Two Bar Mitzvahs (No Weddings #3)(54)
When I glanced over at her, tears brimmed in her eyes. She took a deep breath.
“Hey.” I lifted a hand up, brushing my knuckles on her cheek. “It’s okay. The weekend isn’t over yet.”
“Sorry.” She let out a short laugh. “I’m being silly. I just had such a great time—all the family, you and me, away from everything.”
Away from Madison is what she meant. All the problems. And all the demands of both of our jobs that pulled us apart.
We turned into her driveway, and I parked in front of her garage before cutting the engine. Then I turned fully toward her. “We have a great time. We decide how happy we are even with real-life things happening around us that we can’t control. There will always be that. But no matter where we go or what happens, we’ll have us in the middle of it all.”
She nodded. A tear escaped and tracked down her cheek. I brushed it away with my thumb before leaning over and kissing her softly.
When I eased away, she smiled and tightened her hold on my hand. “I love the ‘us in the middle of it all’ part. Makes us sound invincible. Thank you for understanding. All the good emotions from the weekend flooded in all at once.”
I gave her another quick kiss. “I promise, Maestro. We’ll make plenty of great weekend memories.”
Below us, Ava interrupted with a yip. Then she stood on Hannah’s lap, separating us.
I laughed as I leaned back and unfastened my seatbelt. “Remember to secure Ava.” I arched a brow. “Unless you want to be tossed off your dock too.”
Hannah grinned with mischief in her eyes, as if she couldn’t decide whether or not to heed my warning. After a moment, she twisted in her seat and corralled Ava back into her crate.
I grabbed Hannah’s bag from the back, and she circled around the front of the Jeep, meeting me at the driver’s door. As we walked up her front pathway, she leaned into me. Wordlessly, we slowed our pace, our steps dragging as we neared the inevitable good-bye for tonight.
She glanced up at me. “You know, you could get me a very different kind of wet…”
I watched that sexy lip get sucked in again. “Woman, you’re insatiable.” I dropped her bag onto the landing and pulled her close, staring into her eyes. “We could get all kinds of wet. But we both know, if I follow you through your front door, there will be no sleep. We’ve got a big week ahead of us.”
And there it was, thrown out in the open—the crash back into reality. We faced our most challenging event to date, and one challenging wrench, who enjoyed throwing herself into our smooth-running gears.
Hannah nodded slowly and dropped her gaze down to a spot on my chest where her fingers dragged in a circle. “I know. The responsible part of me realizes we have a ton of work to do. But I’m still channeling my blissful, ignorant side. Can’t we be bad and good? Sex and sleep?”
I groaned, closing my eyes, wondering if I had the willpower to indulge in her body for only a few hours, knowing we won’t have the time to play for days. In the end, there really wasn’t a choice. I opened my eyes and sighed. “Go grab Ava. I’ll text Mase so he doesn’t think we crashed while driving home.”
Hannah squealed, wrapped her arms around my neck, and kissed me hard. “Thank you! I promise we can get to sleep by a reasonable hour.”
Laughing, I smacked her ass as she turned and ran off to retrieve Ava. I followed after her while texting a “home in the a.m.” to Mase.
Hannah put Ava on a leash before pulling her out of the Jeep and plopping her down. I watched the two of them striding alongside one another up the walkway. Our picture-perfect family of three struck me as very innocent—totally opposite of all the naughty plans I had for the next few hours.
While she slid the key into the lock, I slipped my hands around her hips and lowered my mouth to her neck. She shivered under my touch.
I grinned. “I plan to do everything in my power to get you to break that early sleep promise.”
***
The following morning, I sat at my kitchen table in a fog. Too much sex and too little sleep made for a very satisfied, but groggy, Cade. I stared at the computer screen, but no valuable thoughts pinged between my ears.
I got up with a yawn, rubbed my eyes, and poured another cup of coffee—some Italian grind Mase’s girlfriend, Laura, had given to him to make him more “civilized.” I blew on the surface, then took a few sips on my way back to the table. Wasn’t bad, although nothing beat a cup of reliable Starbucks in the company of Hannah.
But Hannah and I had collapsed sometime shortly before midnight and woken only a few hours later. When she left for her shop before 4:00 a.m., I drove home with Ava, then sat down to start working through emails before tackling the to-do list.
Hannah’s “wet” comment last night flashed into my mind. Maybe I hadn’t tossed her off of her dock, but I had chased her into the shower. I smiled, remembering all the laughter. We’d had no problem extending our weekend fun. I looked at the time at the bottom of my laptop: 7:16 a.m., and I wondered what she was up to. She was probably running around in her apron, her arms covered in flecks of icing.
Damn. Now I want a cupcake for breakfast.
“Focus, Cade.” I forced myself to go through the list for Saturday’s event. There was still a shitload of stuff to do. Every item had been ordered, but inevitably things got screwed up without double checks. Sometimes wrong things got delivered even with them. Which left us to sort out the mess, flying by the seat of our pants with makeshift solutions.