All I Ever Need Is You (The Sullivans #14)(29)

The very best thing.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

“Your turn now,” Adam said between bites. “Tell me how things are going with the wedding biz.”

Kerry laughed as she took a bite of bread, swallowing it down with some red wine before saying, “You can’t possibly want to hear about the minute details of planning happily-ever-afters.”

“I like listening to you be passionate, whatever the subject. Especially,” he added with a wicked grin, “when you’re being passionate about something on my lap in the bathtub.”

She threw the rest of her roll at him as she laughed again. He liked seeing her loose like this, her hair down and tangled around her shoulders, her mouth curving up again and again into easy smiles.

“Well, if you insist,” she said with her own little wicked glint in her eyes, “I’d be happy to tell you all about the couple I met with for the second time today.”

Surprisingly, he found he really was interested. Still, he had to tease her by saying, “Let me guess. They were disgustingly, droolingly in love and they called each other Poopsie and Button.”

He was expecting her to laugh again, but she frowned instead. “Actually, they weren’t like that at all.”

She looked so sad about it that he pushed the tray of food aside so that he could pull her onto his lap and put his arms around her. “Then what were they doing in your office?”

She sighed, leaning closer to him. “That’s what I keep asking myself.” He pressed a kiss to her neck, and she shivered a little at the sensation before saying, “They couldn’t agree on anything. Not location. Not size. Not style. Not even the month to have the wedding.”

“Maybe,” he suggested, “he feels like a fish out of water talking to a wedding planner.”

“I’d have known if that were the problem,” she said with a shake of her head. “This was different. Like they were both determined to push at each other.”

“But they’ve gotten this far, right? To the point where she’s wearing a ring that he gave her and they’re talking with the best wedding planner in the business.”

That got him a small smile, which he was glad to see. “True.”

“Some of the buildings I’ve loved working with most are the ones where, when I’ve pushed, she’s pushed back just as hard.”

“Your buildings are feminine?”

“Most of them.”

She rolled her eyes. “Figures.”

He gave her shoulder a little nip. “Can I get back to my point now?”

She lowered her mouth to his shoulder and nipped him back. “Go ahead.”

Of course, instead of finishing his thought, he needed to slide his hands into her already tangled hair to kiss her breathless. They were both breathing hard by the time he finally let her up for air.

“I think I get your point now.” She looked back down at his mouth, then up to his eyes. “They probably have such great sex that nothing else matters.”

He should have jumped to agree with her. But for the first time in his life, he found he couldn’t play the part of the player who only had sex on the brain.

“I’m the last guy to say sex isn’t important. But there’s got to be more than that if things are going to work long term.” When she didn’t respond, simply stared at him as if seeing him for the first time, he tried to explain. “My siblings, my cousins—I’ve seen the way they are with their spouses. Sure, they can’t keep their hands off each other, but that’s just a part of what binds them together.”

“What else do they have?”

“Respect. Trust. Dedication.”

“Wow, I’m impressed. You didn’t even need to think about that list.”

“Like I said, I’ve seen an awful lot of couples in love, with my parents right at the top of the list.”

“Maybe you should have been a wedding planner instead of an architect.”

He put his mouth to hers, found her tongue with his, and then gently bit it.

She was laughing even before he let it go. “Did you just bite my tongue?” she asked through her laughter.

“Someone had to for saying that.”

He loved the feel of her shaking with laughter on his lap. So much that he really didn’t want to let her go any time soon.

“Look, all I’m saying is that maybe they like the pushing. Maybe they both like the challenge. Maybe they’d be bored with someone exactly like them, someone who thinks the exact same way. Maybe they like the excitement of knowing their partner will always surprise them.”

“I’ve never looked at things that way.” She looked pensive. “I always thought friction was a bad thing in relationships.”

How, he wondered, had they progressed to talking so seriously about relationships? What they did on their nights together was supposed to be just sex. Instead, somehow, he was having to work to stop himself from thinking about how a real relationship with Kerry wouldn’t be boring, because they didn’t think the same way at all. Because she always surprised him.

Sex. He needed to turn the focus of their night back to sex, and quickly, before things went any deeper and they both had regrets in the morning when they came to their senses.

“All this talk of friction”—her skin was soft beneath his lips as he laid her back on the bed, peeled open her robe, lifted her arms up over her head, and began to kiss his way down her gorgeously naked body—“has given me an idea. Want to hear it?”