My cheeks darken. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say you’re picking up on my vocabulary, too.”
He chuckles. “I’m smarter than you think.” He winks. “But dumb, old rancher seemed better for us before.”
“Don’t tell me you’re one of those I-know-the-secrets-of-the-universe guys,” I tease.
He arches an eyebrow. “That what you want?”
I shake my head. “Too boring. I need someone to discover things with.”
“Oh, we have plenty to discover together.”
I reach forward, running a hand over the sweep of his broad shoulders down to his back. Then, I drag my fingernails softly back up.
I feel his sigh before I hear it. “Oh, you like that.”
“Yes,” he murmurs, eyes closing. I run my fingernails over him again, until my body shivers.
“This is never going to get old, you know.”
He lifts his head, opening one eye. “Nope, longest honeymoon the world’s ever seen.”
“Honeymoon? That means marriage, Ash. Are you proposing?”
“Don’t know if we could get any closer,” he hedges, though I feel it to the core of him: earnest commitment.
“So.” I let out a puff of air.
“Yes?”
“You ever been to another planet?”
He shakes his head. “Earthbound alien.”
“Wait, what does that make you?” I ask, staring up at the rough-hewn cabin’s ceiling. “A terrestrial-extraterrestrial?”
He shakes his head.
“Ever been in a spaceship?”
“Hell, Josephine, I spend more time in the saddle than a car. And cell phones… I’m still working those out.”
“You’re definitely not what I was expecting.”
“You weren’t expecting me at all,” he counters, burying his head at the nape of my neck. “A man ready to worship the hell out of you. That enough?” His voice is dark silk, his mind washing over mine, slow and sensual.
“Do you think...” I pant. “You could give me an orgasm just byfeelingit?”
My pulse spikes. Heat curling low.
“Oh.”
“Oh?” he asks darkly.
“And all these years you were celibate? Seventy-three?—”
Before I can even finish, he answers, “Yes, and it was worth the wait. I’d wait a thousand years for you.”
“Probably could, by the looks of Mags.”
