Page 66 of Rune’s Solace

“You know what.”

“I really don’t.”

Liar. I saw it in the little lift at one corner of her mouth, and something about Amy lying in my bed teasing me after all those months of barely looking at me felt so damn good I couldn’t even be irritated about it.

“You keep looking at my mouth,” I said, “and we’re gonna have a different kind of morning.”

The pink came fast, starting at her throat and climbing into her cheeks, but she didn’t look away.

“Maybe I was just looking.”

“Maybe I’m thirty-five and know better.”

“Do you?”

That one landed, and she knew it did.

I stared at her, she stared right back, and then, slowly enough that there wasn’t a thing accidental about it, she pushed herself up and kissed me.

Morning Amy kissed different. Last night there’d been nerves tangled through everything, even when she wanted me, some part of her checking every step before she put her foot down, but there was none of that now. This was warm and sleepy and a little bold, her hair falling around my face while she kissed me like she had nowhere else she needed to be, and I let her lead it because that mattered to me more than she’d probably ever understand.

Didn’t mean I couldn’t enjoy the hell out of where she led.

When she pulled back, I followed before I caught myself, barely an inch, but it was enough.

Her smile came slow.

“Rune.”

“Don’t.”

“You followed me.”

“I moved my head.”

“You followed me.”

“You’re getting real mouthy for somebody in my bed.”

Her eyebrows went up.

I heard it the same second she did.

“My bed,” she repeated.

“Poor choice of words.”

“No, I think those were exactly the words you meant.”

I groaned and dropped my head back against the pillow. “Jesus Christ.”

She laughed, and that sound did something to me I wasn’t prepared for.

Not the little almost-laugh I’d been getting out of her lately and not the wet, broken one from the floor last night. Amy laughed in my bed with her hair a mess and sleep still rough in her voice, and I felt the sound of it against my ribs because she was lying half on top of me.

I’d have made a fool of myself for that sound.

Probably already had.