I close my eyes, drunk with the feel of him. “I’m not sure I can. I’ve never done that twice in the same night.”

“Mmm,” he says, obviously getting lost in his own sensations. “Maybe you’ve just never had a guy who was dedicated enough to make that happen. Just let go and trust me to take care of you.”

If Caleb had said something like that, I would’ve felt like it was some edict. Like if it didn’t happen, it would be my fault somehow. But with Monroe, I don’t feel any pressure. And really, this isn’t about reaching some destination for me. The journey is more than good enough.

Monroe teases my earlobe with his teeth, sending goose bumps across my body, and then he whispers, “Turn over for me.”

“What?”

He leans back, slipping out of me, and gives me a devilish grin. “Hands and knees, princess.”

Okay, this is new for me. “I—”

Monroe leans down and kisses me. “Trust me. If you hate it, you can turn back over.”

I nod, getting a little nervous, and roll over into position. Good God, if I felt vulnerable and self-conscious earlier, that had nothing on this. Meet my naked ass, Monroe Hawkins. I drop down to my forearms and bury my face in his pillow.

Monroe strokes down my hips and plants a kiss on my tailbone. “You look so damn sexy like this. The minute you climbed on my bike, I had really dirty thoughts about bending you over it. About seeing you surrender to me like this. All that red hair fanned out over your back.”

I groan into the pillow. The pillow that smells like him. And another flood of arousal goes straight downward. I know I have to be embarrassingly wet at this point. There’s no hiding anything in this position. But I have a feeling Monroe will just see that as a job well done.

He tilts me more toward him, putting a deeper sway in my back, and I feel his fingers against me. He slides his thumbs along my folds and spreads me open. I tense, imagining what I must look like to him right now. But then his tongue is on me again, and I lose all motivation to be modest. I whimper into the pillow, the feeling altogether different at this angle. Everything is already sensitive, and the lush sensation of his mouth on every tender spot is making me feel a little crazed inside. The ball of need is building again, tightening.

And when it almost feels like I’m going to go over again, he eases back, situates himself behind me, and thrusts forward. I arch with the pleasure of him filling me again, my fingers knotting in the sheets.

“Still on board with a little roughness, princess?” Monroe asks, and I can hear the strain in his voice now. He’s charging up his own mountain.

“Yes,” I manage, angling back to meet his thrusts, needing just a little more to send me into the stratosphere.

“Good.” He wraps an arm around me and finds my sweet spot with his fingers. Then he’s rocking into me with more speed and force. The bed is squeaking and the headboard is rattling. And everything inside me goes electric and hot.

I’m sweating. He’s grunting. I might be drooling.

It’s the sexiest I’ve ever felt in my life.

And with one more stroke, I’m breaking apart, the orgasm crashing over me and stealing my breath. I can’t even make noise. I’m gasping.

Monroe’s left hand is in my view, and the sight of his knuckles going white against the sheets as he finds his release is so unbearably hot I can hardly stand it. He thrusts deep into me and lets loose this long, gravelly moan that holds pure, unadulterated lust and satisfaction. I want to roll around in that sound and bury myself in it.

I ride the release with him, my own orgasm seeming to go on and on until we finally collapse into the sheets together. His full weight presses me into the mattress, but at the moment, I don’t care. I’m flying in the afterglow.

Happy birthday to me, indeed.

Chapter 8

Natalie

I wander into Monroe’s living room, wearing a pair of his boxers and a T-shirt that has a picture of a pig with all the cuts of meat outlined on the body. I still can’t believe he’s such a food nerd. And I’m kind of sad that I’ll never get to taste his cooking.

I go into the kitchen to find a glass and get some water, taking in my surroundings since they were only a blur when we came in earlier. It’s a compact house but it has a homey feel to it—like it’s been lived in but loved. After I drink my water, I wander back into the living room where a plush leather couch and worn recliner take up most of the space. It would’ve been a perfectly nice couch to sleep on. I’m glad neither of us ended up there.

The pinkish-blue glow peeking through the front windows tells me it’s almost dawn. My birthday adventure will be over soon. And so will the magic of tonight. But I’m okay with that. I have no regrets.

Yesterday, I woke up thinking I had everything in place. Like that board game Life. My little car was on the set path, my peg person happily riding along in the passenger side to a predetermined destination. Today, all the game pieces have been thrown into the box, shaken, and then dumped out completely. I should probably be freaking out. Instead, I feel . . . relieved.

There’s something oddly freeing about not having a plan.

I let my fingers trail over the back of the couch as I make my way to the wall of bookshelves on the far side of the living room. One seems to be packed with a hodgepodge of novels, encyclopedias, and knickknacks. But the other is impeccably neat and organized. I scan the spines. Cookbooks. Of course.

There are so many of them—brightly colored new ones, faded older ones with worn spines, fat ones, skinny ones. I touch one labeled From Canapés to Casseroles. It looks more well-loved than the others. I imagine it having splatters on its pages and notes in the margins, marking the evidence that the recipe was tried.

“That one was my mom’s favorite.”

I jump, startled, and turn around. Monroe is leaning against the doorway to the living room, wearing only a pair of pajama pants, his hair sticking out three different ways. He smiles and nods at the shelf of books. “You’ve discovered my dirty addiction.”

I grin. “The truth is out.”

“I have three more boxes in my closet. Hoarders will be here any minute to interview me for the show.”

I look back at the shelf. “Have you cooked from all of these?”

“Nah, not all of them. Half of those were my mom’s. She suffered from the same addiction.”

“She’s recovered, I guess, if she gave them to you?”

He walks over and wraps his arms around me from behind. He sets his chin on my shoulder. “No, she died when I was nine. My dad held on to her stuff for me and my brother.”

My chest constricts. “I’m so sorry.”

I can feel him shrug against me. “It sucked. But I’ve made peace with it. She was a great mom. I was lucky to get nine years with her.”

The comment makes me sad all over again. “So was she a chef?”

“She loved to cook, but no, not a chef. She got pregnant with my brother too young and kind of got locked into the mom thing. So, she taught herself the old-fashioned way by cooking every recipe she could get her hands on. The month she worked her way through that casserole cookbook scared me off of cream of mushroom soup for life.”

I laugh, then put my fingers to my mouth. It seems wrong to laugh while we’re talking about his dead mother. But when I turn in his arms to apologize, he’s got a warm smile on his face.

“She always talked about one day opening a restaurant and how me and my brother could work in it with her. She wanted to name it the Bluebird Cafe because bluebirds are the symbol of happiness, and the kitchen was where she was happiest. But she got sick before our family ever had the kind of money to do something like that.”