“Skip the Lickin’?” he gasped in a credible impression of my mother. “Never. As long as there’s been a Johnson in the Thicket, a Johnson’s been licking head!”
I pinched the smooth skin on his flank, and he laughed out loud. “Ohhhh, wait. Did I misspeak? My bad.”
I ignored his smart-assery and pulled him back against me more tightly, skin against skin. “We could be in Paris by nightfall. Oh, or Miami,” I said, thinking of the work trip back in June when Mal, Ava, and the baby had traveled to Florida to see Paul and me win the Addy award for Best Regional Marketing Campaign for our work on Partridge Pit. “You liked Miami.” And I’d loved spoiling him with fancy dinners and a room with a view.
“Mmm. I did like Miami.” Mal leaned his head against my shoulder, and I buried my nose in the crook of his neck. He smelled like the coconut lime body wash in our shower and the pure sweet scent of Mal. “I liked being there with you. I liked watching you and Paul collect your Addy. I liked hanging at the pool with Ava and the baby. I really, really liked the way you used that balcony…”
“Did you?” I twisted a little so Mal’s back was pressed against our closet door, and I started sinking to my knees. “Because I could show you how my skill at ‘licking head’ has improved since then…”
“But the thing I really liked best about Miami—” He halted my movement by pressing his lips to my chin. “—was coming home.”
“Home,” I repeated blankly.
“Uh-huh.” Mal wrapped his arms around my neck, and I looked down at him in amusement. “To this beautiful old farmhouse we’re renovating.” He pressed a kiss to the hinge of my jaw. “In this crazy town.” A kiss to my cheek. “Where we live.” My temple. “With our friends.” The tip of my nose. “And your family.” The corner of my mouth. “Who’re right now drawing straws.” The other corner. “To see who comes to get us.”
He kissed me full on the lips… but before I could deepen the kiss, he pushed me away, grabbed a shirt from the closet, and edged toward the door of the room.
“You know poor Dunn would be the one to draw the short straw, right?” Mal said conversationally, pulling the shirt over his head. “And he’d walk in here prepared to be traumatized like he was the time he walked into our barn unannounced back in the spring?”
“Please,” I grumbled, folding my arms over my chest as I thought back to that March morning and the cock-blocking that had ensued. “Poor Dunn, my ass. That wasn’t the first time he walked in on us, if you recall. There was the time in the Iveys’ barn too. The man needs a hobby.”
“Dunn doesn’t need a hobby, he needs a date.” Mal ran one tanned hand through his chin-length hair.
I frowned. I couldn’t remember Dunn dating anyone in nearly a year. “Huh. You might be right.”
“I always am.” He took a step toward me and gave me a quick kiss… which turned into a longer one… and a longer one still… before he broke away. “Ugh, seriously. Hurry up or your mom’s gonna hate me.”
I stopped him with a hand on his waist. “True or false, my mother gave you her sweet tea recipe last Christmas, even though you’ve yet to make an honest man of me.”
Mal’s gorgeous lips quirked. “True,” he said modestly.
“And she pulled out the last of her freezer stash of Susie Dupree’s Deluxe sauce for your birthday dinner, which was basically like her offering you her life’s blood.”
Mama had tried to love Partridge Pit, especially after getting to know and love the General and his wife, but the habits of a lifetime were hard to break, and in her mind, nothing would ever be quite the same as Miss Susie’s.
“Also true.”
“Then I think it’s safe to say she likes you just a little bit, baby.”
“Yeah,” he sighed happily.
But when my phone started to ring on my nightstand, Mal jumped and his eyes took on a fairly panicked look. “That’s her. Shit.”
“Go on,” I instructed, only rolling my eyes a little. “Get the last couple things from your workshop into your truck, and I’ll be down in two minutes, okay?”
I grabbed my special “co-Head Licker” T-shirt from the closet and tossed it on the bed, then grabbed my phone to appease my mother.
But it wasn’t Mama calling; it was General Partridge.
“Mornin’, Beau.” I put the phone on speaker and set it on the dresser. “Y’all on your way to the festival?”
“Yep. The truck with the food got there almost an hour ago, and we’ll be arriving any minute,” he confirmed. He added in a lower voice, “Assuming this rig of Parrish’s manages to get us there in one piece.”