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"Half a mug," she says when I reach for the coffee pot. "I looked it up. Two hundred milligrams a day is fine."
"One-eighty to be safe," I say, adding plenty of cream before handing her the cup.
"You googled my caffeine allowance too?"
"Last night. After you fell asleep." Her mouth opens, then shuts, and she shakes her head slowly, smiling at me over the mug like I've done something remarkable instead of something obvious.
The bacon can wait. I set the fork down, come around the table, and sit in the other chair, close enough that my knees bracket hers.
"I want to say something, and I want you to hear all of it before you answer."
She nods, suddenly looking worried.
"I knew where this was headed before there was ever a stick involved. The stick didn't bring this about. It only moved up my schedule." She goes very quiet, eyes steady on mine. "So here's the practical part. That baby gets my name, my time, and every cent the boat yard makes no matter what you say next. That part's settled. It doesn't ride on your answer. The only question left is what we want, and I already know what I want. I want to be your husband. Marry me."
"Oh, Aiden." The mug goes down before she drops it.
"And if you'd rather be asked properly, ring, restaurant, me on one knee making a spectacle of myself, say so and I'll do it that way too. I’ll do it in the town square in the middle of a Saturday. I’ll ask you every day, in every possible way, until the day we actually say our vows. But I couldn’t wait one more hour to ask the first time."
"Yes." She’s reaching for me and I pull her into my lap, looking into those shiny, dark eyes. "Yes. Aiden, yes." Tears keep coming and she's smiling too hard to care. “I can’t believe two weeks ago I was the saddest I’ve been in my life and now it feels like I’m living in some kind of Utopia where everything I’ve ever wanted just keeps landing in my lap. I love you, of course I’ll marry you.”
"We'll drive to Portland for the ring. You're picking it yourself, because if I pick it, you'll be too polite to ever tell me I have awful taste."
A laugh hiccups out of her. Then she pulls back just enough so she can look directly in my eyes, and the joy turns molten, her lids suddenly heavy as her fingers slide into my hair. The laughter makes way for lust and I’m here to welcome it with full-throated enthusiasm.
She kisses me slow, lips parting so my tongue can slip in, sighing happily when I suck her bottom lip between my teeth. My hands find the hem of her shirt and span her waist underneath it, wrapping around bare warm skin, her breath goes unsteady against my mouth. She pulls back an inch.
"We have the entire morning and I'm already pregnant." Her voice is low and certain, not a tremor left anywhere in it. "So you can take your time with me, or you can have me on this table before the bacon's done. Pick one."
"Both." I stand, move the pan off the burner, and come back to find her watching me do it with her whole face lit up. "What? I'm about to be busy for a very long time."
She pulls her shirt over her head in one motion, bra following five seconds later, and hops up onto the table that seats two, mugs shoved aside, pulling me in between her thighs by my waistband. My mouth finds her breast, her nipple drawing tight against my tongue, and the sound she makes goes through me low and hot, her heels hooking behind my knees, her hands dragging my shirt up like its presence is an affront to her ancestors.
"A football team needs at least eleven," I tell her, and drag my shirt off the rest of the way. "We should get a lot of practice in so I can knock you up again as soon as possible after the first one’s born."
Diesel takes one look at the situation and removes himself to the hallway.
She leans back on her hands. I get her button open and peel her jeans and underwear off together. Then she's bare on my kitchen table in the morning light with her knees dropping open, watching me look at her and enjoying it.
"Stay put." I pull the chair around, sit down in front of her, hook my hands behind her knees and pull her hips to the edge of the table. Her breath goes uneven just from watching me settle in.
She's already glistening with desire, and the first long taste of her is salty and warm and my cock throbs against my zipper. A groan comes up out of me that I don't try to stop. There was a whole sequence planned yesterday afternoon, worked out to the last detail, and it survives contact for about a minute before she takes over, fingers sliding into my hair and steering my mouth exactly where she wants it, hips tilting up to meet me, one bare heel landing on my shoulder like it's always lived there.
"You're ruining my sequence," I tell the inside of her thigh.
"Your sequence was too slow." Her voice has gone rich and lazy, the one that only comes out when she's naked. "Right there. Don't be shy about it."
"I could do this every morning. Before coffee. Instead of coffee."
"Stop talking and- Ah!" She loses the sentence when my tongue finds the rhythm she taught me two nights ago and keeps it.
I stop being shy about it. Short focused strokes right where she pointed, my hands spread over her thighs holding them wide, her taste going deeper and darker the closer she gets, her knees starting to shake on either side of my head, and when I close my lips around her clit and suck, steady and patient, she goes off with a sharp surprised cry, no warning at all, hips bucking up off the table, the whole thing arriving fast and hitting hard while I work her through it.
"That's one," she manages, on her back on my table, chest heaving, one arm thrown over her eyes. "God. That was fast. I'd be embarrassed if it wasn't entirely your fault."
"One," I agree, wiping my mouth on my forearm and standing up out of the chair, because my patience just ran out at the sight of her.
She sits up while I shove jeans and boxers down and off, and her hand closes around my cock before I'm done stepping out of them, thumb dragging through the wet at the head, one slow tight stroke that nearly ends the morning early.
