Page 12 of Brazilian Fantasy
Speaking of Maddie… She sets her fork down and yawns. I grin when I see her struggling to keep her eyes open. I lower my voice. “Why don’t you get her up to bed, and I’ll take care of the dishes?” I gesture toward the chocolate cake Maddie and I made earlier that day. “We can have dessert and coffee after she goes to sleep.”
He slides his hand across the table and touches mine. Little shocks of electricity race through my blood, and I draw in a quick breath. I love the way he touches me, the way he’s doing it more and more often. I just wish his intimate little caresses didn’t wrap around my heart and squeeze quite so much.
“Leave the dishes. I’ll do them after I get Maddie to sleep. You did all the cooking for us, so it’s the least I can do.”
“The least,” I tease.
He looks past my shoulder to the pool and hot tub outside. “Why don’t you go for a swim and relax? You’ve had a busy day.”
“It was a busy day.” But a fun one, too. I loved being in the kitchen with Maddie while Lucas worked in the next room. Every now and then he’d come out for coffee or a bite to eat and give Maddie a hug. It warmed my heart, made me feel a part of something special.
I could get used to that.
Don’t go there, Piper.
“Okay,” I say, even though I plan to do the dishes the second he disappears. I actually need a moment’s reprieve, and if I insist on doing them, Lucas will argue, and I need him out of this kitchen sooner rather than later.
Lucas gathers up a tired Maddie, her pup fast asleep and looking so tiny on his bed in the other room. Once the two disappear, I grab my phone and turn on some tunes to distract my thoughts, keeping the music low so I don’t disturb father and daughter. I hum quietly as I fill the sink with soap and slide the dishes in. Soon enough I’m swaying to the music and singing along quietly—albeit off-key.
A noise behind me frightens me half to death, and I jump, my hand going to my chest. “Ohmigod, Lucas, you scared me.” I’d been so lost in my music I hadn’t heard him. How long had he been standing there watching me, anyway?
He hurries up to me, puts both his arms on my shoulders, and I sag against him, my heart racing as I breathe in his spicy scent, revel in the feel of his muscles beneath my cheek.
“I’m sorry,” he says, but I can hear the humor in his voice.
I inch back, taking in the ti
ghtening of his jaw as he struggles not to laugh. “You are not sorry.” Even though I like his arms on me, like being pressed up against his body like this, I push him away and grab the dishtowel. “But you’re going to be.”
“Que porra é essa?” he says—probably some curse word in Portuguese—and jumps back.
I flick the cloth out, and it snaps in the air. “It’s on now.”
Taking a step closer, I whack at him, and he dodges the hit. His laugh is deep and contagious, and my heart fills, certain he hasn’t laughed like this in a long time. In that moment, as I threaten him with the cloth, it occurs to me that I want to make Lucas happy, in so many ways.
He reaches for me, and I back away, running around the table, but he’s fast, too fast, and when he grabs at me again, I’m laughing so hard, so completely out of breath, I can’t get away. He tugs the dishtowel from my hand.
“The games you Americans play,” he teases, and before I even realize what’s happening, he has my hands locked behind my back and is securing them tightly with the cloth. I tug, but I’m stuck.
“Hey,” I say. “Untie me.”
He steps back and grins at me, but this time it’s hot, flirtatious. “What, you don’t like the games we play here in Brazil?”
My breath is coming faster now, my chest rising and falling, because, yeah, I definitely like the games they play in Brazil. I wiggle my hands. “Are you going to leave me like this all night?” I ask, a part of me hoping he’ll answer with: yes, so I can do dirty things to you.
“I—” he begins, and Maddie’s pup whines in her sleep, a reminder that Maddie is asleep upstairs, and the last thing we should be doing is playing games while she’s home. I don’t want to give her the wrong idea. She’s had enough loss as it is.
Lucas’s thoughts must be running along the same rails as mine, because a change comes over him. “How about that cake?” he says.
“Good plan,” I say and try to hide the disappointment that we’re going to have chocolate and not something a little more epic for dessert.
His scent fills my senses as he reaches behind me to untie my hands. His body brushes mine, and ribbons of heat zing through me. I exhale slowly and grab a knife from the drawer to cut the cake.
“Glass of wine?” he asks.
“Sure.”
As Lucas opens a bottle and pours the wine, I cut us both generous pieces of cake.
