It’d been adorable.

Then she’d gone and done the exact opposite of adorable by slipping him the tongue in what was supposed to be an innocent goodbye kiss. And he’d experienced an actual leave of his senses. He’d been ready to throw her up against the nearest table, floor, or wall and have all kinds of circus sex with her.

It was a near thing, too.

If the appointment alarm on her phone hadn’t sounded, there was a good chance he’d still be there right now going for round two…or twenty.

He flicked the stress monster again.

Before he fully realized he was doing it, his fingers were reaching for his phone and dialing her number.

“Hello?”

“Hey.” Okay, now what? Another flick. “So…we closed the deal for $7.3 billion today.”

The sound of books falling on the other end of the phone line had him sitting up taller. And grinning. She’d dropped her books for him.

“Oh my gosh, congratulations! Was it the carve-outs you renegotiated that sold them? I bet it was. Oh, but what about all those re-management concerns you had for the merger side? Did the spin-off push anything back at all? I know you were worried about the intellectual property on the acquisition end.” Somehow, all of that came out as one long sentence. But she wasn’t done yet. “$7.3 billion?! Holy crap, Connor! Were all the parties happy with the new deal? What am I saying? Of course they were. How are you not completely freaking out right now?!”

Connor laughed silently when Abby finally dragged in a gasping breath. Christ, she was priceless. “When I get home, I’ll be sure to give you the short version of everything that happened, sweetheart.”

“Screw the short version, I want to hear it all. It’s a good thing I made—”

Silence.

“Abby? Hello?”

“Sorry, yes, I’m still here.”

He frowned. “Are you okay? You got cut off there for a bit.”

“I dropped my phone.”

That sounded like a lie. “Okay…well, what were you saying? You mentioned making something.”

“Oh, it’s nothing. I can save it for another night. I’m sure you have some big celebration planned with all your colleagues. So of course the short version, definitely. Even if I’m sleeping, come wake me up okay? I’m dying to know the details.”

For crying out loud, he wanted to wrap her up in his arms and kiss her senseless. She actually thought he was going to celebrate without her tonight. “Abby, I’ve seen way more than enough of my colleagues for the past five months. I want to spend my night with you, share everything that happened today with you. If you don’t want to cook whatever you had planned, we can go out. Anywhere you want.”

“Anywhere I want?” Her voice still had that heart-tugging hesitancy. “We should go where ever you want to go.”

That was a first. To his knowledge, the standard reply to that offer was usually the most expensive restaurant and/or the most exclusive club. At least in his experience with women.

He embraced the novelty. “Well, if you’re going to let me choose, I’d kind of like to stay in.”

“Really?” He could almost see her skeptical frown through the phone.

“Yes. But again, if you don’t want to cook, I will. Or we can do take-out.”

“You’re being ridiculous. Of course I’ll cook. This is your big night. But are you sure you don’t want to—”

“I’m coming home for dinner, Abby. Period. I’ll be there at eight.” Damn, that sounded light years away. Maybe he could cancel his next few meetings…

“If you’re absolutely—”

“Abby.” She was so freakin’ precious.

“Okay, okay. Yes, eight o’clock. But, if you make it nine, you can probably get in some celebratory drinks with your friends and that’ll give me extra time to make something way more elaborate and—”

“I’m hanging up now, sweetie,” he sang out. “See you tonight.”

All he caught after that were razor sharp snippets about pigheads and horse butt as he replaced the phone back in its cradle. Knowing Abby, she could’ve easily been talking about him or the menu she had planned.

Either way, this was already promising to be an interesting night.

* * * * *

AT EIGHT O’CLOCK on the dot, he walked in his house to the sight of Abby bursting out from the kitchen at full speed. She launched herself at him and peppered his face with kisses. “Congrats, congrats, congrats!”

Chuckling, he caught her face in his hands and gave her a long, slow kiss.

“You smell good.” He stopped and sniffed again. “In fact, this whole house smells good. What is that?” Definitely not pighead or horse’s butt.

She gave him a strange look. “Cookies.”

He looked over and sure enough there on the big granite island was a platter of freshly baked cookies. He grew still as a statue.

“What’s wrong?”

He was wondering the same thing as well.

And then it hit him. “No one’s ever made me cookies before.”

In no way was he prepared to see tears wash over Abby’s eyes. Though she covered it up well with a whole lot of blinking, he saw the pain there—pain for the boy whose mother had never made him cookies.

Pain for him.

“Well, that puts a bunch of pressure on me,” she said, audibly modulating her voice. “Hopefully, you have the same taste in cookies as your niece.”

Now that she mentioned it, he did recall Skylar raving about Abby’s world famous cookies. “How long have you been baking these for her?”

She shrugged. “Since Beth’s hands started failing her pretty early on, it was hard for her to do things in the kitchen so…I don’t know, maybe kindergarten?”

He picked up a cookie and felt a strange desire to crystallize the moment, savor his first bite of a cookie made just for him.

As his teeth closed on the warm, chewy treat, he looked over and caught Abby gnawing on a thumbnail nervously, waiting for his reaction.

He wanted to crystalize that moment as well.

“They’re delicious.” His voice was rougher, thicker than usual.

She averted her eyes again. “Oh, good. I’m glad you like them. I didn’t know how else to help you celebrate your big win. I tend to defer to baking for all things celebratory…which is why I keep an extra pair of jeans the next size up when any holidays come rolling around…” She was babbling adorably, seemingly unable to stop. “I’m sure you’re used to more lavish hooplas—”

He grabbed her and kissed her again.

As his male ego was pleased to note, that seemed to ground her. By the time he relinquished his hold on her lips, she was smiling again. “I made pot roast in the crockpot. Since you’re such a fan of good ole fashioned dishes and all, I called my mom for her recipe and wrote it out on an index card for you so you can add it to your collection.”

The gesture tugged at his chest. More and more, in unique little Abby ways, she was burrowing the most unlikely, but clear cut path to his heart.

He was going to miss her when she was gone.

It hit him then how different the house was going to be tomorrow after she left...after she went back to her own home. His gut clenched at the thought, rebelled against the notion of her calling anywhere else home since his only concept of the word for the past few weeks had existed around her.

Because of her.

And now he didn’t want to give that up, didn’t want her to go back to a home that he wasn’t in, didn’t want to think about the other inevitable reality he knew he’d have to face a few weeks after that.

The end of their month together.

Somewhere between his bedroom door and his closet, he was struck with the inane thought that there were thirty-one days in August.

One extra day in the month.

It stood to reason that his arrangement with Abby could be a thirty-one day month instead of thirty…never mind the fact that in the past few one-monthers he’d had, he’d been paring it down to four square weeks.