Page 68 of After Tonight

He just looked at her for a long moment. “I was at the bookstore helping Lucy just now. She wants to have a stage built for Kade’s book thing.”

Riley wasn’t sure why he was suddenly telling her this, but she nodded. “That was nice of you.”

“You’re not worried about that at all? That I wanted to date Lucy, and I went over first thing this morning to help her out?”

Riley frowned. “Of course not.”

He paused another long moment. Then said simply, “I need a shower.”

Her body instantly heated. It was the way he was looking at her. Or the idea of him naked and wet. Or the way he’d made her come already so many times. Or the way he’d held her. Or the fact that they had an imperfect history but still liked each other. Or all of the above. She nodded. “Me too.”

With that, he pushed away from the counter, strode toward her, tugged her to her feet, and lifted her over his shoulder. His big hand covered her ass as he carried her into the bathroom.

* * *

Three weeks.

Derek couldn’t remember the last time he’d dated a woman for three weeks.

But he also couldn’t remember a time when he’d had so much fun. Riley Ames was fun.

“Okay, I don’t know what your love affair with onions is all about,” Riley said, wiping her mouth with a napkin. “But you have to pull back.”

It had taken him a week to actually get her to taste his pizza. She’d loved the barbecue chicken and the Everything Goes that he’d first introduced her to. Her favorite so far was the pepperoni and cream cheese, but she also really liked the taco pizza. Tonight, he’d pulled out a couple more specialty pizzas. The Philly cheesesteak, apparently, had too many onions.

“Fine.” He jotted down a note.

“And I think you need a different seasoning on the beef. This almost tastes like fajita meat.”

Their eyes met and they both smiled and said “fajita pizza” at the same time.

Riley laughed. “That might work. But cool it with the onions.”

“Yes, I’ve got it.” He reached over and snagged one of the onions, popping it in his mouth. “I think you’re wrong, but I’ll pull back.”

She nodded and hopped down from where she’d been perched on the countertop. “As long as you do whatever I tell you, you’re going to be fine.”

He watched her ass as she headed for the fridge and a bottle of water.

“As long as the only thing you boss me about is the pizza, I’m going to be fine,” he said.

She turned to face him, twisting the top of the bottle off. “Is that right?”

“It is.” He leaned back, folding his arms. “You put too many chocolate chips in the chocolate chip pancakes, and you put too much orange juice in screwdrivers.”

Riley came back toward him. “First, there’s no such thing as too many chocolate chips in anything.”

“It’s like having a pile of chocolate chips with a little pancake batter around them.”

She stopped in front of him, tipping her head back. She smiled. “Exactly. Perfect.”

When she was close enough to touch, he couldn’t keep his hands to himself. He lifted a finger and dragged it along the neckline of her off-the-shoulder tee. “And while sweet is perfectly fine when screwing, you also have to have the drive to make it really good.”

She laughed. “The vodka is the drive?”

“Yep. The drive has to be there with the sweet.”

She stepped even closer and ran her hand up his chest. “I gotta admit that you have a point there. I’ll concede.”

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