by M. K. Hale
Allie’s father nodded. “Delicious.”
“Very duck-like,” I added, and Allie snickered.
Another round of silence stretched over the long, wide mahogany table.
“Two ex-boyfriends sitting in a tree.” Allie joked to the tune of the rhyme, spelling out the letters, “A-w-k-w-a-r-d.”
I grinned while Logan radiated nuclear waves of anger.
“What the hell is he doing here, Allie?” Logan snapped. It had taken him long enough.
“He’s my boyfriend; this is my house. He has more reason to be here than you do.”
“Honestly.” Logan’s mother sighed. “Peter, when are you going to control your daughter?”
“I think she’s doing fine on her own.” Allie’s father smiled at her. Maybe this whole thing would bring Allie closer to him. I hoped it would.
“She’s brought a random boy here to Erica’s funeral.” Logan’s mother continued to scowl at me with disapproval. I couldn’t care less about what she thought of me.
“He’s not a random boy, I’ve met him.”
“My name is Nate Reddington, ma’am,” I said with the same fake smile I had used since I was six years old. Her eyes widened as she recognized my name. Anyone with money on the East Coast knew the name Reddington.
“So, Allie, you’ve snagged another rich one,” she sneered.
I stiffened. How dare she?
“I would love Nate just as much if he had zero dollars to his name,” Allie answered, shrugging as if she hadn’t just said something I waited my entire life to hear.
“You’re such a selfish child. You truly have no plans to follow your mother’s wishes and marry my son?” She wanted Allie to marry Logan, the guy who had put her in a coma?
“None at all.”
Logan’s mother stood up and motioned for her husband to follow her. “We’re leaving.” They exited the room, but not before she turned to see Logan still sitting down. “Logan?”
Logan stared at Allie. My glare did nothing to stop him. “In a minute, mom,” he said.
“I think you should go too,” Allie remarked, but Logan continued gazing at her.
“I still love you, Allie,” Logan said. I released a scoffing noise, and he turned to me. “What?”
“You love her?” I questioned him.
“Yes.”
I leaned back in my chair. I wanted to hear this. “And why do you think you love her?”
“Because she makes me feel—”
“No,” I cut him off. He already got it wrong.
Logan’s face grew red. “What?”
“You don’t love her because love is not about how the person makes you feel, it’s about how you want to make her feel. You’ve hurt her emotionally and physically. You don’t love her.”
Logan gaped at my words. Allie grinned at me with green eyes so bright, they could blind.
“The cooked vegetables are quite good as well,” said Allie’s father, smiling.
“You can stay in this room.” Allie led me through the hallway of the upper level of her house. I carried my bags into the room and bounced down on the bed. She leaned against the doorway and watched me.
“What?”
“Can I ask you a question?” She walked into the room when I nodded. “Are you here because Gavin told you I rewrote the paper on someone else?”
“You did?” I had no idea she had done that.
“I want you to trust me again, and if it’s just because I ended up changing it before submitting, I still think we have things to work on—”
“Allie, I came here thinking you had submitted that paper. That your professor had already read it and judged me and sold it to a magazine. I’m here because I love you more than you writing an assignment on me could ever change, and forgiving you became easier with every day I was without you. You’ve become a part of me.”
I stood up and cupped her cheeks in my hands. “I used to be cold and closed, and you have warmed and opened me. You’ve taken me rock wall climbing and skinny-dipping, and I know I will never have as much fun or live the way I want to without you. Life isn’t only dull, but it’s painful without you. You’re the light to my darkness.”
“Gross.” Her face scrunched. “Next you’ll tell me I’m the peanut butter to your jelly.”
“You’re the salt to my cracker.”
“But am I the drip to your faucet?”
My grin was unstoppable. “And the pink to my Flamingo.”
“Stop being cliché and kiss me.”
A lightweight cloud of emotion settled in my chest and rose like a balloon.
I leaned forward, but I must have moved slower than she wanted because she yanked me down by my hair and slammed her lips against mine. The kiss was as sweet, sexy, and addictive as ever. Controlled yet wild. The kiss spoke to our strengths, our flaws. It was the kind of kiss people spent their lives trying to find.
Falling in love with her was like falling into a ball pit. Bumpy and soft and colorful and childish. And all I wanted to do was jump in again and again.
I would never be able to get enough of her. Not in a lifetime.
Epilogue
Allie
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I had been with Nate for three years and I still could not keep my hands off of him.
“Hey,” I said, coming up from behind him. He bent over in nothing but underwear and an apron as he pulled a tray of cinnamon rolls out of the oven. My hands groped his backside through his boxers as he straightened and placed the hot tray over the stove.
“Allie.” His warning voice made me want him more.
“You know I can’t resist you when you wear your cooking apron.” I had bought it for him for Christmas last year. It said, “Kiss the cook? I’d rather fuck him.” I had found Nate’s scandalized face when he had read it hilarious. He wore it to please me. Damn, he always pleased me.
“You need to pause your fondling when I’m near a hot oven. You could get hurt.”
Always thinking about me before himself. God, I loved this man.
