Page 24

My orgasm subsided, and my whole body went limp. The only thing that kept me from collapsing was my stance against the counter. Marco popped off my very happy cock with a sharp intake of breath. Panting, a triumphant, giddy smile on his beautiful face, he sat back on his feet.

At least, he tried to, but he overbalanced and ended up spilling to his back on my kitchen floor. His eyes went wide with surprise, then he burst into the most adorable, joyful laugh I’d ever heard as he sprawled there at my feet, jeans bulging. I started laughing, too, despite how ridiculous I must have looked with my knees half bent and my softening cock and balls hanging out of my slumped trousers.

I kind of liked Marco on his back with me standing over him. It brought out a side in me I didn’t know I had. I was just beginning to play with ideas of what we could do with that dynamic when a loud buzz came from Marco’s backside.

Marco gasped and rolled half to his side, reaching for his phone in his back pocket. “Shoot,” he hissed, staring at his phone screen and hesitating, then wincing and accepting the call. “Hey, Gilbert.”

As if all three of the Meyers brothers had suddenly appeared in my kitchen, I scrambled to pull my trousers and underwear up, tucking my happy cock away.

“Yeah, we’re on our way, we just got a little delayed, um, talking,” Marco told Gilbert, as if he was going to believe any of it. “Sure, sure. You can start without us if you need to. Uh-huh.” He ended the call.

Once my trousers were done up again and my belt fastened, I reached a hand down to help Marco to his feet. I was hot, and the flush across Marco’s cheeks told me he was still aroused. I really wanted to do something about that.

“I totally forgot the Halloween meeting over at Common Grounds,” Marco said, giggling.

Of all things, I started giggling, too. Marco brought out emotions and reactions in me that I never would have shown for anyone else. “Oh yeah, that’s why you came over here,” I said.

“And here I was ready to ignore everything else in my life to have dinner with you.”

The way he gazed up at me said he’d been willing to give up everything else to make me his dinner.

That went beyond flattery. That headed straight into worshipful territory. Marco was unlike anyone I’d ever met. I’d never wanted anyone so much. I didn’t care that we hadn’t really known each other for that long. I wanted to get to know everything about him and keep him in my life for as long as possible.

“We should probably go over there,” Marco said after we’d been staring at each other for way too long in breathless silence.

“Yeah, we’d better,” I said.

Neither of us moved for a few more, intense seconds, then we both pushed ourselves into motion.

“I’ll take a rain check on supper,” Marco laughed as we headed out of my apartment and back downstairs.

“I’ll accept that rain check,” I said. We both knew it was more than just supper we intended to enjoy with each other as soon as we had a chance.

CHAPTER 7

Marco

To say I was floating on a pumpkin-shaped cloud nine for the next couple of days would be an understatement. I’d always been ridiculous when I was in love, but as my big, stupid heart turned to complete mush for Bastian post-surprise BJ, I was even more insufferable than usual.

“Are you sure you want to put that box in the window display?” Hugh asked from closer to Provisions’ counter three days before Halloween.

“Hmm?” I hummed dreamily as I gazed across the street to the funeral parlor.

Hugh cleared his throat.

I blinked and looked down at the decoration I’d been placing in our window display. It wasn’t the carved pumpkin I thought I’d picked up, but rather one of the plain boxes a delivery of local harvest honey had arrived in the day before.

“Oh.” I blinked again, then laughed, turning away from the window and walking the box toward the stock that Hugh had been putting on the shelves.

Not that the shop really needed restocking. We hadn’t had a customer through the doors in the last hour, and Provisions hadn’t exactly turned into the community hot-spot I’d hoped it would since opening two weeks ago.

“I don’t know where my head is,” I giggled—yes, giggled—as I grabbed the pumpkin I’d carved earlier and returned to the window. “Of course, if I was Ichabod Crane, this would be my head,” I added with a laugh.

“It wasn’t Ichabod Crane, it was the Headless Horseman,” Hugh called after me with an indulgent grin.

I paused in the act of putting the jack-o-lantern down in the new window display. “Oh. I guess you’re right.” I laughed again and went on with rearranging the display.

Provisions hadn’t had just one display over the last two weeks since opening, it’d had several. I loved dressing windows. It had been one of my favorite things to do in the cheese shop in Manhattan. I’d come up with a few brilliant ideas back then, and even though my brand-new store didn’t have all of the capabilities of a longstanding NYC shop, I was able to construct a pretty impressive scary face using wedges of cheese for teeth and jars of chili jam for spooky eyes.