Page 34 of First Comes Marriage

She wore black bike shorts that made her legs seem even longer than he’d thought possible and a worn Rhode Island School of Design t-shirt that was two sizes too big. Her hair was pulled up in a messy bun on the top of her head and her face was clean, her usual eye makeup washed away. He let his gaze trace the long lines of her legs, over each toe dug into his carpet, over the flared curve of her hips. As beautiful as she was in pencil skirts and heels, Baz thought this might be his favorite version of her—a little undone, a little less polished, a little more...her.

As she made her own perusal of his body in the gray sweatpants that left little to the imagination, he bit back the irrational burst of satisfaction at the awareness in her eyes taking in the sight of him.

With a tilt of his head, he said, “Come on,” and led her into the kitchen.

“It’s two o’clock in the morning,” she protested, but she padded after him.

In the kitchen, he dug through his silverware drawer until he located the good ice cream scoop that Tessa had bought him for Christmas last year and used it to gesture to a seat at the marble island. She huffed but sat, and he turned away before she could see his smile.

“What are you doing?”

He opened the freezer and pulled out two pints of ice cream in plain white containers. “Strawberry or mint chocolate chip?”

“You want to have ice cream? Now?” He eyed the containers and then looked back at her, waiting for her to realize what a ridiculous question that was. Finally, she said, “Strawberry.”

He nodded, placing both pints on the counter. He filled a white ceramic bowl with strawberry before filling his ownbowl with mint chocolate chip and returning the pints to the freezer. “It’s local,” he said, as he retrieved a jar of Tessa’s homemade chocolate sauce from the fridge. He held it up for her to see and she nodded enthusiastically. “Made with local strawberries. And mint.” Each of their bowls topped with a suitable amount of chocolate sauce, he returned the jar to the fridge and brought the bowls over to the island. He slid onto the seat opposite Sabrina and set her bowl in front of her. “I’m out of whipped cream.”

Sabrina brought a scoop of her ice cream to her mouth, her eyes falling closed as her lips wrapped around her spoon. “God, that’s good,” she moaned. “You can really taste the strawberry. I wouldn’t have taken you for a fancy ice cream kind of guy.”

“Strawberry’s not fancy.”

“Local strawberry is.” She leaned towards him, her spoon hovering near the edge of his bowl. “Can I?” she asked, gesturing towards his bowl.

He nodded and watched with rapt attention as she scooped up a bite of his mint chocolate chip and slid it into her mouth.

“Oh, fuck,” she groaned, her tongue darting out to wipe away a drop of chocolate from her lip.

He forced his eyes back to his bowl of ice cream and shifted in his seat, willing his cock to stand down. Had it been that long since he’d been with a woman that he was getting hard watching Sabrina eat ice cream?

“That’s a freaking religious experience in a bowl.” Another bite. Another moan that his cock definitely noticed. “That’s it. You’ve ruined me. I am ruined. I can never eat grocery store ice cream again.”

“You’re welcome.”

“Where would one get local ice cream? You know, if one were to run out and need to restock the freezer,” she asked between bites.

He bit the inside of his cheeks to keep from smiling. “There’sa stand at the farmer’s market.”

She stared at him. “Yougo to the farmer’s market?”

“Fuck, no. Jamie gets it delivered to the restaurant. He always gets a few extra pints for me.”

“That’s Tessa’s husband?”

He nodded. “She made the chocolate sauce.”

“I’ll have to thank her next time I see her then.”

Right, because Sabrina was friends with Tessa now. He wondered how their girls’ night had been, Knowing Tessa and Kyla, they would have welcomed Sabrina with open arms into their little club of wives and girlfriends, the newest addition to his group of friends. He wasn’t ready to examine how much he liked the idea of including Sabrina in that group.

The sound of their spoons scraping their bowls filled the silence between them. After a while, Baz chanced a glance at her to find her dancing happily in her seat as she spooned bites of ice cream into her mouth. She licked the last of the chocolate sauce off her spoon and set it down, resting her forearms on the countertop as she leaned forward.

“You seem like you’re feeling better,” he said, his voice turning up at the end like he wasn’t quite sure if it was a question.

“Oh, that.” She took her time gathering another bite of ice cream, and for a minute he thought she might not say anything else. “I have PCOS.” She glanced at him, and his lack of understanding must have been written all over his face, because she smiled wryly and continued. “It means my ovary creates cysts when they shouldn’t. Sometimes they’re really big.”

“Your reproductive organs are overachievers?”

She huffed out a laugh. “Pretty much the exact opposite actually. When the cysts get too big, the ovary twists under its weight.”

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