“Oh, but honey, don’t you remember?” I hugged him from behind, settling my hands on his stomach. “You’re hotter than a third-degree burn.” My fingertips slid under the waistband of his boxers and he swatted them away.
“We don’t have time this morning,” he said but still kissed me, his lips rough against mine, as if he was trying to get rid of all his passionate feelings in one kiss, so he could focus on the task at hand. The idea backfired because our kiss continued well over three hot minutes.
“I’ll make time.”
“What if Blue sees us?” he asked.
“She’s gone full-blown teenager and locked herself in her room. Plus, knowing her, she won’t be up before one o’clock.”
My hands drifted down between us, back to his boxers, and he groaned. “Don’t think I won’t tie you to the bed again,” he threatened.
I moaned at the memory. “Mm, please.”
This time he kissed me on instinct, betraying his words of “We don’t have time.” Heat washed over me as he nibbled on my bottom lip, and I groaned against him.
He pulled back and swatted my butt. “No distracting me when I’m baking.”
“God, you’re so hot when you talk domesticated to me,” I teased him.
“Is it safe to come out?” Nate’s sister Blue yelled from her bedroom in our small apartment. Ever since she’d come home early one day to find Nate and I covered in whipped cream and sprawled out on the kitchen table, she’d become dramatic about entering any room unannounced. The whipped cream had been delicious.
“It’s safe,” Nate called out to her, grinning at me like the naughty minx he thought I was. My man was just as mischievous.
Blue walked into the living room and toward us in the kitchen. I held my breath as Nate glanced at her before turning and staring.
“What the fuck is that?”
“Oh, this?” Blue gestured to her newly dyed hair. Rainbow because ne
ither of us could choose a color. “Allie did it for me last night while you were sleeping.”
Nate released an animalistic sound and faced me. His narrowed eyes burned into the back of my skull as I pretended to pour a glass of milk without a milk carton in my hand. “Allie?” His breath caught like he was holding back.
“Yeah, babe?”
“You dyed my baby sister’s head every color in the rainbow?”
Confrontations had never been my strong suit. “I mean, if you think about it, it’s your fault for going to bed at eight-thirty like a ninety-year-old man.”
He quirked an eyebrow, but his stance remained tense and threatening.
But when Nate got threatening? It was crazy hot.
His eyes darkened, his breathing became light panting, and his fists clenched and unclenched like he did not know whether to spank me or pin and kiss me against a wall.
“All the cool kids are doing it,” I whined like I was the teenager in the room.
“My sister isn’t a cool kid,” he shot back.
Blue placed her hands on her hips. “Hey.”
“Blue, go to your room.”
“Oh, no.” She shook her rainbow head. “You guys are going to your room. I know how you two settle arguments by now.”
I giggled, but Nate yanked me by the wrist to the privacy of our bedroom. He slammed the door closed behind us and towered over me.
“I can’t believe you did that without telling me,” Nate said.
“You were asleep; we didn’t want to bother you.”
“She’s got crayon hair, Allie!”
“I love crayons. Are you saying you don’t love crayons? Because your childhood must have been sad.”
“Next you’re going to take her out to get a tattoo.”
I bit my lip because he read my mind. That was the exact plan Blue, and I had for her upcoming sixteenth birthday. “Now that you mention it—”
He threw his arms up in frustration and walked farther into our room, distancing himself from me. “I feel like I’m living with two teenage girls.”
“If that were true, what we did last night would land you in jail.”
“Babe, you’ve got to tell me things before you do them.”
“Uh huh,” I said, not really listening as I approached him, a predator gliding up to a gazelle.
“She’s about to be sixteen; she’s still a kid.”
“Yup.” My feet guided me to stand in front of him, and he moved his hand from his hair to look at me.
“I’m serious.”
“Mmm, yeah, you are.” My sentence came out breathless. God, I wanted him so badly. “Hey, babe?”
“Yes, Allie?”
I fell to my knees, ripped down the elastic waistband of his gray sweatpants, and dove to lick at his cock.
“Fuck,” Nate shouted.
My wet mouth stretched around his length, sucking as my hands moved to stroke the rest of him. I flicked my tongue against the tip of him, laving him. Suck. His deep, broken breaths shook his chest behind the cooking apron. “Babe?” I asked, my lips spread around him, muffling the sound.
“Ye-Yeah?” he stuttered. “Oh fuck, that’s good.” His fingers slid into my hair, tugging me onto him. He set my pace with those tugs until I matched what he wanted. He moaned as I sucked him deeper.
I pulled back to whisper, “Tell me again what I can or can’t do.” His cock jerked for more of my mouth. “Come on, Nate. Do something crazy with me.”
The man was putty in my hands.
And playing with him was the greatest joy of my life.
About the Author
M. K. Hale writes romance novels starring dirty-talking heroes and the witty women who leave them tongue-tied. She specializes in romantic comedies and has dabbled in comedy for years, including standup, improv, and sketch comedy. She believes laughter is the best medicine, except for, you know, actual medicine. “Hating Him” was her first new adult romantic comedy, and “Disobeying Him” was her first dramatic romance novel.
She obtained her English degree from the University of Maryland and spends her free time reading as many romance novels as humanly possible.
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