After a minute or two, I heave a frustrated sigh. I don’t want him to stop. I want to lay in this bed with him in our pink bubble of happiness and never leave. But there are still jobs to do. For both of us.
“It’s stuff for the gala,” I say. “And if I’m losing tonight to go to your game, then it’s now or never.”
He sighs, going still behind me, his erection pressing against my hip. “I don’t want you to leave this bed,” he admits, saying out loud what I’m feeling. “It feels too soon.”
“It’s after 8:00 a.m.,” I tease, but I know exactly what he means. It’s too soon for us to separate. This thing between us is too fragile. We can only nurture it if we’re together, laughing and fucking and ignoring the rest of the world.
“Tell me you feel this too,” he says, his hand brushing a curl off my shoulder.
I shift in his arms, spinning around until our legs entangle and I’m facing him, peering into the apple green of his eyes, framed by dark golden lashes. I brush my fingers down the rigid bone of his sternum. “You know I do. Didn’t we settle that the other night? Magnets, you called us.”
He nods. “This feels like physics to me, not biology. You pulled me in that day on the beach. I tried to avoid it at first, tried to pretend it was just infatuation or lust. Even when you were in Cincinnati, I could feel it. You know, I asked Doc about you?”
I smile. “Really?”
“Yeah, I was so lame,” he says with a laugh. “She saw right through me. She told me about your love of Sons of Anarchy.”
I gasp. “She did not.”
“She did,” he says with a smirk. “I think she was trying to warn me away, though. I think she thinks I’m not badass enough for you. She thinks I’ll bore you and you’ll move on.”
“Puppy, you are anything but boring,” I reply, making a mental note to tit punch Rachel when I see her.
He smirks, satisfied with my answer. “I still don’t know what the hell you’re doing with me. I think part of me thought I’d wake, and you’d be gone again. You keep doing that, you know,” he adds with an accusing look.
“Doing what?”
“Slipping away,” he replies. “Even when you just fall asleep in my bed watching TV, I always wake up to find you gone. You like to leave first, don’t you?”
My heart flutters as I take in his full meaning. He’s not just talking about slipping out in the morning. “It’s my bullshit, self-destructive way of avoiding getting hurt,” I admit.
“And does it work?”
A quiet moment stretches between us as he just waits, his gaze slowly tracing the lines of my face. It’s like he knows what I was thinking about as I was lying here watching him sleep. “Sometimes,” I reply. “But usually, it only works when I was never really interested to begin with.”
“And now?” His thumb brushes over my lips. “Shelby says you’re gonna break my heart…are you?”
“When did she say that?” I whisper.
“The morning you met in the kitchen. She called you a cataclysm. I had to google it,” he admits. “It means a life-shattering event, upheaval, ruination.”
“I know what it means.”
God, is she right? Am I going to ruin him? Troy’s threats are still out there. None of this is finished. I’m not free. These shackles I wear can still drag me down to the darkest depths. And not the pink fuzzy kind—
“Hey,” he whispers. “For the record, I think she’s wrong. I googled words that mean the opposite. You may have ruined me for all other women, but you’re not a calamity, Tess. You’re a godsend.” He kisses the tip of my nose. “A blessing,” he adds, kissing my cheek. “A windfall…I had to google that one too.”
We both laugh as he wraps me in his arms and rolls on top of me, his hips pressing against mine.
“Can we have sex like this? No toys, no mirrors or cameras. No pretzel twists or kissing cobras.”
I snort trying to hold in my laugh. “Kissing cobras?”
“I don’t fucking know,” he says, his hips already moving against mine. “I’m sure it’s a thing.”
“I’m willing to try the pretzel twist,” I tease. “But I don’t think I have the right anatomy to play kissing cobras with you.”
“Stop talking,” he says, leaning down to kiss my lips. It’s our first kiss this morning, and it almost surprises me how eager I am for it.