Rock Chick Reawakening (Rock Chick 0.5)(34)

I knew what I was saying.

But more, he knew it.

And he liked it.

A whole lot.

“Deal,” he replied, eyes still twinkling.

“Do you like pancakes?” I asked.

“Yes,” he answered.

I squinted at him. “Got a load of your six-pack, sugar.”

And I had. His chest and stomach were better than his back. Well, not really, it was just that I didn’t mind losing the sight of his back if I had his chest and abs to look at. Or his shoulders. Or his face.

“Daisy.”

On my name, he sounded like he was laughing.

I stopped thinking about his chest (and other things) and focused on him.

Yep.

Laughing.

Pull yourself together, girl!

“Sorry,” I muttered then rallied. “So, if I make you pancakes, will your body rebel and I’ll have to take you to the hospital? Or will you have to eat nothing but celery for two weeks to make up for it?”

“I cooked in your kitchen, honey,” he reminded me. “I didn’t notice many healthy options.”

“I’m Southern. If it isn’t fried, griddled, or grilled, it’s grilled, griddled, or fried. We might get up to some boilin’, but only if it’s crawfish, lobster, or shrimp, and I don’t have none of that.” I hesitated, making a mental grocery list before I concluded, “Right now.”

“I’m thinking I’ll have to add another hour to my workout every day if you’re doing the cooking.”

My eyes got big.

“You work out every day?”

His body shook against mine with his laughter and his word shook with it too, “Yes.”

“That explains it,” I muttered.

“Daisy?”

I focused again on him and not the delicious vision of him working out.

“Yeah?”

“You have a beautiful body, too.”

I smiled. “Thanks, sugar, that’s sweet.”

“You’re welcome, darling,” he said warmly. “But what I’m saying is, you have that body. You also have three packets of bacon, and only because I cooked up the last of the opened one yesterday, so before, you had three and a half.”

“This is true,” I confirmed, like having four packets of bacon (and I made another mental note for my grocery list that I was one down) was the most natural thing in the world.

Because it was.

“And you don’t work out?” he asked then added with his arms giving me a squeeze, “Every day?”

“I strip. Then I practice strippin’. Then I help the other girls practice strippin’, doin’ it by showin’ them some good moves.” I paused before I finished, “And I power walk.”

“Ah,” he murmured.

“I also have to cart around these bazungas,” I shared, deciding not to take my arm from around him (because I liked my arms around him) in order to gesture to said bazungas he couldn’t exactly miss since he was lying on them. “And that burns some calories, believe you me.”

He was still murmuring, and his eyes were still twinkling, when he said, “I bet.”

It was then I decided to remove an arm from around him but only so I could put a hand to his jaw and rub my thumb over the dark stubble on his cheek.

It rasped against the pad of my thumb and felt nice.

Real nice.

And I watched the twinkle in his eye disappear but only so he could replace it with something I liked just as much.

I kept doing this with my thumb as I said softly, “I need some aspirin, baby. I got me a little hangover from last night and it’s all good with you lookin’ hot on my couch and bein’ hot while kissin’ me then bein’ sweet while talkin’ about pancakes. But that’s settin’ in again so I gotta get on doin’ something about it and then feedin’ my hot guy.”

“You have an extra toothbrush?”

My eyes rolled back to study my bangs for a second as I mentally inventoried my bathroom drawers then I looked at him again and said, “Yeah.”

“You get me that. I’ll get you the water and aspirin. Then you can start cooking.”

I grinned at him.

“Deal.”





We were sitting at my dinette and I was shoveling in pancakes while envisioning the dining room table I was going to buy when I got my new place (this in an effort not to envision what Marcus’s shoulders looked like under the shirt he’d put back on—he was fine in that shirt—he was finer out of it).

Marcus was shoveling in pancakes too. Though, he was classier about it.

“How’d you get all classy?” I asked.

“Sorry?” he asked back.

I circled my fork with its hunk of pancakes dripping syrup at him.

“You said you didn’t have much growin’ up. Your daddy played the ponies. Your sister was a stripper. But you look and act like a Kennedy, except hotter, and without forgettin’ how to pronounce your R’s.”

“Got a job at a country club to help my sister out when I was fourteen,” he shared.

I nodded.

“Some of the adults were all right. The rest acted like I didn’t exist. The kids were jackasses.”

“I’ve got no doubt,” I murmured, watching him like a hawk.