It took him a second to get it, but then he smiled.
“I think I’m picking up what you’re putting down, Miss Clarke,” he said and walked over to stand next to the bed.
“Oh no!” I said, pretending to be shocked and doing a terrible acting job on purpose. “My bed has turned into a desk. I guess we can’t use it.” I pouted and then Lucah took his arms and swept everything off my bed and onto the floor.
“How did you know I’ve always wanted to do that?” He said as he grabbed me and threw me on the now-clear bed.
“It’s my job,” I said, grabbing him and pulling him onto the bed on top of me.
A little while later, I was lying in my bed-turned-desk-turned-back-into-bed and Lucah was having fun with the sticky notes. I had ones all over my br**sts that said kiss me and ones on my shoulders that said bite me and then he was working his way down and putting quite a few lick me and suck me notes in other places.
“You’re still hijacking my job, Mr. Blaine,” I said as he slapped another note on my thigh.
“I don’t care, Miss Clarke. I’m the boss and this is what I want you to do, so stay still. This is a very important project I’m working on here.” He did look like he was concentrating. That cute little crease between his eyebrows was back and I wanted to kiss it, but I wasn’t allowed to move.
It took a while and two packs of notes, but he pretty much covered my entire body with the little yellow notes. Just FYI, those things don’t stick too well to skin—he kept trying to get them to stay and getting frustrated when they didn’t.
“Now that you’ve got me like this, whatever will you do with me?” I said as he admired his work.
“Well, I must follow what all these notes say. They’re very important.” He took one last one that said kiss me and stuck it on my mouth.
And then he proceeded to remove and follow the directions on every single note until I was screaming his name and thinking that this whole sexcretary thing had been my best idea ever.
“So, Mr. Blaine. Is there anything else I can do for you?” I was exhausted and my room was filled with discarded sticky notes.
“Not a thing, Miss Clarke. Just stay there.” He got up and found the dessert, a non heart-shaped German chocolate cake. He carried the entire thing in, along with some forks and we ate it on my bed and he smeared me with frosting and I smeared him and we kissed and licked it off each other.
He was looking at me strangely as we fed each other bites of the cake.
“What is it?” That was a serious face if I’d ever seen one.
“I don’t just want nights, Sunshine.” He put the fork down and continued to look at me with such intensity it was almost hard to look back.
“I don’t want just nights. I want mornings. And mid-mornings and late mornings and noons and afternoons and evenings and everything in between. Sunrises and sunsets and twilight. I want it all.” I put down my fork.
I knew what he was saying, but I didn’t know what he was saying.
“I want to be with you. Definitions and everything. I want to call you mine.”
Shit. That was not part of the plan. I knew I was falling for him, but I didn’t count on him falling for me, too.
“I know this puts both of our jobs in jeopardy, but . . . I just can’t go on like this anymore.”
“But we’ve only known each other for a few weeks.” That wasn’t the biggest issue, but that was what came out of my mouth first.
“It doesn’t matter. I knew I wanted you the first time I saw you. Then I got to know you and I wanted you even more. I go after what I want.”
I knew that. He’d been so persistent in that first interview and then after.
“Lucah . . .” I trailed off, not knowing where to start or what to say.
“You don’t have to agree to anything. I just wanted you to know where I stand.” He grabbed the cake and the forks and started to get up, but I put my hand on his arm to stop him.
“It’s not that I don’t want to, Lucah. I do. I really do. I like spending time with you and being around you. You make me happy and I haven’t had that much fun at work in a very long time. But what happens if we don’t work out? If we go for this . . . and what we feel burns out?”
He listened without comment and then brushed his thumb across my lip.
“Let’s just enjoy the rest of tonight then, Miss Clarke.”
“Okay.” I could push it aside for now, but I was going to have to think about it tomorrow, and we were going to have to talk, and things were going to change. I didn’t want them to change. I didn’t want us to change. Yes, we had moved to Us Territory. We’d moved there a long time ago. Bought property, moved in, put up a fence and a bunch of garden gnomes.
I didn’t want things to change, but they were going to, and I was going to have to choose. He already had.
20
I made him breakfast the next morning wearing an apron and my heels like I promised and brought it to him in bed. I was trying to keep on a happy face, but it wasn’t easy when I knew that he was going to leave in a little while and then I’d be all alone with my thoughts. I didn’t want them for company. I’d much rather spend that time with Lucah in bed, or even just talking, or watching cartoons again.
After we finished breakfast, he made me let him do the dishes and stack them in the dishwasher and then we put on clothes and sat on the couch and he rubbed my feet and we watched whatever was on television.
“Spend the day with me,” he said, pinching one of my toes.
“Lucah—“ I started to protest, but he threw himself on top of me.
“Spend the day with me. I know you want to. I’ll be your sexcretary this time.” I wanted to, so much. So, so much . . . One day couldn’t do any more damage, could it?
“Okay, Mr. Blaine. I will spend the day with you. But we should probably go out, or else Sloane will come home and creepily watch us and I’d rather not be creepily watched if you don’t mind.”
“I would also prefer to not be creepily watched. Since you planned last night, does that mean I get to plan today?”
“Sure, why not? As long as there is no public humiliation involved.”
“I would never publicly humiliate you. Or at least not on purpose.” He smiled and held my feet up so he could get up.
“Come on, Sunshine. Let’s go somewhere.”
A half hour later, we were standing in front of the Boston Museum of Science.