Page 98 of Pucking Wild

I hold back my smile. “Only about two hundred degrees. And all the heat comes from the top-down when you broil. That’s why it burned.”

“Fuck.” He peers down at the stove, looking at the dials. “Where does it say that?”

I inch around the island, coming to stand beside him. “See this one here?” I point at the oven dial. “You just turned it to broil instead of bake.”

He narrows his eyes. “So, one click to the left is broil and one to the right is bake?”

“Yep.” I brush my hand over his shoulder. “It’s okay. It’s a mistake anyone could have made.”

“Yeah…anyone,” he says, wholly dejected by his failure.

I lean my hip against the counter, crossing my arms as I glance over at him. “Why were you trying a recipe as adventurous as lobster mac?”

He looks like such a sad puppy that I’m actually struggling to restrain myself from petting his hair. “For you,” he admits softly. “It was supposed to be my ‘I’m sorry’ peace offering.”

“Peace offering?”

“Yeah—Tess, listen.” He turns to face me, his hands bracing my shoulders. “I’m sorry, okay? I was totally out of line the other day.”

My heart skips as I hold his gaze. “Ryan—”

“No, let me get this out, okay? I’m sorry. I was a jerk. I was projecting what I would do and how I feel onto your situation, and I was pushing you, and I wasn’t being your friend. I was being…well, I was being like a macho boyfriend, and that’s not fair to you.”

“You were just trying to look out for me.”

“I think we both know you can look out for yourself.” He reaches up, flicking a curl back from my face. “You’re so fucking strong. And you’re smart. You’re seriously like Wonder Woman. You’ve got the brains and the beauty and you just…you fucking floor me. And I want to be your friend, and I want to earn that friendship, and this was me saying sorry, but I fucking ruined it,” he finishes in one breath, gesturing again to the burned casserole.

“You didn’t ruin anything,” I reply. “I love my peace offering. It’s perfect.”

We both glance down at it, and then we’re laughing. His deep laugh mixes with my higher notes and I smile, liking the sounds we make together. It makes my heart flutter all over again.

Letting out a deep breath, he shakes his head and opens his arms. “Come here.”

I eagerly step into him, my arms wrapping around his waist as his go around my shoulders, locking me against him. I turn my face, resting it against his chest. One hand curls up and he brushes his fingers over my hair, cradling my head to him. We fit together.

Tipping his head down, he kisses my brow, just a quick brush with his lips. “We promised that the rule of this game would be feeling good, yeah?”

I nod.

He leans away slightly, tucking a finger under my chin to tip my face up. “You make me feel so fucking good, Tess. And I don’t want to ruin it. Let’s just…can we maybe try and quiet all the other noise—when it’s just the two of us, at least? And not that I don’t want to hear your problems, or be there for you as a friend,” he adds quickly. “You can tell me anything and I’ll listen. But I think if our goal is feeling good, that should maybe be a part of the house rules.”

I nod again, my entire body flooding with relief. Of course, I don’t have to march in and sit Ryan down to have the grownup conversation about boundaries. We’re already on the same page. Our writing styles may be a little different, but we’re trying to tell the same story.

“That sounds perfect,” I say. “You make me feel good too. I’d like to keep feeling good with you.”

His gaze heats as he looks down at me, his hands holding me firmly against him. “What would feel good? Say it, and it’s yours.”

Standing in this mess of a kitchen, our clothes stinking of epically burned lobster mac, I flash him a teasing grin. “Oh, I knowexactlywhat I want.”

37

“So…what? Now we just sit here?” I glance skeptically around the dark interior of Mars’s private, at-home sauna.

“Mhmm,” Tess replies as she leans back against the wall and drapes a wet washcloth over her forehead, covering her eyes.

This is all her fault. She helped me clean up the kitchen and said we needed to give the house time to air out. Her big idea was for us to strip naked and shove ourselves into a human oven while we wait for the nasty smells of the food oven to dissipate.

So here I am, naked and sweating my ass off next to her, not touching her. This feels like a punishment.

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