Page 92 of Fierce-Ivan

“Yeah,” he said, his finger swirling in the air for her to turn again.

She had contacts in, her hair down with some waves in it. She must have curled it and it had a messy but sexy look going. There was more makeup on her face than normal, but it was stunning and not trashy.

“I know it’s nothing fancy, but something different. My mother told me months ago to dress up for you. To have some fun. I don’t think she meant the whole sexy librarian thing,” she said, laughing.

“I think I love your mother for advising you to do this, but I love you every day,” he said.

He hadn’t seen much of Karen since Easter dinner at his parents’ almost six weeks ago. He felt bad about that, but Kendra had been coming to his house on the weekends more. He’d offered to go there and she’d said no, that it was more comfortable at his place.

He had to let her work this out on her own. If she was able to go back to leaving her mom for two days and just checking in, then they were back to where they were before the hand injury.

He’d been willing to give her all the time she needed and was thrilled it wasn’t more than a few weeks.

“You look nice too,” she said, her hand moving up his shirtfront. He loved when she made that move. “We both have on dark jeans and shirts. Nothing exciting, but there is an air of sex to it.”

He laughed. He’d never heard that before.

She was right. She had on stretchy dark jeans, a sleeveless floral top that was bolder than anything he’d seen on her before. It was soft and floated around her, resting right on her hips.

The killer was the nude pumps on her feet.

“It’s you,” he said. “You’re like a walking sex kitten.”

She burst out laughing. “I don’t think anyone has ever said that to me before and they may never again. I do feel sexy, but man, this was a lot of work. I don’t know how your cousin Ella does this every day. Even the girls in the office. To them, this is a normal work outfit.”

“You aren’t them,” he said. “There isn’t anything wrong with that. I love you the way you are.”

“And I love you the way you are too. So this date is a nice treat and I’m so excited.”

He’d wanted to take her out to a nicer restaurant. They could have gone to Fierce, but sometimes he didn’t want that many eyes on him and there were always eyes there.

Instead, there was another restaurant in town that was hard to get into, but he’d managed to snag a reservation. Or more like, Mason got him one.

He’d been at the brewery a few weeks ago and was talking to Mason about the bourbon line. It opened for sale in the beginning of May when things were picking up with tourists. In the past few weeks, it’d been a major hit and had sold off the shelves four times.

Thankfully his cousin had a lot in stock. They’d been trying to decide to ride this out and see if the newness of it was causing the sales spike or it really was that big of a hit.

As conservative as he was, he’d rather ride it before they started adding more machinery, and Mason agreed, though they were producing more of it after finding space in the plant. Too bad it needed more time to age. Mason and Jessica were doing the bulk of the distilling right now to assure that it was done right, but he knew they were looking to hire at least one more person to work in that section, if not more.

He’d been running the numbers with Kendra to figure it out and touching base with Ella even though she shouldn’t be working.

Mason thanked him again and again for all the work and asked if there was anything he could do to help him out with Kendra...behind his mother’s back of course.

He’d laughed at that. Aunt Jolene was still sneaky as ever, but since she didn’t see him much and he wasn’t going around the pub and there were no big holidays, she couldn’t corner him like she had others in the family as much.

Thankfully she wasn’t getting much out of Kendra either.

Ivan never liked asking for anything, but he mentioned he’d like to take Kendra out to a nice restaurant. Mason suggested this place, said it was hard to get a table, but he’d call since he knew the owner.

Next thing he knew, Ivan had a table for two on Friday night, Memorial Day weekend. Talk about an impossible feat.

“I’m glad I was able to do this.”

“How did you?” she asked. “I’ve heard the girls in the office talking about this place. It’s a few months’ waitlist.”

He tugged at a curl hanging over her shoulder. “Not if you know the right people.”

“Now that is sweet,” she said. “You asked one of your cousins to help you get a table?”