“Wes?” I call out warily.
“Bedroom,” comes my boyfriend’s muffled response.
No, not my boyfriend. My...fiancé? Wow. Still feels surreal to think it.
He appears a moment later, wearing sweatpants that ride deliciously low on his hips. I admire his bare chest, his multitude of tattoos, his sleek, golden skin. He’s gorgeous. And he looks like he’s gained some of the weight back. I hadn’tnoticed last night because I was too busy mauling him, but his pecs and biceps are noticeably more sculpted than they’d been a few months ago.
“How was the flight?” He shrugs into a T-shirt, covering his spectacular chest, then walks over to give me a kiss.
I reach up to rub the nape of my neck. “Boring. And I fell asleep in a weird position, so now my neck is killing me.”
Wes tugs my coat off and tosses it on one of the kitchen stools. For once I don’t bug him about using the coat tree in the hall. I’m too happy to see him. “Go take a hot shower,” he orders. “I’ll fix you something to eat, and then I’ll rub your neck…” He winks. “Among other things.”
“That…” I say, yanking him close, “sounds—” I brush my lips over his, and we both shiver. “—awesome.”
Grinning, he smacks my ass and nudges me toward the hall. I walk to our bedroom and strip, then duck into the shower to wash away the stale coffee smell that’s lingered with me since I left the airport. I wonder what Wes is making to eat. I love that man, I really do, but cooking is not his forte. He can’t even fry up an egg without burning it.
Sure enough, an acrid odor assaults my nose when I walk out ten minutes later. A sheepish Wes greets me at the stove.
“Tried to make grilled cheese,” he mutters.
I stare at the mangled, blackened carcass of bread and cheese congealing in my best cast-iron pan. Then I burst out laughing. “It’s fine, babe. I’m not hungry, anyway. Let’s just skip to the neck rubbing part.” I kiss his cheek and turn off the stove burner. “But you get an E for effort.”
He brightens. “Nice. And did you see I cleaned? Spent all day sprucing up the place for you.”
“Seriously?”
He gives me a smartass grin. “Okay, no. I spent two and ahalf hours watching tape with the team. But that’s why I hired a nice woman named Evenka to show up once a week and do the cleaning and laundry. Blake swears she has magic cleaning powers.” He grabs my shoulder. “Can we keep her? Please?” He asks the same way as a boy who’s brought home a puppy.
I have the usual urge to say no based on the expense. So I picture his dead grandfather and take a deep breath. “Sure.”
“Yesss.” He takes my hand and drags me to the couch. “Banshee?” he suggests.
“Heck yeah.”
Wes grabs the remote, which he tosses at me. Then he runs to the kitchen for two sodas, probably because I’m not supposed to have alcohol yet. But I don’t even complain, because I’m just so happy to be here.
When he sits down, we come together like two magnets realigning. His head on my chest, my arm slung around him, our legs tangled. I’m just about to start the episode when Wes laughs. “Would you believe I got an email from the travel department about a bill for the broken bed?”
“Already?”
“It gets better. Below that is an email from the PR department with a link to a gossip blog. Not only do they have a shot of us kissing in the lobby. They have a shot of the broken bed.”
“What?” I yelp.
He grabs my hand and kisses it. “Yeah. They must have paid off a hotel staffer for that little nugget. But it’s just a picture of furniture, Canning. I care more that they want to charge me eight hundred bucks. So I wrote an email to both travelandPR telling them to bill Blake because his fat ass broke it. And you’ll never guess what they said.” He snickers. “The clubhouse will pay for it because they don’t want the hotel to have a record of athirddude in that room. You and Iare fine by the PR department. But gossip of a threesome is more than they can handle.”
“Oh my fucking God,” I say as Wes laughs. “You’re tempted, right? I can hear your gears turning. You want to recruit Blake to make fake incriminating pictures.”
“You know me too well. And why stop at three? I’ll get Eriksson and Forsberg lit on scotch and stage an orgy. I’m thinking...naked pillow fight.”
I give his ass a pinch. “Meanwhile I’m trying to keep my jobworking with children. But no big.”
“Aw.” He leans back and kisses my chin. “I’m just teasing.”
“Uh-huh.” I push Play on our show, but I’m still smiling. Life with Wes is never dull. Even when we’re old and gray with saggy asses, he’ll still be funny and he’ll still be mine.
We drink our sodas and watch our show. It’s seven o’clock, and there are probably a dozen things we should be catching up on—calls, emails, bills. But we ignore all of it because we’re home alone, and we’re together, and that’s the only thing either of us care about right now.
