One Funeral (No Weddings #2)(8)

Finally, he closed his laptop and turned his full attention toward me. “Actually, I’ve been meaning to talk about that too. The terms need to be renegotiated.”

I snorted at the smooth way he suggested I’d brought up the topic—which I had.

Sneaky Devil.

Crossing my arms, I stared hard at him. “Do tell.”

“We’re spending too much time at my house. Why don’t we do Sundays and Wednesdays at my house?”

I connected the dots. “And Mondays at my house.”

He grinned. “Fabulous. See, I knew you’d agree.”

Straightening in my chair, I shook my head. “I didn’t agree to anything.”

His electric-blue eyes gleamed. “Sure you did. Oh, and Fridays too.”

I gaped, brows furrowing. “Fridays too, what?”

“Fridays at your place.”

Somehow I’d lost total control with his attempts at confusing me. I glared at him. “Was I supposed to drink an extra cup of coffee this morning? What are you talking about?”

“Follow along, Maestro.” He had the audacity to grin. “We’re setting up our non-dates. Sundays and Wednesdays are at my place, Mondays and Fridays at your place. Saturdays will be for Invitation Only parties, or planning for them at my place or Kristen’s.”

We usually conducted event planning at his oldest sister’s house, which I was fine with. I stared at him, contemplating the additional day he suggested. The existing three nights worked well with our busy schedules; we both had to eat, and the business consulting was often minimal suggestions from him after which I worked on them on my tablet while he studied for his master’s courses.

He arched a brow. “Do you need me to grab a wall calendar to mark this all down? What kind would you like? Cute puppies or rural landscapes?” The corners of his lips twitched.

“Naked firemen.” I plucked a dark chocolate cupcake from his untouched plate, then leaned back while I made a great production of peeling the wrapper off one crinkle at a time.

He waved his hand dismissively, as if I was joking.

Or that naked men on my wall weren’t an option.

Feeling defiant, I made a mental note to order calendar pornography ASAP, just to rile him. “So no Tuesdays or Thursdays? You left a couple of days off of your monopoly of my schedule.”

“Nice, smartass.” He narrowed his eyes, then fought a smirk. “You know, we could do Tuesdays and Thursdays too. Then we’d have every day of the week covered.”

I struggled not to laugh at the ridiculousness of the conversation and his retaliatory suggestion. And yet the more he went on with his master plan, the more adorable he became.

He dropped his gaze back down to me. “You know I have class those nights. So it would be late, around 9:30 p.m., before I could make it over. Want to make those movie nights?”

I opened my mouth, but in his out-of-control scenario, my snarkiness abandoned me.

His gaze grew heated. “Could I spend the night if we fall asleep?”

Exasperated, I beaned a cupcake at him.

He caught it with a grin as crumbs fell into his lap and pale yellow icing coated his hand. Never one to let a good cupcake go to waste, he made quick work of demolishing the thing, licking his palm clean.

My focus drifted to those slow licks across his palm. How he paid special attention to the nook in between his fingers. How he sucked in a coated knuckle and held it there while he closed his eyes, savoring the taste.

When he opened his eyes, he flicked a glance at me.

Bastard.

I swallowed hard, then I took a deep breath and looked out the front window, trying to calm my racing heart. Cade knew I’d fall for his blatant tease. How I’d get caught up in the sexual heat between us that we both knew was there but pointedly ignored—for the time being.

“No. No Tuesdays. No Thursdays.” We needed time away from each other in there somewhere. His playful ego seemed to rule our crazy conversation.

But no matter how badly I wanted to snub his suggestion of bogarting my time, the idea of a night at my place and adding Fridays had serious merit. And chilling out the expectations between us while increasing the time we spent together was actually a good idea for emotionally handicapped people like us. We needed to get to know one another and build trust both in ourselves and in our budding relationship, but we also needed to take all the pressure off.

I slid a glance back toward him. “How about we do one dinner a week at my place and some Friday nights, but no commitment to Tuesdays or Thursdays? If we want to hang those nights, we’ll decide spur-of-the-moment.”

He smirked. “Spontaneous. I like this side of you, Maestro. Done.”

Leaning back into his corner of the couch, he flipped open his laptop again and clicked on his keyboard, brows furrowed in concentration.

I got up, dusting my hands free of cupcake crumbs, needing to process the new information. We’d gone from spending three nights a week together, mostly in the mixed company of his friends or sisters, to attempting nearly every night of the week, with two of them being us alone.

“Hannah?”

I turned back around. He’d put the laptop aside, and his attention was squarely on me. Without taking his gaze from me, he stood, strode over, and wrapped his arms around me. “I want you to know, I’m seriously looking forward to our non-dating.”