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“Better than fine. Like…” She managed to lift an arm in the air. “Up there better than fine.”
“Glad to hear it.” She felt his lips curve against the side of her throat. “I planned to take it slower.”
She raised her head, pushed back her hair as she looked down at him. “Was I too fierce for ya?”
“Just fierce enough. But I missed a few spots.” He trailed a finger down her cheek. “I’ll catch them next time.”
She lowered her forehead to his. “I need to tell you something.”
“If you can’t tell me something when we’re naked in bed after sex, when?”
“It’s actually about getting naked in bed after sex. My personal rule is a minimum of four dates before I get to that event. Four,because three’s become a clichéd general rule, and I don’t like to follow clichés.”
“Or general rules?”
“Actually, I’m fairly reasonable about general rules.”
“So you broke your personal one with me. Flattering.”
“Not exactly. See, I decided to consider the day you and Owen moved the furniture and stayed for dinner a kind of date.”
“Interesting.” Lazily, he twined her hair around his finger. “I usually know when I’m on a date.”
“Well, my scale. Then the whole Gold Room incident, followed by dinner at the Lobster Cage. I considered that date number two.”
“That actually was a date.”
“Then on that our scales agree. After some debate and a lot of justification, I deemed the pot roast dinner a date, which makes three.”
“It appears all our dates involve food.”
“Dates so often do, right? And tonight, you brought pizza, so—”
“Fourth date. You didn’t break your rule for me.”
“No. I just worked it out my way so it came out to four. So, essentially, we’ve been dating for weeks.”
“Looks like I need to catch up.”
“I’d say you have.” She gave him a quick kiss, then sat up. “You know, I didn’t turn on the fire, light the candles on the mantel, or turn down the bed.” Suddenly, she gripped his hand. “And I just had a very disturbing thought. Do you think they, um, watch? All the time? Like when we were celebrating our fourth date?”
His gaze shifted to the fire, the candles. “That is a disturbing thought.”
“More when you consider one of them is my biological grandmother.”
“I’d rather not think about it. I’m not going to think about it. Let’s give her—and them—the benefit of trusting they respect privacy.”
“I can do that. I think I really need to do that.”
“Since you can, and you will”—he sat up, then tumbled her down again—“let’s take care of those spots I missed.”
She didn’t give ghostly voyeurs another thought.
And he stayed.
At three, the clock sounded and woke him. Beside him Sonya stirred, but didn’t wake. He slipped out of bed, pulled on his jeans. Since both dogs watched him, tails thumping, he shook his head.
“Stay.” He whispered it. “Stay with Sonya.”
