Light up the Night (Firehouse Three #2)(43)

Remembering the night they’d passed together, Drake smiled into her hair. The sex had been unbelievable. She was as wild and as passionate as he could ever have wished for her to be. There was no trace of the hesitation that had marred their last awkward encounter.

And then for her to drop that invitation on him? He felt like the luckiest man alive to wake up with this beautiful woman in bed next to him.

The beautiful, boneless heap next to him grunted something that sounded like “Imssit.”

“I couldn’t understand you,” Drake said as he ran his fingers through long, silky dark hair. God, it was like satin. “What’d you say?”

“Time is it?” Everly’s eyes were open to mere slits, as if she was too exhausted to go for a full-on view of the daylight hours.

Drake knew the feeling. They’d been at it for a long time before they both passed out in bed, Gossamer in her puppy ass-palace.

“Looks like ten after eight,” Drake said, pressing a kiss to her shoulder. “Want coffee?”

“Yeah,” she said, stretching.

With everything they’d done last night, he should be wrung out, exhausted, good to take a break for a few days at least. But the sight of her surrounded by his sheets, her hair mussed from a good f*cking, her back arching and breasts thrusting skyward as she stretched had him hardening up like the damn bedpost again.

“You keep that up and neither of us will have coffee for a long time,” he growled playfully before dropping a kiss to her lips and swinging his legs over the edge of the bed.

He reached for the pair of basketball shorts he’d left draped over the foot rail. A sound behind him made him turn.

Everly was sitting upright in his bed, holding the sheet up to cover her bare breasts.

He paused, one foot in his shorts. “You okay?”

She shook her head quickly, as if she was clearing the cobwebs. “Yeah, sorry, I’m fine.” Turning her back to him, she cleared her throat. “Is it okay if I use your bathroom?”

“Sure, you know where it is. You don’t have to ask.”

Without answering, she slipped out of his bed and darted toward the door, a white flash of naked skin that was gone much too soon for his greedy gaze.

With his shorts donned, he frowned.

Damn it. Was she getting all up in her head again about them?

Breathe, man. Just keep on keepin’ on. Give her some time to get used to all this.

With his brain in a much better place than his guts were, Drake went into the kitchen and began loading grounds into the belly of the caffeine beast.

The familiar ritual helped him chill out, and as the dark, fragrant aroma began filling the kitchen, he dug through the fridge for everything he needed. One by one, ingredients hit the counter.

Eggs. Cheese. Butter. Bacon. A little green pepper, some onion, some fresh mushrooms.

Snatching his apron from the hook behind the door, he pulled it on, noting as he tied the strings that he’d forgotten to put his shirt on when he’d left the bedroom.

Oh, well. Maybe Everly would like the look. He sure as hell hoped so.

He got to choppin’. Soon there were mounds of diced onion, pepper, and mushroom on his cutting board while bacon sizzled in the pan. He was cracking eggs into a bowl when a set of cool hands slipped beneath the bib of his apron to wrap around his waist.

“Sorry,” Everly said, her voice muffled against the bare skin of his back. “I didn’t mean to get weird.”

“No need to apologize,” Drake said, smiling as he tossed the empty eggshells into the pile of kitchen scraps he’d accumulated from his early-morning Emeril routine. “You like omelets?”

“Love them,” Everly said, pressing a quick, searing kiss to his spine that made Drake wish he could just let the food burn and take her down to the linoleum. “But I’m not a fan of peppers.”

“Consider them fired,” Drake said. He turned just long enough to wrap one arm around Everly and tuck her in to his side.

Bending her backward, he kissed her long, hard, and thoroughly. When he set her back on her feet, he calmly resumed scrambling the eggs in the bowl.

“Pour yourself a cup of coffee and keep me company?”

Everly nodded, looking dazed. He was gratified as hell that he wasn’t the only one going crazy with desire here.

The eggs sizzled in the pan, and Drake got serious about the cooking. A sharp, insistent chiming sound brought his head around for a second.

The first thing he thought about was the chief and that weird comment he’d made when Drake had left the station last. Damn it, he couldn’t drop this to answer.

“Everly, would you mind answering my phone for me? I’ve got my hands full.”

“Sure,” she said, darting from the kitchen, leaving her coffee cup behind.

His phone had been in the living room. From his vantage point at the stove, he could hear Everly’s end of the conversation fairly easily.

“Hello?” She paused. “No, this is Drake Hammerfell’s phone. He’s tied up right this second, can I take a message?”

Another pause. Drake reached for one of the two plates he’d pulled down and put Everly’s omelet—free of green pepper—onto it. He slapped the rest of the egg mixture into the pan and started cooking his own.

“This is—well, this is his girlfriend.”