“I hope you don’t mind, but you told me it was an old one, and you could always get more, and sauce splashes—”
She had not missed his eyes on her tee.
She also didn’t finish what she said.
Because it was hard to talk when your man was squeezing the breath out of you and had his tongue down your throat.
When he broke their kiss, she stared fuzzily up at him and muttered, “I thought it was the little woman’s job to welcome the man home like that.”
“I’m enlightened. Totally equal opportunity when it comes to kissing you fuzzy.”
“Fuzzy?”
“Baby, you can’t even focus.”
“I can see you clearly, Bowie.”
To make her laugh, but only for that, he took one arm from around her and held three fingers in front of her face.
“How many fingers am I holding up?”
She took her arms from around his neck, pushed her hands between them, gave him a weak, totally-didn’t-mean-it shove, and said, “Shut up, Bowie.”
But she did it laughing.
He gave her a grin, a quick kiss, let her go and looked to the stove.
Genny’s meatballs and red sauce.
Fucking hell.
He could almost convince himself he missed that more than he missed her.
Okay, not almost.
Not even close.
But he loved her spaghetti and meatballs.
Marilyn, Gen’s mom, was a dame, but Marilyn’s mom was Italian, and she’d taught Marilyn to cook.
As well as Genny.
Her meatballs were works of art.
And her baked ziti should have its own religion.
Thinking of Marilyn, and smelling his kitchen, and having Genny in it, cooking, Duncan couldn’t stop himself chuckling.
“What’s funny now?” she asked.
He grabbed the wooden spoon sitting on the spoon rest and looked at her.
“I was thinking of your mom. When we were hanging out on your back porch, and I wondered out loud how you got that blonde hair and those blue eyes, when your mom is dark and half Italian, and her answer was, ‘My husband has superior sperm.’”
Genny giggled and leaned a hip against the counter. “God, I remember that. I was so embarrassed.”
“You were only sixteen. At sixteen, boy or girl, no one wants to think their dad has sperm.”
She snatched up a towel and slapped it against his arm, stating, “I still don’t want to think of it, Bowie.”
He shot her another grin and dipped the wooden spoon in the huge vat (Gen never skimped when she made her red sauce, but that made it better, because if, within a few days, a miracle had occurred and it wasn’t eaten, it went into the freezer to provide future good times).
He brought the spoon to his lips, blew on it and then tasted.
Fucking heaven.
“Does it pass inspection?” she asked.
“Can we eat now?” he asked back.
She looked horrified. “We have at least twenty more minutes of simmering.”
“Sorry, out of practice,” he teased.
She rolled her eyes.
Now there…
That she gave to Chloe.
“You need to greet your dogs and give Cookie your stamp of approval,” she ordered.
He bent to the animals gathered around his legs to do that, asking, “Is Cookie settling in okay?”
“Apparently, I can take her on my jet-set travels. She settled in swimmingly. But I’m not sure Tuck is a fan. I haven’t seen him since she claimed the great room.”
“He’ll get over it,” Duncan muttered, finishing with Shasta and Rocco, he straightened with Killer in his arms.
And Tuck would have to, since Gen was moving up there.
At least, she’d be there part time. When they weren’t in Phoenix.
And if he got his way, that would be most-of-the-time part time.
“Beer?” she asked, heading to the fridge.
He looked around, saw she had a glass of wine on the counter, so he answered, “Yeah.”
She ducked in the fridge.
He let Killer go, went in search of Cookie, and did this sharing, “Just to say, for the first time, Gage figured out a couple of days ago that his dad has sperm. He’s entirely grossed out by this concept, but he figured it out because he further figured out it’s been in you, it’s gonna be in you again, and he’s currently strategizing how he’s going to handle all of his friends knowing this same thing.”
By the time he found Cookie, who was curled up on the back of the couch (though she was a sweet kitty, and thus she uncurled to stretch and reach for some scratches from his hand), he turned and saw Gen was standing in his open fridge with a bottle of beer in her hand, staring at him in dismay.
“Further heads up on that my son has yet to clue into the basics of appropriate social discourse, and in some cases behavior, no matter how much his mother and I drilled it into him. So I take no responsibility for what comes out of his mouth, or noises from other orifices in his body,” he finished.
Her eyes crinkled before her smile came and she was shaking her head as she shut the door on the refrigerator and went right to the drawer that held his bottle opener.