding glass doors near the table and at the trail.

“You run every day of the week?”

“Most mornings. Not every day.”

I wondered if she would keep running out there after what happened to her.

“How about you? You must work out a lot.”

“Almost every day.”

“Do you like being a Marine?” she asked.

“It’s okay. I think about getting out sometimes. Living somewhere that I won’t have to move from.”

“Where are you from?”

“I grew up in Jacksonville, NC. It’s a Marine Corps kind of town. I grew up sort of idolizing the Marines. I joined right out of high school and went to Paris Island for boot camp.”

She smiled. “I knew I heard the South in your voice. Is this the first time you’ve lived up North?”

“Yep. It’s cold.”

She grinned. “How long you been enlisted?”

“Six years.”

She nodded and put her mug to her lips. I took advantage and asked a question of my own. “Did you grow up here?”

She nodded. “Yes, never lived anywhere else.”

“You said you’re a writer?”

She looked a little shy as she nodded.

“What do you write?”

“Books.”

“What kind of books?” Geez, it was like pulling teeth.

“Mostly romance novels. I also have some paranormal stuff.”

“You mean like vampires?”

“Werewolves,” she replied.

“You seem embarrassed,” I pointed out, glancing over at the pie and thinking about getting another piece.

She laughed and stood up. “I’m not really. Just sometimes people’s reaction to my career can be a little… harsh.”

I watched as she moved stiffly over to the counter, taking my bowl with her, and cut another huge slice of pie.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, it’s hard to get someone to take you seriously when you tell them you write romance or about werewolves.”

I guess I could understand that. It was a little out there. Of course, me going to work and dealing with guns all day wasn’t all that normal either.

“How long you been a writer?”

“I’ve always wanted to be a writer,” she replied. “I’ve been writing stuff since I was young. But I started writing professionally about two and a half years ago. I had a day job up until about six months ago. Now, I’m able to write full time.”

“You love it.” I could tell by the look on her face.

She smiled and reached into the beeping microwave to get my pie. “Yeah, I really do.”

When she sat the pie on front of me, I pulled her into my lap and rested my chin on top of her head. “You gonna give me one of your books to read?”

“You want to read my books?”

“I want to do anything that has anything to do with you.”

“I’m glad you came over last night,” she said, pressing her cheek against my chest.

“Me too.”

We sat there for a while in the quiet of the kitchen, and for once, the silence didn’t bother me at all.

27

Honor

Nathan was standing in front of the large glass sliders when I came out of the hallway and into the kitchen. He had his arms crossed over his chest and the position showed off his powerful back perfectly.

I swear, he was the stuff I wrote about.

I didn’t think men like him actually existed outside of my imagination. And now he was living, breathing, and standing in front of me. He slept in my bed last night. Joyous little goose bumps raced over my entire body.

The sun shone through the glass, bathing him in this sort of halo so everything else around him was slightly blurred. It was the perfect representation of what he did to me. When he was around, everything else was hazy, but he was perfectly in focus.

The very fact that I was standing here secretly checking him out instead of dwelling on what I just went through was very telling.