The Private Serials Box Set(43)

“Preston,” I rasped, his hands moving from my waist to my ass, pulling me against him, pressing his erection into me.

“You hungry, baby?” he said, as if he weren’t currently pawing at me.

“Yes,” I groaned. I was hungry for him. For us. For all of it. He gently bit my neck, trailed his teeth up to my jaw, and then traced the edge all the way to my chin, where he ended with a tiny kiss.

“Let’s go eat dinner then.” His hand found mine and before I could protest he was pulling me from the room and down the hall toward the kitchen. I followed without objection, but I wore a frown until I saw the smorgasbord of Chinese food waiting on the dining room table. “I didn’t know what you liked, so I might have gone overboard and ordered a little bit of everything.”

“You didn’t have to do all of this. I would have been happy with some rice and crab puffs.”

“I’d do anything to make you happy,” he said, all playfulness gone from his voice. I turned and saw the lust gone from his eyes. The only expression he wore was one of earnest. I smiled at him, loving the way he chose to care for me.

“I’m beginning to realize that.” I pressed my hand to his cheek, gently rubbing my thumb against his skin. I leaned forward and kissed him chastely. “Thank you for dinner,” I said, my forehead pressed against his.

“You’re welcome. Come on. Sit. Let’s eat.”

As we ate the Chinese food, which we’d never be able to finish because it could have fed an entire Chinese village, I realized there were fundamental things I didn’t know about Preston. When we first met, he asked me quite a few questions about myself and I never really reciprocated because asking questions wasn’t part of my job. But now, as I sat across from him at his dinner table in my nightgown, it became apparent there were things about him I wanted to know. Things a woman should know about the man she’s sleeping with.

“Preston?”

“Yes, baby?” he said as he dropped a dumpling in his mouth from his chopsticks.

“Will you tell me about your family?”

He swallowed and took a sip of his water, but then he gave me a questioning look. “What exactly do you want to know?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know. General stuff. How many siblings you have, whether you got along with them, if you see them often, if you’re close with your mom and dad. Stuff like that.” I took a breath, not realizing I would be nervous asking him about himself. “I just feel like you know a lot more about me than I know about you. I want to know you.”

His eyes softened at my admission and a smile hinted at his lips. “I have two brothers and a sister.” His smile grew wider. “A twin sister, actually.”

“You have a twin?”

“Yeah. She’s pretty great. You’ll have to meet her soon.”

“What’s her name?”

“Piper,” he said with a gorgeous, loving smile.

“Piper and Preston,” I said, testing the name duo out. “Who’s older?”

“I am, by three minutes. She’s the baby of the family and she’s got three older brothers. We made her teenage years miserable,” he said, laughing.

“Does she live nearby?”

“She lives in New York City, actually. We moved there together after college, but when I wanted to leave the city to come back to Portland, she wanted to stay.” He started to push his food around his plate with his fork.

“You miss her.”

He shrugged this time. “I do, but I know she’s happy there.”

“Are your brothers local?”

“Yeah. They both work for my dad at his law firm in town.”

“Names?”

“Parker and Patton.”

I laughed. “So your parents liked the names with Ps?”

“Who? Pamela and Paul? Yes. They liked the P names.”

I laughed louder this time. “Are you serious?”

“Perfectly,” he said with a face made of stone, which only made me laugh louder.

“Well,” I said through chuckles, “you’ll have a big decision to make when you get married about whether to hold out for a woman whose name starts with a P.”

“Oh, no,” he said loudly. “I’m not putting my wife and kids through that. There will be no name alliteration happening.” His gaze lingered on me for a moment and then he asked, “Do you have any siblings?”

“Nope. I was an only child. Well, sort of. I had a sister, but she died when I was very young. I don’t even remember her.”

“Oh. I’m so sorry,” he said, sitting up a little straighter with my news.

“No, really, it’s okay. I’m mean, it’s not okay, but it was a long time ago. Like I said, I don’t even really remember her. I just remember the idea of her, kind of.”

“Do you mind if I ask what happened?”

“No, not at all. It was the Fourth of July and we were at a party a friend of my parents was throwing. Their house was near a lake and somehow Nadia wandered away and drowned.” I sighed, remembering that day through the lens of my three-year-old eyes. “It was really tragic and, naturally, my parents took her death very hard. As I grew up, I dealt with the fact that my parents were really protective of me and terrified something would happen to me.” I looked back down at my plate. “I’m sorry. This conversation got really depressing all of a sudden. I didn’t mean to bring you down.”