His voice gentles as tears fall and start running down my cheeks. “Really, I just love you.”
I can’t respond by telling him all the reasons I love him, because a sob rips from my chest, cutting off anything I might say. I close my arms around him as he tightens his grip around me, and I rest the side of my head against his chest. When one of his hands slides my T-shirt up and his warm hand meets nothing but skin, he curses, and I freeze.
“Fuck, baby, it’s cold out, and you’ve got nothing on.” He pulls back, and I watch through watery eyes as he looks down at my bare feet. “Not even shoes.”
I let out a squeak as he lifts me suddenly off the ground to hold me tightly against him. “I’m not cold,” I reply. He grunts something under his breath I can’t make out as he carries me inside through the sliding glass door.
Once we reach the couch, he pulls the throw off the back of it and shakes it out before wrapping it around me and then tucking it under my legs. “It’s not even fifty degrees out,” he informs me. He goes back outside and returns with my mug. He dumps the probably cold coffee in the sink, then pours me a fresh cup and stirs in milk and sugar. “Drink this. You need to warm up,” he orders, handing me the mug, and I wrap my hands around it, sighing as it warms up my fingers.
He goes to the temperature-control panel on the wall and taps the up arrow before going to the fireplace and flipping the switch next to it. What looks like a real fire roars to life in an instant as the electric fireplace comes on. When he comes back to the couch, he lifts my legs before he sits, then settles my feet on his lap and captures them with his hands. “Your feet are freezing.”
I shiver and my toes curl. I take a sip of hot coffee to distract myself from the fact that I do feel cold now. Actually, I’m freezing. After I swallow, I shake my head. “I honestly didn’t feel cold before.”
“You were distracted. Now that you’re not, your body is registering that you were outside in nothing but a T-shirt without even shoes on your feet,” he states, rubbing my feet. “We should take a shower.”
Him naked in the shower with me? I’m totally okay with that idea.
“I think that would be good,” I say a little breathlessly.
Reading the look I give him, he shakes his head and gets up. After he lifts me into his arms, he looks down at me. “I guess if a shower is the only way to warm you up, I can endure it.”
“Thanks,” I say before I nip the edge of his jaw. When he groans, I smile, then do a happy dance in my head as he takes me to the shower to warm me up in the best way possible.
“I’m so tired.” I cover my mouth with my hand as I yawn.
“Almost there.” Tyler laughs as he smiles down at me and helps me up the few steps of my front porch to my front door.
We left Tennessee later today than we planned to. After Thanksgiving dinner—which was spent with Tyler’s family and a few of their close friends—we spent the rest of our time in Tennessee with his mom and dad. His mom did a one-eighty toward me after our talk, and I loved getting to know her and his dad. Really, I enjoyed watching Tyler with them, since he has the same close relationship with them that I have with my own parents.
I found out that his dad is funny and a tad bit sarcastic, and his mom is doting and forever waiting on the men in her life. Not that she seemed to mind. She actually seemed to enjoy taking care of them. Our plan to leave early Sunday morning was waylaid when Tyler’s grandmother, who’d heard about me from his mom, flew in from Florida on Saturday evening and insisted on having lunch with us before we left on Sunday. We didn’t leave Tennessee until almost four. Now it’s almost eleven at night, and I’m ready to fall on my face.
“How are you not tired?” I ask Tyler as he uses his key to open the door. “I didn’t even drive, and I’m exhausted.”
“You bought me a huge coffee at the gas station to keep me awake and my bladder full,” he reminds me.
“Oh . . . right,” I reply, and he grins. As soon as the door’s open, I stumble in and go directly to the coat closet. I open it before I start to slip off my coat. “Tomorrow when I get off work, I’ll go pick up Bruce and Mouse and bring them home.”