He laughs and lifts my hand to his lips to kiss my knuckles. “You’re funny.”

“You’re sexy.”

He tosses me a hot look before pulling into a home improvement store, parks and cuts the engine.

“What are we doing here?”

“I want you to come help me figure out how to remodel your kitchen.”

“I don’t have permission from my landlord to remodel my kitchen.”

He tilts his head to the side and cocks a brow at me. “Don’t be difficult.”

“Why do you need my help?”

“Because, you’ll be living with it for a long time, so you should be the one to tell me what you like.”

He climbs out of the Jeep, but all I can do is sit here and stare after him, not sure what to say. He opens my door and helps me out of the Jeep, takes my hand in his and leads me inside the cavernous store. It smells of sawdust and grass.

“I don’t think girls are supposed to be in here,” I say and bite my lip. Mark laughs and props his sunglasses on his head.

“It’s an equal opportunity store, M.”

“I’ll like anything you do to your kitchen, Mark. You don’t need me to tell you what to do.” He leads me back to the appliance and kitchen area, where they have kitchen displays set up so you can see what the appliances and countertops look like together.

“Just humor me.” He kisses my temple before dropping my hand and gesturing to a kitchen nearby. “I’m going to leave the existing cabinets, but I was thinking about painting them.”

I tilt my head and look about the space, thinking about the kitchen as it is now.

“White would brighten it up a lot.”

“Exactly.” He grins and nods. “I was also thinking about replacing the doors with some that have glass in them.”

“No way.” I shake my head adamantly. “If they have glass fronts, you can see the mess inside. Maybe just some glass ones where the plates and bowls go. I like colorful dinnerware, so that would be pretty, but the rest shouldn’t have glass.”

He’s nodding as I talk, thinking. “I can do that. Okay, white cabinets with just a couple glass-front doors. Now, let’s talk countertops. I want granite, but let’s look at colors.” He leads me to a wall covered in granite samples. “I’m going to make the island bigger to give us more work space.”

“What about a small sink in the island?” I ask. “It would be handy to have a small sink to wash vegetables and stuff so I don’t have to constantly walk back and forth to the big sink.”

“We can do that,” Mark says with a wide grin. “See? This isn’t so hard.”

I bite my lip and look away. Holy shit, I’ve jumped right into the spirit of this. I need to rein it in just a smidge.

“Since the cabinets will be white, how do you feel about a dark countertop?” He points to smooth, shiny black granite that has little silver flecks in it.

“That’s pretty.”

He moves behind me and wraps his arms around my waist, leaning in to whisper in my ear. “I can just picture you spread out on that black countertop, your white skin glowing with sweat as I eat you out and make you scream.”

I gasp and then giggle breathlessly as I toss a smile over my shoulder at him. “You’re naughty today.”

“I’m naughty every day, baby. You’d look hot against that black granite. If you prefer, I’ll bend you over it. I’m flexible like that.”

“Well, when you put it like that, I think I love the black too.”

He chuckles and kisses my cheek, then leads me away to choose a backsplash and hardware for the cupboard doors.

“Okay, let’s talk appliances.”

“You’re replacing the appliances too?”

“Yep. All new stuff. Of course, now that I think about it, it’ll be easier if you don’t move in with me until the kitchen is done. We can live at your place while I work on it.”

“I don’t remember agreeing to move into your house.”

“Our house.”

“Your house.” Now it’s just fun to be stubborn and disagree with him. I’m totally moving in with him. I’m not sure when, but it’s going to happen.

“You’ve become quite stubborn in your old age,” he says. “I’m going to talk you into it, you know.”

“If you say so. What kind of stove do you want for your kitchen?”

“Our kitchen needs a gas stove.”

We wander through the appliances, looking at all the different stoves, refrigerators, and all of the other appliances a person could ever need. And many they won’t ever need, but are cool anyway.

A beautiful wine cooler catches my eye. I squat next to it and check it out. White wine is my favorite, and I prefer it very cold. This would be awesome built into the bigger and better island Mark plans to build.

“Do you like that?” he asks.

“It’s nice. Would free up space in the fridge. Not that I drink a lot of wine.”

He just nods and walks away, but I have a feeling this will end up in the new kitchen.

“What do you think of a double oven?” he asks and points to two ovens mounted in a wall.

“I barely cook with one oven,” I reply dryly. “Let’s not go too crazy. I do like that fridge with the French doors.”

“Is that the one you want?”

“It’s not my kitchen. But if it were me, I’d probably go with that one.”