Wide-eyed, Sharon sat up, clutching the covers to her breasts.
“If you want to fight me on this, fine, but I’m telling you right now—”
Sharon ran her hand down his back. He jumped at the unexpectedness of her touch, then twisted around, moved in closer, and lowered his mouth to hers.
The kiss was filled with frustration and anger and need, and it took Sharon by surprise. It had been so long since her husband had showed her any physical attention that she momentarily shied away, but Jerry wouldn’t allow it. He deepened the kiss, and, sighing, she wound her arms around his neck. “Jerry?” she whispered when he buried his face in the curve of her neck.
“Are you surprised the old man’s still got some life left in him?”
“No. Oh, Jerry…I love you so much. I don’t want the divorce, either, but I can’t go on living the way we have been.”
“Me either.” She heard and felt his sigh, which came from deep within his chest. “I’ve been a stubborn fool.”
“Me too. I was the one who decided to sleep in the guest bedroom.”
“But I knew that you didn’t want that Panama Canal cruise. I was being selfish and pigheaded.” He raised his head just enough to meet her eyes. To her surprise, she found his beautiful dark eyes bright with unshed tears.
“Jerry,” she whispered, and gently pressed her palm to his cheek. “I’m so sorry. I don’t know why we let this happen.”
Tenderly he held her hand to his face and kissed her fingers. “There’s never been anyone but you. I wouldn’t know how to love anyone else.” He reached down and unfastened the buttons to her pajama top. His hands shook with eagerness.
Smiling to herself, Sharon completed the task for him and then looped her arms around his neck. “Love me.”
“I do,” he murmured between deep, satisfying kisses. “I do.”
He took his own sweet time proving how very much he did love her. The years fell away and it was as though they were young again, their eagerness for one another as strong as it had been in the early years.
Some time later Sharon lay in her husband’s arms, her head cradled against his chest. “Do you think anyone heard us?”
“I don’t see how they could help it,” he teased, and kissed the side of her face. “You never could keep from making those little love noises. Thank heaven the twins are asleep.”
Sharon felt herself blush and groaned with embarrassment. “What will Seth think of us?”
“He’ll think I’m the luckiest man alive, and he’ll be right.”
“Oh, Jerry, we’ve been such fools.”
“No more. We’re both going to have to work at this. It isn’t a fifty-fifty proposition with us. It’s a hundred percent and nothing less. Talking about when we were young and first married was the kick in the pants I needed. If you want to cruise to the Orient, then that’s what we’ll do.”
“Thank you, but I insist we go through the Panama Canal first. You’ve been talking about it for years. You deserve this, and I want to share the experience with you.”
He rubbed his jaw along the top of her head. “There’s no shopping in the Canal,” he reminded her.
“I’ll survive.” She could live without buying T-shirts and pottery, but she couldn’t live without Jerry. “Now what was all this business about you having Chinese food for lunch?”
He went still and quiet. “I’m not entirely sure myself. I guess in my own way I was looking for a way to be close to you again. I had a miserable afternoon. The movies weren’t nearly as enjoyable without you sitting there with me. I didn’t even buy popcorn.”
Sharon smiled to herself.
“While I’m at it, I might as well confess that I don’t dislike walnuts nearly as much as I made out. I prefer almonds and cashews, but a walnut isn’t as repugnant to me as I let on.”
“Then why…？”
“I’d had a bad game of golf and was sick and tired of sleeping alone.”
“I overreacted,” Sharon conceded. “It was a bit dramatic of me to insist you cook your own meals.”
“It taught me a lesson,” Jerry said, and rubbed his hand down her bare arm. “I won’t complain again for a long time.”
“Good thing.”
He chuckled, then grew serious. “If we’ve decided to make a go of our marriage, we can’t be tossing the option of divorce in each other’s faces again. It’s too dangerous.”