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I would one day, if it came to that, but at that moment, Josh and I were still too new to each other to rock the family boat.
"I'll tell my parents one of these days, when the time is right. Not until."
"Okay," Josh said, and I could hear the resignation in his voice. "You can decide how to deal with your parents. I wish I still had some."
He gave me a look, which said his father's recent passing still hurt.
I kissed him, sympathy for him filling me. As much as my father and I locked horns on occasion, and my mother exasperated me, I loved them both. I couldn't imagine being so young and having no father or mother. It explained why he was so close to his brothers.
Josh woke up in the night in a sweat. It wasn't the first time, but it still shocked me.
"What?" I asked, my arm around his shoulder.
He shook his head and ran a hand through his hair. "Just a bad dream."
"That's another one. Three this past two weeks. Are you under a lot of stress or something?"
He shrugged. "I got some bad news. A fellow intelligence officer who was in Afghanistan with me died. I'm actually going to his memorial today and will fly right to LA to spend time with David. That probably gave me the nightmare."
"What happened to him?" I asked, lying back down beside Josh when he did. "He's pretty young to die."
"I think he killed himself," Josh said, his voice soft. "The obit read suddenly and unexpectedly. That's usually a sign of an accidental death or suicide."
"I'm so sorry," I said and kissed him.
It took a while for us both to fall back asleep.
The next morning, very early because Josh had an 8:00 a.m., flight, we had a quick shower and a love-making session that had both our hearts pumping from exertion. Then, we sat at the kitchen island and had breakfast. Josh scrambled some eggs and made toast, while I made the coffee.
Despite the early hour, it was an entirely comfortable domestic scene and I smiled to myself as I poured us each a cup.
"What are you smiling about?" Josh asked when he saw me. He came over after placing our plates on the counter and pulled me into his arms.
"I was just thinking that you'd make a good Tarzan."
"What?" he asked, grinning widely. "Are you saying I'm a wild man of the jungle? I just had my hair cut and my beard trimmed. I am anything but Tarzan."
"Those boxer briefs," I said and glanced down at them. They were leopard pattern and nicely fit his well-developed biker butt and thighs. "You're buff. And that tribal tattoo. All you need is a man bun."
"Never!" he said with a laugh, kissing me. "No man bun for me. I'd be laughed out of the boardroom."
I ran my fingers through his hair, which was much longer on top and buzzed shorter on the sides. "I can almost make one, if I had an elastic band..."
"Get thee behind me, Devil Woman!" he said and wrestled my hands away from his hair. "You won't get a man bun on me if I can help it."
"Aww, that's too bad," I said with a giggle, when he turned me around in his arms, pinning me in an embrace. "You'd look so incredibly sexy."
"You don't find me sexy now?" he murmured, his lips at my ear, his breath hot on my skin.
"You're incredibly sexy. In fact, you're a babe," I said. Then, I laughed out loud when he tickled me under my ribs.
"A babe?" he said, mock-indignant. "I'll have you know I've been told I'm handsome in a boyish way."
"Who told you that?" I asked, actually curious.
"A scout for a modeling agency tried to recruit me when I was seventeen and was at one of the fashion shows with my mom."
He let go of me and I turned around in his arms, clasping my hands around his neck. "You were? You're very handsome but not in a boyish way any longer. You're just plain handsome in a manly kind of way."
