Jasmine Guillory - The Proposal

She leaned over to kiss him when he got in the car. The kiss lasted for a long time.

“Ramble all you want,” she said. “You just held up very well under cross-examination from my two best friends, so I owe you a night of lots of listening, something fun on the TV, and . . .”

He cocked his head to the side.

“ And? ”

“And whatever else you ask for,” she said.

He grinned. He would worry about the other stuff later.

• • •

Nik woke up early the next morning, with Carlos sound asleep against her. Good God, this guy was fun. He had certainly taken her “whatever else you ask for” to heart, with very good results.

She turned back toward him and he nuzzled against her neck.

“Mmm, so you are awake,” she said.

“I’m not awake. I’m having the most fantastic dream.”

He had such a scratchy voice first thing in the morning. Just hearing it gave her goose bumps.

“What kind of dream?”

He ran his hand from her knee up her leg to her hip and rested his whole palm against her butt.

“I’m in bed with this incredibly sexy woman, for starters.”

God, she liked it when he touched her.

“Mmm, tell me about her.”

His hands kept moving up and down her body. They stopped to linger at her breasts, and she closed her eyes and sighed.

“Oh, she’s something else. She’s smart, she’s funny, she surprises me at every turn, and her body . . . I just can’t get enough of it.”

That was definitely an excellent thing to hear from a man who woke up in your bed.

“She sounds incredible. Tell me more about the dream.”

He pushed her onto her back and knelt above her.

“In my dream, we had amazing sex last night . . . multiple times, actually. God, what a great dream this has already been. And now . . .” He leaned down to kiss her mouth. “And now, if I’m lucky, we might get to do it again. Oh wow, I hope I don’t wake up.”

She played with his hair and relaxed at his touch.

“I hope you don’t, either.”

Now his mouth was on her breasts, and she sighed.

“Mmmmm. This is a great way to not wake up; I’ve got to say.”

“Mmmmm?” He lifted his head. “Oh, you like that? I think there’s an even better way to not wake up. Let me see if you agree.”

He threw the covers to the foot of the bed and pushed her legs apart. She looked down at his head between her legs and grinned.

“Oh, I think I like this dream of yours a whole lot. Do you think you’ll—OH MY GOD.”

Those were the last discernable words she said for a long time.

When they both finally caught their breath, he kissed her cheek.

“Okay, you’re going to think I’m crazy saying this after all of that food we ate last night, but . . . I’m starving.”

She laughed into his chest.

“Well, you did have lots of good, healthy physical activity. It makes sense that that would make you hungry.”

He rolled on top of her and tickled her.

“Oh, you’re making fun of me now? Just for that, I’m going to make you breakfast.” He sat up. “That is, if you have anything I can cook?”

She nodded.

“I went to the store the other day. There should be stuff in there. I’ll make the coffee.”

He pulled on boxers and went to investigate her kitchen. She grabbed a robe out of her closet and went to the bathroom before joining him. By the time she got there, he had a pile of food on her counter.

“Are you going to make all of that?” She opened the coffee maker and pulled out yesterday’s filter and tossed it in the garbage.

“I’m deciding what to cook. A true artist takes time at his work.”

She turned on her coffee grinder and scooped grounds into the fresh filter.

“Okay, Picasso. I make coffee strong; that okay with you?”

He laughed while he pulled bowls out of her cabinet.

“That’s fine, but if I had said no, what were you going to do? I already know you wouldn’t have made weaker coffee for me.”

She poured water in the machine and turned it on.

“No, I would have just made sure you didn’t use all the milk in whatever you’re cooking in case you needed a lot of it for your cup.”

He opened another cabinet.

“Good point, because I was thinking about making pancakes since I see you have syrup here. Any objections? Also, where’s your flour?”

She reached for two mugs from the cabinet above the coffee maker and took the opportunity while his back was to her to admire his ass in his gray boxer briefs.

“No objections at all to pancakes, as long as you make bacon, too. And the dry goods are all under there.”

He added a lot of sugar to his coffee, but she tried not to judge him for that. Some of her best friends added a lot of sugar to their coffee.

Once he was all set with ingredients and pans, she sat at the kitchen counter with her mug of coffee and watched him cook. Just as he flipped the first pancake with a flourish, she heard Courtney’s voice in her head: serious couples don’t go to brunch; they stay home and cook for each other .

Oh shit. Was this a sign that he wanted to be serious? She’d assumed it was clear that that wasn’t what she was looking for right now, given the whole “dramatic breakup that he and thousands of other people witnessed just three weeks ago” thing, but maybe her state of mind wasn’t clear to him?

Did she need to have an actual conversation about this with him? She hated having conversations like that.

But then . . . she’d avoided having an actual define-the-relationship talk with Fisher, and that didn’t work out all that well.

Come to think about it, Carlos did seem like a serious relationship kind of guy. He was kind and considerate; he was close to his family; he’d just bought a house , for the love of God. Men don’t buy houses if they don’t want to get married soon after that. Damn it.

Carlos set a plate of golden brown pancakes and crisp bacon in front of her with a smile. She tried to smile back at him.

“Wow. What service.”

He half bowed.

“I try. Syrup?”

She took a bite just as he sat down next to her. Oh, this was terrible. Not the pancakes—the pancakes were fantastic, that was the terrible part. If she never had these pancakes again because she’d accidentally found the one man in Los Angeles who wanted a serious relationship, she was going to be so mad.

“So, uh. The only problem is that . . .” She took a sip of coffee and tried the beginning of that sentence again. “I just wanted to . . . right now, I’m not sure if I’m . . .”

He looked at her like she had three heads.

“Nik. What are you trying to say?”

She shook her head out of frustration with herself.

“I’m sorry, I’m not making any sense. It’s just that after the whole Fisher thing, and with work being so busy right now, I’m not in a good place for any sort of relationship. But like, this whole thing . . .” She gestured toward him, the kitchen, the couch, the bedroom. “This whole thing is great. And I like spending time with you a lot. I feel like we’re becoming good friends. Just with”—she waved her hand in the direction of the bedroom—“that stuff going on, too. So I just wanted to see where you were with everything.”

No one would believe she made her entire living by putting words together. Did any of the words she’d just said make sense in that order? She had no idea.

“OH.” His shoulders relaxed, and he grinned at her. “Well, thank God for that, because I think this whole thing,” he mimicked her gesture with his fork, “is great, too. And to be honest with you, between work and everything going on with my family, I don’t have the energy for anything even approaching a relationship. So if you’re cool with keeping this casual, so am I.”