Free If You Need Me: The Ashford Legacy, Book 1 by Cassi Carver Page A

just in case you woke up. So just grab yourself a drink and sit, because I’m going to make you the best eggs Benedict you’ve ever had.”
    She grinned from how happy he seemed, from how relaxed she was, from everything. The kitchen was in a state of chaos, but he looked confident in whatever he was doing. “I’m impressed. Cooking isn’t my thing.”
    He finished separating egg yolks into a small dish. “Yeah, I know. You need to eat actual meals, Ray, not just whatever you can get out of a bag when you’re on deadline. I’m pretty sure people can’t live forever on packaged peanut butter crackers and diet soda.”
    She poured herself an extra-tall diet soda and leaned against the counter. “That’s odd… I seem to remember being alive enough last night. Are you questioning my general health and stamina?”
    He snickered and started whisking the yolks. “Sweetheart, if you had any better reserves when it came to sex, I wouldn’t have been able to get out of bed this morning. Waking me up twice in the middle of the night? I wasn’t sure if I’d died and gone to heaven or if I should call my mommy to come pick me up.”
    “I’m pretty sure that last time was all you.” She took a deliberate drink, enjoying the way the soda bubbles tickled her nose. “It’s not often I wake with an erection pressed between the cheeks of my ass.”
    He put his hands in the air in defense, and the whisk flung little yellow drips as he raised it high. “That was a totally innocent early-morning…situation. I can’t be blamed if my stiffy got you hot. I swear I was still asleep when you backed into me.”
    She was having too much fun messing with him, but her little huffs of laughter gave her away. “Don’t whine. It was consensual.”
    He dropped small chunks of butter into the yolks then set the dish aside and turned fully to her. “On your end, maybe. Yeah…thinking back, I’d say you and your tail end were fully consenting.”
    She stepped up to him and placed her hands on his waist. “Poor baby. Have to fight the women off with a stick.”
    He searched her eyes with a heated gaze, and she could see this conversation was getting to him—she could also feel it by the lump in his pants that pressed against her belly. Clearly, Kyle Ford had his own reserves to spare.
    “Nah. I’m not complaining that you took advantage of me,” he said. “I’m just saying I want to be fully awake next time so I can add the unfuzzy sex tape to my mental movies of us.”
    “You have mental movies of us?”
    “Heck yeah. An entire collection. Some we’ve actually done, some we’re going to do.”
    She kissed his jaw, feeling so ridiculously happy that it scared her. “So you have plans for the future, huh? This was no wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am?”
    “I have plans.” He kissed her hard, grasping the back of her neck in one large hand and pulling her close to him with the other. “What do you think about that? We’d make a hell of an Upwords team.”
    She had so many thoughts on the subject, mostly panicked ones, but at that moment something on the stove boiled over with a loud, crackling hiss.
    “Shit!” He moved the pot of water. “I think I screwed up the poached eggs.”
    She peeked in his pan and noticed it looked more like the egg-drop soup she got delivered from her favorite Chinese restaurant. “Hmmm… Have you made this before?”
    “Eh.” He shrugged and tossed his head in a noncommittal way. “Well…not really. But I’ve seen it made a dozen times. Tia Lina used to let me watch her cook.”
    She smiled encouragingly. He never talked about his family. “Tia Lina? Your aunt?”
    “No—my cook.”
    “Oh.” She wasn’t sure what to make of that. Her family had been poor, just like most every other family in her hometown. “You guys had help around the house?”
    Kyle poured the ruined eggs down the drain and started the disposal. When it was finished, he set the pan aside. “You know…a little