“Some.”
“Well, to start, you gave the book a bad review,” she says, her soft laughter echoing in the bedroom.
I wince, mostly from the pain in my head, some from humiliation.
“I had a plan, and it seems I’m not so good at executing them these days.”
“Well, you are on vacation,” she edges her chin on her pillow, moving closer to me, and I’m thankful I brushed my teeth. Gin brewed sweat beads at my temple as I try my best to recall the details of my blackout.
“Forgive me, Trésor. I don’t re—”
Her full smile steals my speech. “Remember that your calf had sex with Beau and that you’re expecting in four to six weeks?”
I faceplant in my pillow and then turn to her and grin, opening one eye. She runs her fingers through my tangled, flour caked hair, and I rest in the touch, a hope igniting in me that I’ve been starving for.
Her eyes do a slow sweep down my face before her tone turns to one of concern. “You were brutally honest.”
“I don’t know how to make things right.”
“I saw the effort you put in while I was cleaning my destroyed kitchen.” She widens her eyes. “No more cooking drunk, okay?”
“You should have let me clean it. Forgive me?”
“For last night, I’ll consider it,” she runs her hand down my bicep and arm before squeezing my hand and entangling our fingers. “The lights, Tobias, they are beautiful.”
“I didn’t want you to see them alone.”
“I think I needed to.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning, I needed to see for myself what you haven’t told me in all the years we were apart. You’re…a lot to handle in a room sometimes. I don’t mean it in a bad way, but you’re distracting. And your guilt…it’s eating you alive. It’s been years, Tobias. Haven’t you made peace with any of it?”
“With Roman, all of that, yes, but with…everything else, no,” I close my eyes. “I don’t know how to stop it.”
“We’ll get through this,” she moves her upper half to cover me, and if it weren’t for my pounding head, I’d be all too eager to try and make love to her until she forgets the ass I was last night and remembers the controlled man she met. The man capable of conducting himself.
“Je suis un putain d’idiot,” I mumble, biting my lip.
“My idiot,” she grips my jaw and uses her thumb to pull it free from my teeth. For the first time since I came back to her, she initiates a kiss. Heart rocketing, I cup the back of her head and latch on, keeping her close, and kiss her back through the protest in my screaming head.
“Tobias,” she moans against my lips, and I have a vision of ripping flannel, of more moans, of burying my cock inside her.
Shifting to hover above her, I see the one thing I desperately need in her eyes, permission.
Fuck the headache.
Chest cracking wide, I reclaim her lips and grip her hair, angling her head and plunge my tongue deep into her mouth. Our kiss singes us both, and we set into motion. All at once, I give into every part of me, with the freedom I haven’t had for years as I begin to touch her, taste her neck, inhale her scent, indulge and lose myself in her while dragging moans and rapid breaths from her lips.
“Fuck, I missed you,” I murmur, lifting the hem of her flannel top with an eager hand just as Beau barks, his alert breaking us apart as the sound of an approaching motor stops all our movement. Cecelia glances up at me and frowns.
“Expecting someone?” I ask, ready to murder whoever is interrupting us as my cock weeps in my boxers. There’s no fucking way anyone would make it this close to our front door without my birds aware. Whomever it is, they’ve already been screened and identified if they made it into the driveway. I’m positive there is a text waiting with an arrival announcement.