Everything was okay, she told herself as she watched him, wearing only his boxer shorts because his sister-in-law was still sensitive to the scent of smoke so he’d stopped by the laundry room and stripped down before bringing her up to his room, grab a towel from the closet and walk into the bathroom, closing the door behind him while she sat there on his bed trying not to freak out.

She was going to have sex again, she realized, shooting a nervous glance over at his locked bedroom door, half expecting someone to break in at any moment and flip out. Okay, so that someone that she was expecting was her grandfather and it wasn’t so much as flip out as it was to tear Duncan apart with his bare hands.

God, she was nervous.

Should she be this nervous?

She didn’t think so, definitely not after she’d already had sex with him once, but then again that hadn’t ended well, now had it? She’d announced that she was in love with him, he freaked out, Grandpa came in and all hell broke loose.

Could she really go through with that again? she wondered as she stood up and hurried towards the door, deciding that no, no she couldn’t survive going through something like that again. She just needed to think, she told herself as she unlocked the door, poked her head out and looked down at the attic stairs that suddenly looked a lot steeper than they had before.

Swallowing nervously, she shifted a nervous glance over her shoulder and when she made sure that the coast was clear she carefully stepped out of his room onto the small landing, closed the door behind her and quickly made her way down the stairs like the coward that she was. When she opened the door that led to the second floor and didn’t see or hear anyone, she quickly stepped out of the stairwell, closed the door behind her and practically ran for the stairs.

She was halfway to the kitchen before she realized what she was doing. By the time she was poking her head inside the large empty kitchen, she’d decided that this was exactly what she needed to clear her head. She just needed to think this over and figure out what she should do. She considered calling her grandfather, but since that would probably just lead to Duncan’s untimely death, she decided that she was just going to have to work this one out for herself.

Even though common sense told her that it was incredibly rude to invite herself to use someone else’s kitchen, she couldn’t have stopped herself even if she’d wanted to, and right now she definitely needed this. She was so freaking nervous that she was actually trembling by the time that she found everything that she needed.

She was so nervous that it actually took her twice as long as it usually did to whip the batter up. By the time she had the pan nice and hot, the butter sizzling to let her know that it was time, she was no longer alone.

He’d found her.

*-*-*-*

“Do you want some help?” he asked, forcing himself to take a seat behind the kitchen island when all he wanted to do was go to her and pull her into his arms. He wanted to kiss that spot where her neck and back met while he reached around and slipped his hands beneath her shirt so that he could palm her large breasts, but she was nervous and so was he.

He didn’t know what she was to him yet, wasn’t sure about how he felt about her, and he didn’t want to scare her off before he could figure it out. He wanted her to come to him, wrap her arms around him and kiss him in a way that gave him all the answers that he was searching for.

So, for her, he kept his ass in that chair and his hands to himself. It was probably the most difficult thing that he’d ever done in his life, but for her, he did it.

“No, I’ve got it,” she said, keeping her back towards him as she ladled some batter into the hot pan, immediately filling the air with the scents of buttermilk pancakes, letting him know that his time alone with her was about to be cut short so he got to the point.

“I’m not going to rush you into doing something that you’re not ready for, Necie.”

She paused over the pan as she quietly admitted, “I have no idea what I’m doing,” making him grip the edge of the granite kitchen island top until his hands hurt, because he knew that going to her right now would only scare her away and he couldn’t risk that.

“Neither do I,” he admitted just as quietly, feeling foolish and giddy at the same time.

He was nervous, he realized with a chuckle that earned a delightful little glare from the woman that he’d missed more than anything over the last few days. He’d never been nervous about a woman before. His first kiss had been nothing to him, just a meeting of the lips that had excited him like any normal teenage boy, but that had been it. It had been the same after the first time he’d bedded a woman. He’d enjoyed the act, fucking loved the release, but she could have been any woman and he knew that it wouldn’t have made a difference to him.

With Necie…

He chuckled again as he finally gave up fighting it and went to the small angry woman yielding a spatula in a way that told him how close she was to shoving that spatula through his gut if he said one more word that pissed her off.

Knowing that he was probably seconds from being skewered by a spatula, he pulled her into his arms, kissed her nape and said, “I have no idea where this is going or what we’re doing, but I don’t want to stop.”

After a few seconds he felt her relax in his arms as she turned around in his arms so that she was facing the stove. Keeping his hold loose on her, she carefully, yet quickly, flipped all the pancakes.

“I don’t either,” she whispered so softly that he’d almost missed it, but once he realized what she’d said, he couldn’t help but say, “Thank God.”

Chapter 25

Later that night…

“You’re not going.”

“Yes,” she said, picking up the little black number that she’d been dying to wear for at least two years now and held it in front of her body, “I am.”

Grandpa snorted, obviously deciding that she’d issued a challenge. Since she was already nervous enough, she decided to put a stop to this before it got out of hand. “Then I guess I’ll have to call your doctor and leave him a message,” she said off handedly as she shifted the black dress to the side and held up the light pink dress that she’d also been dying to wear.