Chapter 26
The next morning, Jane jerked awake at the sound of her alarm.
A long arm reached over her and hit snooze.
She turned and faced the naked man in her bed. The naked man with sexy scruff on his jaw and a glint of intent in his eyes as he pulled her into him and kissed her.
“Wait!”
Levi pulled back a fraction and lifted a brow.
“Um, hi.”
His mouth quirked. “Hi.”
She squirmed a bit, and not just because she didn’t know how to do morning-afters, but because she was naked too, which was a whole lot of nakedness pressed up against more nakedness. He felt warm and sexy and . . . hello, ready to start the day.
“Ignore that,” he said. “What did you want to tell me?”
“I don’t remember.”
He laughed softly and lowered his head again.
It was two snoozes and an orgasm later before she gasped and leapt out of bed. “Oh my God, I’m going to be late.”
“I thought your shift didn’t start until eight.” He squinted at the clock. “It’s not even the butt crack of dawn.”
She was hopping into the clothes he’d so helpfully got her out of the night before. “I’m meeting my grandpa for breakfast. I’ll grab a shower at work—”
He caught her at her bedroom door. He’d had time to pull on only his jeans, but hadn’t fastened them. Gently he pressed her back against the wood, cupped her face, and gave her a drugging kiss so full of longing and desire and affection, she forgot she was in a hurry.
“Good morning,” he whispered against her mouth.
She stared at him and then narrowed her gaze. “Do you hear that?”
He cocked his head. “Hear what?”
She slid out from between him and the door and went hands on hips, staring around her room. Her gaze landed on the blanket that had slid to the very bottom of her bed, balled up. There was a suspicious lump under that blanket.
And it was . . . purring.
“Cat?”
The lump stopped moving.
“I know it’s you,” Jane said. “I can hear you purring.”
The purring stopped.
“Oh my God.” She pulled the blanket back from the bed and Cat blinked her gray eyes up at Jane lazily. Innocently. “Don’t even try,” she said. “We’ve agreed that mi casa es su casa, but my bed is my bed.”
Cat just stared at her.
“I mean it. You’re nocturnal. The other night you batted my hair in the middle of the night. You stole my pillow. You knocked things off my shelves . . .”
Cat’s expression was boredom personified.
“We agreed you’d sleep on the floor,” Jane said. “A point that we negotiated at two A.M. and was finally agreed on by both parties.”
Cat began to wash her face.
Levi smiled. “Marches to her own beat, huh?”
She choked out a laugh. “That describes both of my current bedmates.”
“And are you comparing me to your cat?”
“Well, she does remind me of you,” she pointed out. “Confident. Pushing. And then there are those gray eyes . . .”
Levi scratched the cat’s back, then along the side of her face and under her chin, and the thing actually rolled her eyes in ecstasy. The man smiled. “There are some similarities. But I’d say she’s more like you than me.”
Jane crossed her arms. “Oh, do tell.”
“She lets me pet her on her terms, allowing a little friendship and affection—not too much, of course—and then goes back to her life.”
Jane narrowed her eyes.
Levi smiled.
The cat looked back and forth between them until, with a last flick of her tail and a sniff, she jumped down and padded out the door.
“Humph,” Jane said, and Levi laughed and kissed her again. “Later, babe.”
She nodded, but struck dumb by his kiss, she didn’t move. And why did that keep happening? Shouldn’t she be used to their chemistry by now?
He grinned. “Cute. But you need to get going, remember?”
“Huh?”
“Your grandpa. Breakfast.”
When he was this close to her, the only thing she thought about was getting hot and bothered with him. As if he could hear her thoughts, his hand brushed up her side, skimming the outer swell of her breast before palming her neck so his thumb could play with her lower lip. A rush of desire shot southward and she went hot all over. Damn. She pointed at him. “You do that on purpose.”
“Feel free to get back at me any time.”
She was still smiling ten minutes later when she pulled into the Stovetop Diner parking lot. Even after all the time she’d spent with Levi, she still wanted more. A lot more.
Because it is real . . .
Since that thought gave her heart palpitations, she looked around. She’d beaten her grandpa here, which was unusual, since she knew for a fact he was usually halfway through a meal by now.
He showed up five minutes later, moving a little slower than she’d seen so far. She stood up, kissed him on his cheek, and then watched him slide into the booth as if he hurt everywhere. “What’s wrong?”
“I’m old.” He flashed a grin.
She didn’t return it because his mirth didn’t go all the way to his eyes. “Grandpa—”
The waitress came by with a smile and a coffeepot.
“Bless you,” her grandpa said, and the woman, three decades younger than him, gave him a wink.
“Hey, sexy. Your usual?” she asked.
“Yes, thank you, doll.”
The waitress turned and headed back to the bakery display.
“What’s your usual?” Jane asked him.
“Two Danish pastries.”
“What? No. Are you kidding me? Look, I’m sure you’re on a specific diet, right? One that I know damn well can’t possibly allow for two Danish pastries.”
He waved this off. “I’m like an old phone battery, Sugar Plum. Even when I charge myself overnight for twelve hours, by nine A.M, I’m already drained to forty percent. I need the sugar boost.”
Jane gestured for the waitress. “Could we get two of your healthy start breakfasts? Hold the pastries?”
The waitress looked at Grandpa, popping her gum. “I like this one,” she told him.
“Yeah, me too,” Grandpa said. “But she’s a little bossy.”
“You could use some of that in your life.” This time the waitress winked at Jane.
Soon as she was gone, Jane turned on her grandpa. “Do you really always eat Danishes for breakfast?”
“Unless you’re here, yeah.”
She was baffled. “But you had another heart attack.”
“Yes. Had. And I’m not planning on having another unless you’re going to keep yelling at me.”
She sighed. “We’ve talked about this. You can’t eat whatever you want anymore—that ship sailed. You have to give up the crap food.”
He reached over and covered her hand in his. “You know I’m going to bite it and go to the farm someday no matter what I eat, right?”
“Yes, but not any time soon, right?”
He shrugged and dropped the eye contact. “No one knows. That’s why it’s called life.”