Chapter Nine

Georgina

 

 

 

 

I slipped out of bed and into my clothes as quietly as possible. Stupid halter dress. Why didn’t I bring another outfit with me? Why had I refused to accept the idea I’d be sleeping the night? Did I really think I’d just have sex with the guy, then shake hands and head off home to bed?

Sunlight highlighted the edges of thick, closed curtains. It was hard to tell what the time really was, but I was pretty sure we’d slept in.

“Morning,” Blake said from behind me. His voice was soft and gravely from sleep.

“What time is it?” I asked, unwilling to turn around and look at him. I’d bet he looked gorgeous in the morning, his blond hair tussled and—stop it, damn it. Don’t look.

I heard him rattle around things on the bedside table. “Eleven. You need to be somewhere?”

“I have to go to my dad’s for dinner.”

“You’ve got plenty of time then.” Blake shifted across the bed and looped an arm around my waist.

Slipping on my second shoe, I stood up out of his reach.

“We start dinner at noon, and I help him cook. It’s sort of a tradition. Sunday is the one day he doesn’t work at the restaurant and instead makes dinner just for us.”

“He’s a cook?”

“He’s a chef. He owns the restaurant Stone Soup.”

“I’ve been there. It’s pretty good.”

“It’s the best.” I walked out of his room and clip-clopped down the stairs in my heels. I could hear Blake scrambling behind me.

He came running after me with his bedsheet wrapped around his waist, toga-like, his chest bare and rippling. Oh mercy. I shouldn’t have looked.

“You can’t stay for breakfast? Or a shower?” he said.

I tore my gaze away from his god-like form in an almost painful effort and marched out the front door. “We did what needed to be done, and now I have to go. If you still want to help me with the rest of my list, that’s cool, but I never asked for anything more.”

Blake chased after me onto his weed-encrusted lawn. An old man next door looked up at us as he collected his newspaper, and Blake adjusted his toga with one hand and waved casually to him with the other. The old man rolled his eyes like this happened every morning.

“I know that,” Blake said. “It’s just the list. But can’t you at least tell me if you enjoyed last night? That it wasn’t the most terrible thing you’ve ever experienced?”

I stopped and looked down at my feet. “It wasn’t the most terrible thing I’ve ever experienced.”

“Sorry, what was that? I couldn’t hear you.”

“I enjoyed it, very much.” I spoke louder and turned to face Blake. He was grinning widely.

He kissed me quickly on the forehead. “Me too.”

That would have been a nice place to leave things, but when I swung into my car seat and turned the keys, the car made no sound. Not even a small lurch.

“No, no, no! Jiminy, don’t do this to me now,” I begged the steering wheel.

“You call your car Jiminy?” Blake laughed. “No wonder she’s not starting for you.”

“Jiminy is a he. And he loves me. But I think I left my lights on.”

“I’ve got some old batteries and jumpers in the garage that can probably get him going again, but I’d have to dig around. I mostly have bike parts.”

“I don’t have time.”

“Let me take you then,” Blake offered. He was already backing toward his house. “I’ll be dressed and ready to go in thirty seconds, trust me!”

I was already going to be late by the time I got home, cleaned up, changed, and headed out to Dad’s. Maybe Blake’s motorbike could cut some time off that.

“Thirty, twenty-nine, twenty-eight …”

Blake was off at a run. Through the open front door, I saw his sheet flutter to the ground behind him as he ran up the stairs.