Playing It Safe(91)

“Again.”

“I love you.”

“One more time, please,” he whispers against my mouth.

“I. Love. You. Now, please kis—”

He angles his mouth over mine and starts to do as I ask. It’s soft, tender, and oh so perfect. Before long it escalates. And sweet Lord how I’ve definitely missed this.

Our breathing is becoming labored as each of us is grabbing and pulling at the other. He adjusts me on his lap in one swift movement until my skirt is hiked up to my waist and I’m straddling him. My hands start to make quick work of his belt buckle to release his— You know what?

I’d like for once to make love to my man without all of you getting a free show. This one is just for me and my man. “My man,” has a nice ring to it, don’t you think?

Yup, I couldn’t agree more.





EPILOGUE


About eight months later …

I’m not a man of many words.

I say what I want, when I want, with as little fuss as possible. This is particularly effective when it comes to the woman in my life.


She, on the other hand, can talk my ear off and question every little thing to the point of distraction. I especially enjoy when she gets that look on her face as she’s about to go off on me. Because all I have to do usually to get her to calm down is wrap her up in my arms and kiss her senseless until she shuts up. Then she’s back to her normal self, spouting off pop culture references that I sometimes can keep up with, but for the most part I have no goddamn clue what she’s talking about.

As of late, this has been happening more often.

No, no, no. It’s not what you think. She’s just … how can I put this delicately?

I’d say she’s a bit stressed what with the move and all.

Julia and I now live together. It was a natural progression in our relationship, seeing as how we essentially were living together but not sharing a closet. At least that’s how her father nicely put it the last few times we had dinner with them. Actually what he really said was, “When the f*ck are you two going to move on to the next step already? Inquiring minds want to know.”

So now we share a closet and everything else that comes with it. Today will be the third day since she’s moved all of her stuff into my house. Sorry, I mean our house. I have to try and catch myself with that because if she hears me say it wrong one more time, she’s threatened to pack her stuff up and move back to her old house.

There’s still boxes scattered everywhere as we try to decide what will go where and piles of clothes in the bedroom that scare the living crap out of me. I’ve never seen that much clothing in one place before without it being a mall, but she swears she needs all of it.

I glance up at the clock on the wall in my home office and notice that she should be home soon. I’ve been checking off and on for the past ten minutes since we have reservations for dinner in about an hour, and I don’t want to be late.

And like clockwork, I hear the front door open not a minute later.

And not even a second after that I hear her voice floating down the hall. “Motherf*cker! Are you f*cking kidding me with this shit? Jesus Christ! No f*cking way!”

I cringe before calling out to her as calmly as possible. “Julia?”

“Hang on a second, I’ll be right there.”

More cursing ensues for a few more seconds, and her voice gets closer until she’s standing in the doorway of my office holding a letter in her hand and looking as beautiful as ever. No joke, she takes my f*cking breath away every time I see her. Especially now.

I beckon her with my finger, and she walks over to me with a worried look on her face. She comes around my desk, and I swivel my seat to make room for her to stand in between my legs. I grab her hips and kiss her stomach before looking up at her.

“What’s wrong?”

“I just got Sabrina and Tyler’s wedding invitation in the mail.”

I smile as she shows me the invitation in her hand so I can read it for myself. “Baby, we already knew about this. I don’t understand why this is getting you so upset that you have to curse like that. We had a deal, remember?”

“I know, I know, I owe the curse jar like a hundred bucks, but I don’t give a shit.”

I have to bite my lip to keep from laughing because I love it when she gets so worked up. She looks beyond adorable when she’s angry. “That’s another ten bucks. Keep it up and you’ll be able to pay your rent here for the next year in advance.”

“Very funny,” she says with a smile creeping up on her face.

“Tell me what’s the problem without cursing, and I’ll take you out to dinner.”

“You’re taking me out to dinner anyway.”

“I know, but watching you try not to curse is fun.”

She drops the invitation on my desk and plants her hands on my shoulders. I rest my chin on her stomach as she goes on about the date of the wedding, getting more worked up with every passing word until she drops the f-bomb again.

“Don’t say it,” she warns playfully.

“I still don’t understand what the problem with the date of the wedding is.”

“Alex, do the math.” Her eyes go wide as if hinting at something when it finally clicks.

My fingers lift up the hem of her T-shirt so that I can kiss the skin underneath her belly button. I shoot my eyes up to find her watching me as I press more kisses softly against her stomach, and my hands grip her hips to keep her in place.