She leaned close, so they were just a few inches apart, and whispered, “It means ‘fucking.’ ”
“I know what it means.”
His hands clamped around her waist, and he pulled her out of her chair and into his lap.
“In public, Tony?”
“This is a bar. All kinds of debauched shit goes down here.”
When he kissed her, her whole body filled up with light, and she threw her arms around his neck. She wanted to cry, so she kissed him back, and she did cry, a little.
He wiped the tears off her cheeks with the flat of his hand, somehow managing to look both alarmed by her womanly display of sentiment and deeply fond of her.
“You’re really sweet,” she said.
“Don’t tell anybody.”
She smiled and leaned her head against his shoulder.
“So am I forgiven?” he asked.
“Yes. This time. Don’t run away from me again, though. I probably gained two pounds from all the ice cream.”
“I’ll help you work them off.”
She kissed him on the cheek. “That sounds like fun.”
“You want to come over to my house sometime?” he asked. “I’ve got a bigger bed than you, and it’s not gonna bang into the wall when we make love.”
“We’re going to make love?”
“We might have to start, in a week or two. If we got bored with all the fucking.”
“Just so long as you don’t forget to fuck me sometimes. You know, for variety’s sake.”
He chuckled and buried his face against her neck. When he exhaled, his breath came out ragged, as though he’d dredged it up from the very bottom of his soul. Some of the tension drained out of him, the muscles of his thighs and his arm relaxing around her.
Amber held the back of his head, stroking her fingers through his hair. His palm drifted along her spine, up and down in a slow, soothing caress that felt like sex without the sex.
She thought it must be intimacy.
He raised his head and met her eyes. “I’ll do the best I can.”
She recognized the declaration for what it was—Tony’s vow. Or, if not a vow, the closest thing to it he could manage. A commitment to see what happened, and an acknowledgment that they both already knew what was going to happen. Because it was already happening.
“Me, too.”
For a long moment, he just looked at her, and she looked back at him, and everything felt exactly the way it was supposed to feel.
His lips curved into a smile. “I’m glad I got stuck in the basement with you, bunny.”
She smiled back. “So am I. But you’ve got to stop calling me—”
He cut her off with a kiss, and his mouth was so warm and soft and amazing, she let the bunny thing slide. Just this once.
Author’s Note
How to Misbehave is the first in a series of novels and novellas about the Clark siblings—Amber, Caleb, and Katie—and their adventures finding love in sleepy little Camelot, Ohio.