Page 51 of Crazy Little Thing Called Love

She paused on her way to the table. He took care of her when she got sick last night, gave her multiple mind-blowing orgasms this morning, fixed her coffee the way she liked, made her breakfast, and remembered she liked fruit in the mornings. The tiny bit of melting turned into a full out puddle. Dammit! How was she supposed to keep her fake fiancé at a distance when he kept being so darn sweet?

“Thank you.” She sat at the table, picking up her coffee mug without thought and taking a sip. Mmm. He even made great coffee.

“Here you go.” He set a plate piled high with food in front of her, then placed another at the opposite end of the table and took a seat.

She glanced at the mountain of food before her and laughed. “I think you seriously overestimated how much I can eat.”

“Or maybe I’m just trying to stock up your energy reserve for later.” He winked.

“Del, I think we should talk about what happened this morning.”

The happy smile disappeared from his face, fork full of fluffy scrambled eggs pausing on the way to his mouth. “You’re not going to say something stupid like ‘it was a mistake’ are you? Because I don’t think the fingernail impressions you left on my back would agree with that statement.”

Her face heated. “No.”

“No what?”

“It wasn’t a mistake.”

He smiled, shoving the bite of food into his mouth and nodding. “Good.”

“But I do think we need to discuss what this means for our…situation.”

“Why does it have to mean anything?”

“Beg pardon?”

He took a bite of toast, thinking through his words carefully before he spoke “We’re both adults and unattached. Why can’t we keep enjoying what we’re doing? The whole town thinks we’re engaged anyway. This just adds another layer of validity to our plan. Like a fiancés-with-benefits type thing.”

“Don’t real fiancés already get benefits?”

“Yes, but as you’ve pointed out, many times, we aren’t real. It’s all just pretend.”

“Except the sex?” She didn’t know why she was pushing on this, but she couldn’t stop herself.

“Well, yeah. The sex is real, but that doesn’t mean it has to complicate things.”

“So, we can just, what? Make it casual? Sex for fun?”

He grinned, tearing off a piece of bacon with his teeth. “Now you’re getting it.”

Yeah, she got it all right. So why didn’t she like it? Del was right. Nothing about their relationship was real. Why did she have this clawing pain in her chest? Why was she so angry he wasn’t taking the physical aspect of their relationship more seriously? Wasn’t this what she wanted? No strings sex? She thought so. Perhaps this funk she felt came from the oddness of the whole thing.

She’d never had sex outside of a long-term relationship before. This could be a new experience. Something fun and outrageous. Marrying your best friend’s little brother just to fulfill a codicil in a will was outrageous enough, why not add casual sex in the mix?

She decided to change the subject before her brain exploded from overthinking. “Tell me more about your restaurant plans.”

“It’s going to be great. I have the whole thing planned out. We’ll stick to lunch and dinner hours but keep it more casual than The Pine so people can come for an everyday type meal. Plus, we’ll be serving drinks with Jack’s liquor so it will stimulate the distillery.”

Del smiled, not his flirty panty dropping grin, but a genuine happy smile. It looked good on him. She ate the delicious breakfast he prepared while listening to his plans. It seemed like a great idea. The restaurant sounded fun, family friendly, but also a great date night place. Kismet could use another eatery, especially one that catered to the everyday meal. She loved watching Del’s face light up as he explained his ideas for menus and special cocktails. She had no idea the man had such a passion hidden inside his fun-guy exterior.

“Wow. It sound’s like you’ve thought of everything.”

“Thanks. I’ve been working on it for over a year.”

“You have?”

Broad, bare shoulders shrugged. “It was my senior project last year.”

---