My laughter subsides into a soft smile.My eyes return to his handsome face, and I notice a tiny, errant smear of red sauce near the corner of his mouth.
“You have some sauce there,” I point out softly.
He chuckles, swiping confidently at the wrong side of his mouth.
“No, still there,” I giggle.“Here…”
Without second-guessing the impulse, I lean forward, cupping the side of his face to hold him still.His breath hitches as I cover the small smear with my mouth, my tongue darting out to leisurely lick it away.I taste more than the ragù.I taste the salt of his skin.The heat of his flush.I tastehim.
I pull back just an inch.His eyes have turned a molten green, their playfulness incinerated by a wave of raw heat.His entire body has gone rigid.He lets out a sound from deep in his chest.The sound of a man at the absolute end of his restraint.
“Fuck dinner,” he rasps.A guttural surrender.
The bowl and fork clatter forgotten onto the countertop as his mouth devours mine.In one fluid, powerful motion, he sweeps me from the island and into his arms.My legs wrap around his waist as if they were made to be there.He carries me from the kitchen and into the living room, laying me down on the large, soft sofa.His body immediately follows mine down.
His kiss is hungry.His hands attack the strings of my apron.He fumbles with the knot, his movements clumsy with a desperation that is both thrilling and amusing.
“Damn this apron,” he growls against my neck.
A breathless, almost hysterical laugh bubbles out of me.The sheer absurdity of this powerful man being so utterly thwarted by a simple knot.
My laughter seems to snap something in him.A challenging glint ignites in his eyes.He pushes himself up, his knees settling on either side of my hips.He looms over me, eyes blazing with desire and frustrated amusement.
His lips twitch.A devastating grin fights to break through.“Oh, you think that’s funny, do you?”His voice is a dangerous purr as his fingers renew their assault on the stubborn knot.“Laughing at me in my moment of weakness?”
With a final, triumphant tug, the knot gives way.
“Fuck, finally!”He rips the apron from my body and tosses it heedlessly into the darkness.His expression makes my laughter bubble up even harder.
“Let’s see about that laughter now.”His warning is a husky threat as he leans down, his lips trailing up my neck to my earlobe.
My laughter dies instantly, replaced by a gasp.His hands slide with agonizing slowness under the hem of my T-shirt.His palms are warm against the bare skin of my stomach, blazing a path of fire in their wake.My back arches off the couch, my gasp turning into a broken moan as his touch roams higher.
I feel the curve of his triumphant smile form against my skin.“I see that laughter is gone,” he murmurs.His words a victorious, silken caress.
There’s a frantic urgency in our movements.
The way his hands are in my hair, tilting my head back.
The way my own hands fumble with the hem of his T-shirt, needing to feel his skin on mine.
He groans my name against my lips, helping me tug his top over his head, tossing it aside.Then his hands are on my sweatpants, sure and desperate.There is no hesitation left in me.Only an answering, all-consuming need.My own hands work at his waistband, a frantic fumbling until we are finally skin to skin.
“Amy,” he whispers, framing my face with his hands.“Look at me, love.”
My breath catches.
His eyes, even in the shadows, are blazing with a universe of love and untamed desire.
This is the man who has seen my ghosts.My messy reality.
He isn’t running.
He’s here.
He’s staying.
This is not just a joining of bodies…
