Can't Stand the Heat - Louisa Edwards [118]
She felt as if she’d been wandering, lost in the subway tunnels for days, and now she was finally climbing back up into the light. She wasn’t there yet, still had some things to take care of before she could truly enjoy basking in the sun—make things right with Jess, bury the Market book under a ton of sand—but if she stretched, she could feel the warmth on her face, and it made all the difference in the world.
Adam made all the difference in the world.
He gazed down at her, his heart in his eyes. Miranda’s heart fluttered up to meet it, rising in her chest to her throat and expanding there so she could hardly breathe.
“I love you.”
For a second, Miranda wasn’t sure if she’d heard it or said it. Then Adam’s eyes widened, as if he were surprised, too.
“Damn. I didn’t mean to blurt it out like that,” he said, pinking.
Miranda thought the muscles in her cheeks were in danger of getting sprained from smiling so much.
“I love you, too,” she managed to choke out around the obstruction in her throat. “I love the way you blurt things out, and your sexy brown eyes, and your bed head, and every little thing about you.”
Those eyes flared with heat and a kind of fierce exultation. Adam swooped in for a kiss that turned into three or four. Miranda pushed into the kisses, fingers dancing across his shoulders and back, up into his tousled dark curls.
“You always get me like that,” Adam gasped. “The way you use words. Makes me nuts.”
Miranda laughed, all the happy bubbles inside her fizzing up and overflowing into pure joy. “So glad you enjoy that about me, because I don’t think I’d make a very good mute.”
He traced her mouth with the tip of one finger. The surprisingly delicate touch made her shiver. “I wish I could say something smart and pretty to tell you how much, how big this is to me.”
Miranda read his frustration in the downward curve of his full bottom lip, the snap of his brows. Hooking one arm behind his neck, she pulled him down close enough to nuzzle the exact spot where his dimple would pop out if she could make him smile again.
“Don’t tell me,” she urged, breath starting to come in fast, excited pants. “Show me.”
Adam smiled against her mouth and Miranda grinned in triumph before gladly tumbling back down into pleasure with him.
Two hours, about a thousand kisses, and one very long shower later, they were jumping off the L train at Union Square, ravenously hungry and exclaiming over the gorgeous June day. Adam threaded his fingers through Miranda’s and dragged her through the bustling midday market.
After the shower, Adam had declared that man could not live by kisses alone, and besides, there were still the evening’s specials to buy for, so they had to check in at the Greenmarket. Truth be told, he was so flipping happy, he was greedy for more. He wanted to have as many of his favorite things together at once as he could.
Farmer’s market, perfect produce, Miranda.
Sometimes, life so did not suck.
Miranda laughed and went along with it, in that way she’d recently acquired of indulging Adam’s every whim. He wasn’t a fool, he realized this new tendency was an early-stage-of-the-relationship thing, and therefore unlikely to last. He intended to take advantage of it while he could.
Hence the market at two o’clock in the afternoon.
“I don’t usually like to shop this late,” he told her, weaving them through herds of office girls on their lunch breaks and tourists sauntering down the wide stone pathways, goggle-eyed. “Most of the good stuff gets snatched up early. But I bet Paul over at Siren Falls will have saved something for me.”
“And if he didn’t?”
Adam dodged a pair of SoHo moms with double strollers festooned with scarves, and shrugged. “I’ll find something wonderful. I always do. This place is the best inspiration in the world! I get all my ideas for new menu items here.”
“You really come here every morning?”
“If we’re starting a