“Oh,” she breathes, then she turns her head and looks at the DVR player and the time there.
“Angel,” I growl impatiently, and her eyes come back to me. The raw, primal desire there, is hard to miss.
“I… I don’t think you have time to eat me,” she whispers, and fuck me, my mouth actually waters at the idea of tasting her.
“That’s all right.” I run my tongue up her neck, then whisper in her ear, “Means I get to take my time eating dessert when we get home.”
“Oh,” she moans, her hips lifting into mine. Raising my head above hers, I look into her beautiful eyes then lose sight of them as I slant my head and take her mouth in a deep, long, hot kiss before I fuck her on the couch. After we’ve both come, I watch her walk naked toward her bedroom carrying her clothes, and yank up my jeans.
“Want a beer?” she asks, coming out a few minutes later wearing no bra, a white tank, and sweats cut off as shorts, running her fingers across the back of my neck.
I tip my head back to look at her upside down. “Yeah, baby.”
“Kay.” She bends over, kissing me upside down, then leans back and smiles before heading to the fridge, coming back a second later with a beer. She hands it to me with another kiss before disappearing into the kitchen.
Sitting on her couch, bare feet up on the coffee table, beer in my hand, listening to her in the kitchen, I know without the shadow of a doubt that every single moment in my life led me right to her, that not only am I in love, but I’m in love with her in a way I will be until the day I die.
Chapter 9
Harmony
HEADING TO MY PARENTS’, sitting next to Harlen in the passenger seat of his SUV—an SUV that should have been towed to a junkyard about a century ago—I shift, hearing the worn, dried, and cracked leather crunch under me.
“Honey, exactly how old is this thing?” I ask.
He glances over at me quickly before looking at the road once more. “Why?”
“Just wondering how long it takes leather to go from…” I pause, trying to figure out how not to hurt his feelings. “Well… leather to dust,” I say, and he laughs, loud, squeezing my fingers that are threaded through his.
“It’s a ninety-two,”
“A ninety-two?” I repeat on a whisper, looking around the interior. The back seats look just as bad as the front, maybe even worse, the material ripped and flaking off in spots. The carpet on the floor is missing in huge chunks, the metal showing through, and the outside is mostly rust. Sheesh, it’s not just old; it’s really old.
“Yeah a ninety-two.”
“Do you think maybe it’s time for an upgrade? I mean, it doesn’t have to be anything crazy. It can even be like a two thousand or something.”
“I don’t need anything newer. I only drive this when I can’t ride my bike, and luckily, that’s not often.”
“So you’re saying I’ll probably ride in this thing more than just this once,” I surmise, thinking I should update my tetanus shot sooner rather than later.
Laughing, he lifts my hand to his lips, kissing my fingers. “Yeah, baby, that’s what I’m saying.”
“Are you opposed to seat covers?” I ask, and he smiles at the windshield.
“No.”
“Well at least there’s that,” I mumble, enjoying the sound of his laughter when he does it again, and then his eyes come to me briefly as we pull onto the road that will take us to my parents’ house.
“You worried about dinner?”
“A little.” I pull in a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I want tonight to go well. I want my dad to see me with you, and see how happy you make me, and maybe, just maybe, be happy for me that I found this,” I confess, and his fingers tighten around mine. “Are you nervous?”
He glances over at me and frowns. “No.”
I’m not even a little surprised by the firmness of his answer. I can’t imagine he’d be nervous about anything. He’d probably be just as blasé if he was the one who had to decide whether or not to press the button that would set off a nuclear bomb that could possibly start World War III.
“Should I be nervous?”
“I don’t know.”
“You gonna end things with me if things don’t go well?” he asks as we pull up and park in front of their house.
I laugh. “No.”
“It’ll be okay. It’s dinner, and your mom will be there. Even if your dad’s unhappy, he won’t let that show in front of her.”
“How do you know that?” I whisper, stunned. I know that, because I have spent my life around my parents. Dad always shields Mom from anything that could make her uncomfortable or upset her. But Harlen hasn’t been around my parents enough to know Dad will do that for her.