She mumbled sweetly and nestled against him, her backside snuggling against his groin. Of course, it responded accordingly. “Hi.”
He leaned over and placed a kiss beneath her ear. “Hi, yourself.”
“I got sleepy.” The sexy, drowsy purr of her voice didn’t bode well for his leaving her alone and letting her sleep.
“It’s okay.” He slid his fingertips very gently over the area of her navel. “How is it?”
“A little sore, but good. I love it.”
“I told you.”
“I know you did.”
“Maybe you’ll learn to listen to me someday,” he teased, and she gave his arm around her a playful smack.
“It’s like everything else in my life, I guess,” she said after a moment. “Even with you. I worry and I stress and I freak out over everything. But once I let go and get through it…it’s beautiful.”
“I’ll always do what I can to make sure it’s beautiful in the end, sunshine. No matter what it is we have to get through.” He chuckled. “And on that note, my parents want to meet you this weekend.”
She responded with that girly giggle that never failed to summon every iota of testosterone in his body and send it raging. “Oh, no. We’re not starting all over, are we? What if they hate me?”
“I’m really concerned that they might. I guess I’ll just have to let you go if—”
He burst out laughing as she twisted in his arms and shoved him onto his back, rising up to straddle his hips. “You deserve to be punished for that one. Severely.”
“Do your worst, baby. Please.”
She stared down at him, her pretty eyes twinkling in the dim light. “Give me a minute while I decide your punishment. It must be slow and torturous.” She ran her hands down his arms, leaning over to follow one of them with her mouth. Shit, he loved that his ink drove her so wild. It made him want to get more. And here he’d thought he was done.
She drew away, lifting so she could look at him. “Your family seems a lot cooler than mine. We should totally blow their minds. Maybe I ought to dye my hair purple, just for that occasion.”
He grinned like a fool. With each passing day, she proved more and more she was a girl after his own heart. She loved horror movies. She loved his music. His body art. She’d even get down and dirty in a mosh pit with him.
But beyond all that superficial, surface stuff, she challenged him, she drove him, she opened his eyes to everything that was beautiful in the world, everything he’d always overlooked before.
Why God had seen fit to smile upon him in such a way, Brian would never know.
Candace leaned down to nibble his shoulder, and against the softness of her coconut-scented hair, he smiled. “And there’s always that Mohawk I’ve been considering…”