“We were stuck,” Dean said. “And the part my little sugar kitten doesn’t know is I spotted the key right then. It was on the dresser, but we’d been talking during the session and I wanted to finish our conversation. I figured it wouldn’t hurt anybody if that key stayed where it was for a few more minutes.”

“You dog!” I said, slapping his arm. I was partly hitting him for calling me his “little sugar kitten” and partly because I needed to act like this was all true.

He grinned. “Love makes us do crazy things. You know how it is, Jonas.”

Jonas nodded wisely, then gave Lizzie a kiss on the temple before leaning back to enjoy the story.

“So we got to talking. A few minutes passed, and before we knew it, hours had gone by. The party was long over and as it happened, the hosts weren’t even staying at the house that night. So when I miraculously noticed the key past midnight, we came out to find an empty house all to ourselves. We stayed up til sunrise watching movies together on the couch. Ever since then, it has pretty much been nonstop.” He looked over at me and there was a genuine glint of affection in his eyes. “I just can’t stop thinking about my little Sugar Bottom.”

I was going to kill him if he kept coming up with ridiculous pet names for me. “And I can’t stop thinking about my Daddypums.” I clapped a hand to my mouth. Daddypums? What the hell kind of pet name was Daddypums? I’d started that sentence with the intention of making up some kind of embarrassing nickname for him by the time I finished speaking. The nonsense word just kind of came out, and even Alec Pollard looked like he was trying to decide between laughing and gaping at us in horror.

I lifted the side of my hand to my mouth, covering a mortified smile. Dean was grinning openly and that damn hand of his was just making itself at home on my bare knee. I didn’t know if he had it there to mess with me, or to make us look more lovey dovey in front of our guests, but I was tired of how irrationally turned-on it was making me. I reached down to grab it and for some reason, expected him to resist. So when I snatched at his wrist I ended up grabbing so hard I pushed his hand straight up my knee, past the hem of my dress, right up my inner thigh, until the side of his forefinger collided with the little pink thong he’d picked out for me.

My stuffed taco had become finger food.

I gave a jump and a squeal, yanking my dress down under the table as Dean pulled his hand away. For a split second, there was something in his face that definitely wasn’t fake. Hunger. Longing. Desire. Then he was smiling and looking back toward the rest of the table. “She gets so embarrassed about our names for eachother. I know it’s silly, but we can’t help ourselves.”