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I’ve been reduced to combing the fringes on one of my area rugs when I finally hear a car in the driveway.
I open the front door and step outside as he parks and gets out of the driver’s seat. He makes a face at me as he grabs his stuff from the backseat. “It’s cold out here. Where’s your coat?”
“You think I give a damn about the cold?” I grin at him as he starts up the front walk.
Then I can resist no longer. I start running toward him, and he has to drop his bags to catch me when I hurl myself at him in a hug.
He holds me tightly, lifting me off my feet in his enthusiasm.
“I missed you,” I say when he finally sets me down and picks back up his bags.
He smiles down at me. “I missed you too.”
When we walk in, he immediately perks up at the smell of chili. He goes to take a quick shower and unpack—mostly dumping all his dirty clothes in the laundry basket—while I get the toppings ready for the chili.
We eat at the kitchen bar and then move to the living room. Caleb finishes his beer while I eat some ice cream. He tells me about his job and about how he suspects Worth is mostly relieved after the breakup. He evidently wants a few months of downtime on the yacht with no one to bother him except the crew, the domestic staff, and his long-time assistant.
When we’ve finally talked ourselves out, we stretch out on the couch together. I kiss him on the shoulder, then the jaw, then the mouth.
He responds—soft and unfocused. He feels tired to me. He usually is when he gets back from an intensive work project.
I’m about to pull back since he might want to sleep before we make love, but he deepens the kiss. The embrace lasts a long time, and after a minute, he’s grown hard against me in the old sweatpants he’s wearing.
I’ve missed him so much and have felt deeply affectionate all day, so I’m ready for sex without much foreplay. We have some urgent, emotional missionary right there on the couch. It doesn’t last very long, but it doesn’t have to.
We’re both sated and smiling at the end of it, tangled together under a throw blanket.
After a few minutes, I kiss his shoulder again. “Your mom told me today that she knew I was the girl for you on the very first day you met me.”
He chuckles at this. “That doesn’t surprise me. I was trying to be all cool and collected about it, but I was pretty far gone even then.”
I snuggle closer. “I didn’t know. You always acted so detached and professional.”
“You weren’t supposed to know. How creepy would you have found me if you knew all that time I was secretly yearning for you.”
“Not creepy at all. It makes me…”
“It makes you what?” He pulls back just enough to tilt my chin up so he can see my expression.
“It makes me feel special. Protected.”
“Baby, you are special. And you’ll always be protected. For as long as I’m alive.”
It’s almost too much. An overflow of love and faith and deep connection that has no end. “I want you to feel the same way.”
He finds my lips and murmurs against them, “I promise I do.”
* * *
