Playing for Keeps (Heartbreaker Bay #7)(47)

Even though he couldn’t see her face, she closed her eyes. “I thought guys didn’t like to cuddle after or talk. I thought they liked to get down to business and vámonos .”

His hand, flat on her belly, slid up between her breasts, over her throat to gently cup her jaw and turn it so she was looking at him. “Do you want me to go?”

She opened her mouth to say yes, but she knew that he’d do it, he’d respect her wishes and go. And though she didn’t want to talk, she also didn’t want him to leave.

“Sadie.”

“No,” she said, turning to face him, letting her fingers do the talking southbound from his chest. “I don’t want you to go.”

He sucked in a breath when she wrapped both hands around him again. “Because you want . . .”

“You,” she said. And then she pushed him flat and straddled him to do some more of their special brand of show-not-tell.





Chapter 16




Shockingly, Sadie slept deeply the rest of the night and woke up at . . . She squinted at the time. “Nine o’clock?” she gasped. “What in the . . . ?” Okay, so it was Monday, her day off, and she didn’t need to get up, but she hadn’t slept this late in . . . well, ever.

She didn’t have to roll over to know she was alone in the bed. Scratch that. Lollipop lifted her sleepy head and wagged her tail in greeting.

Sadie had no idea when Caleb had slipped out. After round two—no, make that three, she’d been dead to the world. Normally, her cold fingers and toes and nose woke her up, but not this morning and suddenly she realized why.

Her heat was on.

Slipping out of the covers, she headed straight for the thermostat in the hallway, followed by a sleepy Lollipop.

The furnace, which she’d left off, was on now and set at sixty-eight degrees.

Sixty-eight.

Panic gripped her. She couldn’t afford it that high. She opened her laptop and went to her account to see the usage and saw that someone had paid her bill.

For the rest of the year.

Seeing as it was February, this was a huge deal and her eyes narrowed. “Oh no he did not,” she said to Lollipop, who smiled up at Sadie and sat.

On Sadie’s foot.

Since Lollipop was finally putting some meat on her bones and was getting too big for Sadie to easily pick up, she dropped to her knees and cuddled the dog close. “You love me more, right? Even though he’s handsome and smells good and just paid to keep us warm for the next year?”

Lollipop licked her chin.

“Thank you.” Sadie moved to her fridge for the leftovers she’d gotten from Rocco, but when she opened the door, she froze in shock.

The fridge was stocked. Like fully stocked with fruits and veggies and a whole assortment of goodies that had her just staring in disbelief. She turned to find her phone, which she knew damn well she’d left on the counter last night, as usual forgetting to plug it in.

It was still on the counter but plugged into her charger. She stared at it for a full moment and then called Ivy. “Question,” she said when her friend answered. “If a guy you’re not dating pays one of your bills and then sneakily fills your fridge with food and also charges your cell phone, do you freak?”

Ivy was quiet for a beat. “I think,” she finally said very gently, “you take a deep breath and then another one, and then you set aside your pride and ego to make the decision.”

“What decision? Whether or not to get a restraining order?”

“No,” Ivy said patiently but heavy on amusement, “the decision on whether the fact that he’s trying to take care of you in probably the only way he knows how makes you feel cared for and special, or does it make you want to set up an alarm so you can zap his very fine ass with a stun gun if he tries it again?”

Sadie sighed. He did have a very fine ass . . . “Maybe a combo? What do you think?”

“I think you’re feeling cared for and special, and that freaks you out.”

“I’m not freaked out.”

“You’re practically hyperventilating,” Ivy said.

Oh God. She was. Because she did feel cared for. And maybe, dammit, special. “He can’t just do this sort of thing,” she said. “I’m a big girl and I take care of myself.”

“Noted,” Ivy said. “But you’re telling the wrong person. And Sadie?”

“Yeah?”

“Have some faith. Remember my spicy chorizo and fried egg breakfast tacos?”

True story. She’d had some faith and then eaten every bite and licked up the crumbs—not so unlike what she and Caleb had done to each other in the deep dark hours of the night . . .



There were many things Caleb loved about his job. Mostly that it rarely felt like an actual job. Yeah, he had fingers in a lot of areas. Space. Energy. Climate change . . . But he’d been lucky with his investments, very lucky, which meant that he was able to push profits to areas that weren’t necessarily profitable but needed to be explored, like infrastructures for developing nations, rebuilding after natural disasters . . .

If there was a downside to the job, it was that the more he diversified, the more time he had to spend managing everything. Which was the reason he’d just been to Idaho, London, then New York, and now D.C. It was a week past the incredible night he’d spent in Sadie’s bed.