He presses a kiss to my temple, breathing me in. “Now I fill the tub with water, pour you a glass of wine, and do whatever you want me to.”
A mighty flush warms my cheeks. “Oh.”
His smile is soft and affectionate as he sways me in his arms. “The bath will take a little to fill. And the wine’s downstairs. But we can start that last part now, though.”
“Telling you . . . what I want? What about what you want? What you need?”
Christopher stares down at me, his eyes searching mine. He dips his head and presses a kiss to my temple, my cheekbone, my cupid’s bow. “I have everything I want—you in my arms, and what I need . . . well, I just need to make you feel good. Tell me how you want it, what you want, anything.”
“Kiss me.” I don’t recognize how breathy my voice is. How unsteady I am. “Now. Please.”
His eyes spark. Then his mouth meets mine, sweet, velvet-hot strokes of his tongue, so delicate, cherishing, they make my eyes scrunch shut against a prick of tears.
Gently, he glides his hands down my waist, to my backside, and rubs it affectionately. My mouth falls open, a desperate, needy sound croaking out.
He smiles against my lips. “I love your horny sounds.”
“Shut up,” I whisper.
He laughs as I drag him with me and fall back onto the bed. When he bends down and kisses me, I sigh into it, pure euphoria.
So little has ever been easy between us. Yet here’s this comfort, the way he already knows I like to be held and kissed, deep and slow, his tongue stroking mine, coaxing desire like a flame inside me, brighter, brighter—
Gently, he pulls away. I make a highly juvenile noise of discontent.
Smiling, Christopher kisses me once more, soft and sweet. “Now, how about we draw that bath?”
? THIRTY-TWO ?
Christopher
My hand shakes as I pour two glasses of red wine, only a splash for me because I’m anxious not to tempt fate with more than the one glass that I had at dinner. Too much alcohol triggers that aching at the base of my neck, the familiar scraping pain in my eye sockets. The memory of having to leave after paintball still fresh, I don’t want a migraine ruining another night with Kate.
I silently beg my brain, which has shown zero signs of ever caring what my plans are or how badly I don’t want them to be ruined, to have mercy on me tonight.
And then I set down the bottle of wine, telling my hands to be steady. But still, they shake. Because I’ve never done this—never been with someone who means too much to me, whom I want so badly to make feel good and safe.
It’s Kate, I remind myself, stopping in the foyer in front of a picture of our families side by side in the dog days of summer, sweaty and smiling, sparklers in our hands. There she is, small and smiling, knobby-kneed and freckled, squinting at the camera. I stare at her and smile myself.
It’s Kate. Kate who snorts when she laughs and gags when she smells barbecue. Kate who loves helpless creatures as deeply as she hates injustice. Kate who teases and touches me like no one else ever has, who gets under my skin and fires me up, who kisses me like it’s the last time she’ll get to and trembles when I touch her like she never wants it to end.
As I take the stairs to the second floor and my bedroom, I repeat it like a mantra: It’s Kate. It’s Kate. It’s Kate.
Wineglasses in hand, I stop and lean at the threshold of my room to soak up the view. Kate sits on the edge of my bed, staring into the dancing flames of the gas fireplace I turned on. She looks pensive, breathtaking, bathed in firelight that paints her skin gold, turns her russet hair burnished bronze.
She looks perfect. She looks at home.
Glancing my way, she smiles, and my heart sighs at its rightness.
“Liar,” she says.
I push off the doorway, frowning. “What are you talking about?’
“Some things have changed around here.” She pats the mattress. “You got rid of the race-car bed.”
I smile, relieved, and hand Kate her glass of wine. “I tried to upsize, but they don’t make them any bigger.”
She takes the wine without any questions about how small my pour is, then stands and tips her glass my way. I tip mine to hers. Our glasses kiss and clang quietly, still humming when we bring them to our lips and drink.
Kate sighs happily. “That’s a good wine. It’s also an expensive wine, isn’t it?”
“It is.”
She peers into the wine’s depths, swirling it in her glass. “Maybe I do like money a little, if it buys this.”
A laugh jumps out of me, and I curl an arm around her, bringing her close, pressing a kiss to her forehead. “Money can’t buy happiness. But it can buy you really good food and wine, and that’s damn close.”