“Oh, that’s okay.” Cheyenne smiled at me and shook her head. “I can handle them.”

But Darlene beamed at me, reaching over and snatching my coat out of my hands. “That’s so nice of you, Cole. I’ll just hang this in the front closet.” Before she left the room, she and my mother exchanged a look that had me wondering if the whole helping-with-the-dishes thing had been a setup.

Either way, ten minutes later Cheyenne and I were pushing up our sleeves in the kitchen, the house dark and silent except for the running faucet and the hum of the dishwasher.

“I’ll wash, you dry?” she asked, adding dish soap to the side of the sink she’d plugged and lined with a towel.

“Sure.”

She took a plate from the stack to her left and placed it in the warm soapy water. “Oh! I almost forgot.” Slipping her rings and bracelets off, she set them on the windowsill above the sink. “So I don’t scratch anything,” she explained.

“Oh.” I glanced down at my wedding ring.

“It’s okay,” she said quickly. “You don’t have to take it off.”

“It’s fine,” I said, working it off my finger and placing it on the sill next to her jewelry. For some reason, I felt compelled to explain why I still wore it all the time. “Mariah once told me she likes when I wear it, so . . .”

“I think it’s nice,” she said. “I like a guy who wears his ring. It says something about him, you know?”

I nodded, my attraction to her growing even stronger. “Still, we’d better be careful with these dishes.”

“Damn right, we’d better,” she deadpanned. “This is my fucking wedding china, Cole. If we even look at it wrong, I might end up a spinster.” She laughed as she gently scrubbed the plate with a cloth. “My God. Is she not totally ridiculous?”

“She’s pretty bad,” I agreed, taking the plate from her and carefully drying it with the soft clean towel she’d given me. “But mine wasn’t much better tonight. Did you have the feeling something was up between them as we were saying goodnight?”

“Yes,” she said. “And it’s probably my fault because I made the mistake of telling my mom you bought me dinner last night. In her mind, I believe we are now betrothed.”

I laughed. “That’s all it takes, huh?”

“Apparently. Tomorrow I’ll be pregnant because we washed dishes together after dark.”

“Wow. Guess I should have worn the rubber gloves.”

She snort-laughed. “Right.”

“Good thing they don’t know about the phone call last night.”

Her body tensed, and then she giggled shyly. “Um, yes. A very good thing.”

We worked in silence for a minute, during which I was entirely too aware of how close she stood.

“I thought it might be weird today,” she said, her voice a little quieter. A confession. “Seeing you.”

“I worried about that too.”

“But . . . it wasn’t.” She handed me another plate. “I mean, maybe it was a little weird sitting next to you at the table with our families right there, because I kept thinking about it, even though I was trying not to—”

“Same,” I confessed.

She stopped what she was doing and looked over at me. “Really? You were thinking about it too?”

“Every fucking minute.” The tension between us pulled taut, and I knew I had to say something to diffuse it or I’d end up kissing her. I cleared my throat. “But you were right.”

“About what?”

I focused on drying the plate in my hand, even though it was already dry. “About staying friends.”

“Oh. Of course,” she said, starting to wash the same dish again. “Absolutely. Friends.”

“Which is why we can’t—shouldn’t—mess around.”

“No. Definitely not.” She handed me the plate without looking at me. “It would only confuse things.”

“Right,” I said, and I should have been glad that she agreed so easily, but somehow I wasn’t. Had I been expecting, or hoping, that she would argue?

“I mean, we’re going to be seeing a lot of each other, with the wedding and the holidays and all,” she went on. “The last thing we need is to create an awkward situation. And our mothers are already driving us crazy. Why throw fuel on that fire, right?”

But the only fire I could feel was the one burning inside me. I set the plate down without drying it. “Cheyenne.”

“And like we said last night, what happened was just a momentary lapse in sanity,” she said, as if she hadn’t heard me. “Letting off steam. A one-time thing.” She reached for another plate, but I grabbed her wrist.

“Cheyenne.”

Her eyes met mine. Her lower lip trembled. “It won’t happen again.”

But it was too late—in an instant my mouth was on hers. If there were words of protest on her lips, I didn’t want to hear them. If making out with her in the kitchen was the worst idea I’d ever had, I didn’t want to know it. If I was going to be sorry on the other side of this kiss, I didn’t fucking care. I wanted this. I needed this.

I needed her.

I let go of her wrist and took her head in my hands as my tongue searched for hers. Her wet hands found their way up my chest, and she clutched my shirt, her fists curling inside the material. I moved my fingers into her hair and kneaded them against her scalp, loosening the bun so that pins clattered to the kitchen’s wood floor.

I changed the angle of my head, deepening the kiss, a sound of frustration tearing from somewhere in my chest. I ran my palms down her shoulder blades and lower back, pulling her in tighter against me. She looped her arms around my neck until her chest was crushed to mine, and I couldn’t resist sliding my hands lower, grabbing her ass.

Now our lower bodies were pressed together as well, my erection trapped between us, pushing against her pelvic bone. Without thinking, I turned her back to the counter and rocked my hips, grinding against her. My mouth moved down her throat, eliciting a tiny moan from her that ratcheted my blood pressure up even higher. She reached for my belt. I yanked up her dress. She jumped up onto the counter.

At the sound of the splintering crash, we both gasped.

“Oh, fuck.” I stared at the shattered plate on the floor and then looked at Cheyenne. “Oh fuck, I’m so sorry.”

“Shit!” she shrieked, sliding off the counter and dropping to her knees next to the shards. “Shit, shit, shit.”

I went down next to her, but all we could do was gaze mournfully at the broken wedding china. “It was my fault,” I said. “I’ll take the blame.”

“It wasn’t your fault, Cole.”

“I started it,” I argued.

“I wanted it.”

“I pushed you against the counter.”

“I jumped onto the counter.”

I shook my head at the mess. “Your mom is going to kill you.”

“She’ll get over it.” But her bottom lip was caught between her teeth as she gathered up the bigger pieces. “It’s just a plate.”

“I don’t think it was just a plate to her.”