Just for Now (Sea Breeze #4)(44)

The woman I’d just been paid well to entertain flashed in my mind, and I froze. I couldn’t touch Amanda right now. I had to get clean. I needed a shower. The hottest f*cking shower I could stand. Amanda didn’t need to be close to the cheap, meaningless sex I’d just had.

I opened the door and walked in. The television in my room was on, and I could hear the girls talking. Before either of them realized I was home, I headed for the bathroom.

Amanda



I heard the click of the front door closing and watched the bedroom doorway for Preston to appear. He didn’t. Glancing over at Daisy, who was now watching the television again after explaining to me that this girl was a bunch of kids’ nanny and a couple of them were adopted, I eased off the bed.

“I’ll be back,” I assured her when she turned her head full of curls to look at me. She smiled and went back to watching her show.

I closed the bedroom door on my way out and walked into the living room. The sound of the shower answered my question. Preston had come home from the gym all sweaty, and he wanted to get clean first. That was a shame. I’d have liked to see him sweaty.

I went over to the fridge and pulled out the fried chicken and biscuits that Daisy had helped me make earlier. Preston was sure to be hungry after being at the gym for three hours. I turned on the oven and put a chicken breast and a leg along with a couple of biscuits on a cookie sheet, then slid it inside. I wasn’t a fan of the microwave. I was more than positive it was the cause of all kinds of health problems.

The water in the shower turned off, and the butterflies in my stomach started up as I waited anxiously to see him again. It was ridiculous that I was so excited about it. He’d only been gone three hours.

When the bathroom door opened, Preston stepped out with nothing but a towel around his waist. There were no words for this. Nothing compared. His eyes met mine and a smile touched his lips.

“Hey you,” he said as he walked over to me. I was cemented to my spot in the kitchen.

“Hey,” I managed to reply. Keeping my eyes off his body and on his face was another problem.

“Something smells good.” He looked over at the oven, then back at me. “Did you cook?”

“Maybe.”

Preston lowered his head until his mouth hovered above mine. “Sexy as hell and she cooks. Dayum, baby, it don’t get no better.”

Giggling, I stood on my tiptoes to kiss his mouth before stepping back and checking on his chicken.

“Daisy helped me,” I told him.

“Is that so? I think you need to check on it again,” he said with a wicked grin on his face as I stood back up.

“It needs a few more minutes,” I explained.

“I was just admiring the view.”

I let my gaze travel down his damp, barely covered body, then back up again. “I could say the same,” I told him.

Preston’s eyes went dark and smoldering instantly. “You look at me like that again, and I’ll haul you off to the bathroom and take you up against the sink.”

I took a step toward him. “Is that a threat or a promise?”

Preston reached for my waist and jerked me against him, when the bedroom door opened. Daisy came skipping out, smiling.

“Pweston,” she called out in greeting, and then a small frown touched her forehead. “Wheyah is youwah clothes?”

I covered my mouth to stifle my laugh and reached for a pot holder to get Preston’s food out of the oven.

“Well, Daisy May, I need to go get some. I just took a shower to get the nasty off me.”

“We cooked you dinnah,” she said happily, pointing to the food I was putting onto a plate for him.

“And it looks delicious. Thank you, girls, for taking care of me. I’ll go get some clothes on, then come eat.”

“Good idea,” Daisy agreed.

I watched Preston walk toward the door to his room, and the view of him in his towel was just as nice from the back. I needed a fan.

“Did you tell him about the peanut buttah pie yet?” Daisy asked in a whisper after Preston closed the door.

“Nope. I thought I’d let you surprise him with it. Since you did all the hard work on it.”

Daisy clapped her hands and did a little happy dance. There was no way she was going to be able to let him eat all his meal before she pulled that pie out of the fridge.

“Why don’t you help me fix him a drink?”

Daisy ran to the dishwasher and got out a clean glass. She handed it up to me. “He likes to dwink root beeah, I think. ’Cause Jimmy said he dwinks beeah, but I don’t think it’s the kind my momma dwinks. He don’t like it when she dwinks that stuff.”

Bless her heart. She was so little and knew so much already. I wasn’t about to be the one to tell her that Preston did in fact drink beer. But I also knew there was not going to be any root beer in this kitchen.

“How about the sweet tea I made earlier? You think he’d like that?” I hoped so, because that was what he was getting. I opened the fridge and shoved the Bud Lights to the back of the fridge and moved the orange juice in front of them before Daisy noticed.

“It’s yummy sweet tea. I think he will,” she replied.

I finished pouring his tea and fixed him a plate at the table with Daisy’s help just in time for him to come strutting out of his room in a fitted light-blue T-shirt that matched his eyes, and a pair of low-slung jeans. That look should be illegal.