Page 70 of A Little Harmless Pleasure

This…this was all he needed. Since the night Cynthia had submitted to him, they’d been practically living together. Her little house on the North Shore was fantastic, but he knew that it would work better if she were living with him.

He blinked, most of his sleepiness now gone.

“What’s wrong?” Cynthia asked, her voice sleepy.

“Nothing.”

She chuckled as she raised her head.

“Christopher Demetri Dupree, don’t even try to lie to me. I know that something set you off.”

He hesitated before saying, “Living on the North Shore is going to make it hard getting to your bakery.”

“Not really. I mean, how many people are on the road at three in the morning?”

“Still, that’s a long drive.”

She shrugged. “Not when there’s hardly anyone on the road. Remember, I might have been from Lake City, but we lived out in the middle of nowhere. It took me at least thirty minutes to get to civilization. Won’t be a problem.”

He gritted his teeth and stared up at the ceiling, as he tried to come up with another excuse. He wanted her beside him every night. He loved that little cottage, but it was far away from both their restaurants, and he didn’t like the idea of having that commute for either of them. And then there was the thing about her independence. He knew that it was important that she have her own space. It was something she’d wanted for years. Now that she finally had it, Chris hated the idea of crowding her.

“Why don’t you tell me what this is about?”

He brought his attention back to her face. “I have something to ask you, but I don’t want you to take it the wrong way.”

“Chris? You’re scaring me.”

“Oh,chéri, no.” He pulled her into her arms. “I just thought it might be better if you lived in Honolulu.”

“Yeah, but my house is over on the North Shore. I’d buy a house over here, and while I can afford it, I think that’s wasteful. I mean, I love that cottage.”

She wasn’t making this easy.

“What I thought was that you could move in here with me.”

There was a long enough of a pause to worry him. “Is that a question?”

Her voice was soft and unsure. It had been so long since he had heard her speak like that.

“Yeah. It’s a question. Will you move in here with me? I completely understand if you don’t want to.”

She rose up again, then reached over to turn on the bedside light. He blinked against the harsh glare. Worry darkened her eyes, but it didn’t take away from her beauty. She sat there, completely nude, her hair a tousle of curls, her skin still flushed from exertion.

“Why wouldn’t I want to live with you?”

“I just thought you might still want some independence. Moving in with me might crowd you.”

Her shoulders relaxed and the apprehension seemed to dissolve. “Oh, Chris, living apart isn’t what makes me independent.”

“Yeah?”

She nodded. “You help me be independent by treating me as an equal. Every man before you treated me like someone who needed to be cared for not because they wanted to do it, but because they thought I couldn’t. Decisions were taken away from me because they didn’t trust me. That’s never been our relationship. You’ve always allowed me space to grow, and you respect my opinion.”

Irritation with all the men in her life whipped through him, but he hoped he hid it from her. He knew he didn’t when she laughed and leaned forward to cup his face. “Don’t be mad at them, especially Max. I would hate if I came between the two of you. Just be thankful.”

“Thankful?”

“Yeah. If they hadn’t been so ignorant, I would have stayed in that world. Instead, I grew a set—Anna’s words—and got a life. A life that includes doing something I love and spending my days and nights with a man I love. That…well, that’s everything.”

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