Then he tucked the covers around them, nuzzled his bristly cheek against hers, and rumbled a quick good night, as if she were supposed to sleep after that. As ifanyonecould sleep after that.
To be fair, she did sleep after that. Quite well.
But it was still annoying. She wanted more, and she planned to show him so right now.
The morning sun streamed through tiny gaps in the blinds and struck fire in his russet beard. In sleep, the lines beside his eyes were barely visible, and he almost looked twenty again.
But he wasn’t. She wasn’t. And she was glad for it.
She leaned down and pressed a kiss on his lips, and even in sleep, his mouth clung to hers. But when he blinked those gorgeous blue eyes open and saw her, he bolted upright, almost head-butting her. She sprang back in a hurry, and he steadied her with a hand wrapped around her upper arm.
“Shit.” He rubbed his eyes with his free hand. “Sorry about that.”
So much for seduction. “It’s okay. I didn’t mean to scare you.”
“You didn’t scare me, honey. It’s just that I was all, um…” A faint flush crept over his cheeks. “I was all happy about the kiss when I woke up, and then I remembered morning breath. Give me a minute.”
He wasstillhappy about the kiss, from what the tented sheet was telling her.
“Fine.” She’d already made her morning bathroom stop, and she supposed it was unfair to deny him his. “But hurry.”
His eyes suddenly didn’t look so sleepy anymore. Instead, they were wide and alert. “Really?”
She patted the bed beside her. “Yeah.”
He hurried. But when he emerged from the bathroom a minute later, he didn’t leap back into bed. Instead, he halted in the doorway, his mouth pressed tight. Not the expression of a man about to get some with a wife he adored.
Did he have doubts? Did he not want her after all?
Had she misunderstood everything?
“Honey, you can wipe that look off your face.” With a sigh, he cast his eyes downward. “One glance at my pajama bottoms will tell you what you need to know.”
Oh. Good point.
“But your breast…” He shook his head. “It’s still bruised and tender. I don’t want it to, um…”
When he paused, clearly searching for the right words, she had to laugh. “Rhythmically jiggle up and down?”
“That’s it.” He paused. “Although maybe I misinterpreted your little pat on the bed, and you don’t actually want to make love. Am I assuming too much here?”
“No. You’re not.” Still, that didn’t solve their problem. Because he was right: Bouncing boobs didn’t sound particularly comfortable at the moment. “I think we can make it work. Maybe I can wear my bra?”
He closed his eyes and let out a slow breath. “The first time I’m inside you, I want us both naked and sweaty and completely unconcerned about anything but how hard and often I can make you come.”
Ooooh. That gave her a nice little tingle.
The situation sucked, though.
“So no making love today?” She frowned at him. “I won’t lie to you. That’s a grave disappointment, James. You’ve been teasing me with your stealth sex-bomb kisses for days now.”
He blinked at her for a moment, and then his lips curved into the widest, most wicked grin she’d ever seen on his handsome face. “You like my mouth, huh?”
She rolled her eyes. “Of course I like your mouth. You clearly took some sort of seminar while I was writing my senior thesis about Melville’s weird whale-penis chapter inMoby Dick.”
“No seminar. Just enthusiasm.” His blue eyes glinted in the morning sun. “And speaking of my mouth and my enthusiasm, why don’t you lie back nice and slowly?”
She should insist on taking care of him first, given how attentive he’d been since the procedure. How sweetly he tried to distract her when she started worrying. How gently he held her when the cell rang and she could barely speak, could barely hold it in her shaking hand until she glanced at the display and saw it was a friend or her sister. Not the pathologist or Dr. Sterling. Not the news that would free her or signal more struggles ahead.
