PERFECTLY, INCANDESCENTLY HAPPY
A CHERRY PICKED BONUS SCENE
CHAPTER ONE
JACK
Life with HawkSunday was never boring.
“Psspss.Tch, tch, tch. Pssspsspsspsspssst.”
It was shortly past sunrise and I was still a little bleary as I followed the strange sounds down the wide, oak staircase and around the corner to our large farmhouse kitchen. The floor was chilly under my feet and though the radiators were dutifully clanking and hissing, there was a distinct draft blowing through the house—enough to make me wish I’d thrown on more than a pair of flannel pajama pants when I’d noticed the empty spot in the bed beside me and gone in search of my missing fiancé.
Most mornings, Hawk was the late riser of the two of us. Not only did he work every bit as hard as I did, especially now that he was taking on a more active role in some environmental initiatives around the Hollow, but my man also had a late-night reading habit to keep up… and he didn’t shirk his duty. Sometimes I’d come home from the diner and find him passed out in our hidden library with a paperback on his chest. More often, a stifled gasp or muffled groan would rouse me from sleep in the wee hours of the morning, and I’d roll over to find him curled beside me in the darkness, reading some brand new Pride and Prejudice variation—Hawk’s drug of choice—on his Kindle with the brightness turned low.
Hawk claimed it was the most satisfying feeling in the world when he could wake in the night, glance out the window at the stars flickering over the dark treetops on our land, cuddle against my warmth, and listen to me snoring softly as he cracked open a story.
Personally, I thought it was much a more satisfying feeling to reach over, haul his lean, naked body against mine, watch him toss his Kindle on the bedside table, and get him to gasp and groan for entirely different reasons.
Also, I didnotsnore, no matter what Hawk claimed.
But all of that nocturnal reading (and,ahem, not-reading) meant that it was unusual for Hawk to wake before me, and even more unusual for him to drag himself out of our bed before I did, especially on a rare Saturday when neither of us were scheduled to work.
“Baby?” I reached the kitchen and glanced around the cheery space with a frown. The scent of freshly brewed coffee filled the air, but the room was cold and Hawk-less.
One of the French doors moved in the breeze and I walked around the island to glance out at the back porch… which was where I found the love of my life sitting cross-legged on the deck, shivering slightly in only a t-shirt and pajama pants, and making strange hissing noises in the direction of the forest.
Well. Okay, then.
I grabbed a striped throw blanket from the little nook where we ate most of our meals, grinning a little as I did so. I’d gone my whole life without seeing the point of shit like throw blankets—if a house was warm enough and a person had adequate clothing, why clutter up a space with useless textiles?
Hawk, on the other hand, claimed they gave the space character. That they’d made our house a home.
Frankly, I thoughtHawkwas the one who did that, and since the blankets made him happy, I didn’t utter a single word of protest—not even when the silly things began taking over each room of the house, since it seemed every member of the Little Pippin Hookers needed to crochet, knit, or weave something for their precious Hawklet.
And damned if the blankets weren’t occasionally useful. Like when snuggling in front of the television on a Sunday afternoon. Or when your future uncle-in-law dropped by unexpectedly mere moments after you and your very naked partner had finished fucking on the kitchen floor. Or, like now, when the man you loved had awoken in the morning and decided to begin speaking in tongues while courting hypothermia.
I slid out the open door, closing it behind me to keep the warmth inside, and knelt to drape the blanket over Hawk’s shoulders. “Morning.”
“Morning.” Hawk glanced up at me, brown eyes shining in welcome. “There’s coffee in the?—”
“Mmhmm. I saw.” I sat behind him, spreading my legs on either side of his body, and pulled him back to wrap my arms around his chest. Still half-asleep, I buried my face in his neck and inhaled deeply, feeling my cock stir. Hawk smelled like clean laundry and the bodywash—mybodywash—I’d used on him in the shower last night. As I nuzzled his ear, I strongly considered beginning our day with porch sex…
At least until a distinctly cold breeze gusted through the trees, skittering leaves and pine needles across the porch, and I dismissed the idea.
“Hawk. Baby. What the hell are we doing out here?” I mumbled into his skin.
Hawk snorted and leaned forward just enough to remove the blanket separating us. With a bit of finagling, he drapedthe blanket over my shoulders instead, then nestled back into the shelter of my arms with a happy sigh. The feeling of him squirming against me was distracting enough that I almost missed his explanation. “We’re waiting for Potato.”
“For…”
“Potato,” Hawk repeated. He pointed to a small ceramic bowl a couple of feet away, which seemed to have been freshly filled with cat treats. “I got him his favorite Greenies. He always comes when I have Greenies. And I’ve beenpsp-psp-psp-ing at him for five minutes.”
“Ohhh. Right.” I’d always known Hawk was an animal lover, but I hadn’t realized just how deep the love affair went until we lived together. He didn’t just enjoy his family’s pets or livestock, he lovedallkinds of animals--even the beady-eyed, acorn collecting, trash-picking, garden destroying kind. But he really,reallyloved the stray cats that roamed the area, and had even tried to lure them inside when the weather started getting chilly, probably to make sure each one had an adequate supply of throw blankets.
Unfortunately, the closest he’d come after several weeks of effort was getting one cat—a tiny fluff-monster with bi-colored eyes and russet-brown fur that Hawk had named Potato—to eat treats from a bowl on the porch and consent to be petted. Ordinarily I wouldn’t care much about this, not being much of a pet-person, but I knew Hawk cared a lot.
“Maybe Potato’s sleeping in,” I offered. “It’s Saturday, after all.”
