His breath brushed over her lips. His voice came from right in front of her.
“I kind of think that was a challenge. Maybe we’ll have to see whose teeth are stronger.” She shook her head. “What am I saying? Normal people do not argue about whose teeth are stronger. What is wrong with you?”
“There’s nothing wrong with me. Everything is right with the world. My wife is exactly where she belongs. And I think she might be staying. I’m sorry, that makes me happy. And not romantic.”
“I don’t think they’re mutually exclusive. I think you can be happy and romantic and funny all at the same time, although I don’t think we can have a teeth strength contest and still be happy and romantic.”
“Noted.”
She started to roll her eyes, but then his lips touched hers, and she lost every desire to move anything and could only think about his lips moving over hers and the pounding of her heart that matched the pounding of his under her hands. She slid them around shoulders that had broadened and filled out and pressed closer.
They weren’t in the apple orchard all over again, and they weren’t fifteen again either, but it felt like it, as everything was new and different and compelling and almost overwhelming.
She’d missed talking to him, she’d missed goofing with him, she’d missed his company and his presence and his comfort, but she’d also missed this, the passion that flared between them, the feeling that it was totally right, the right touch, the right scent, the right taste, the right feel. Even though he was so much different than she remembered, he felt perfect under her fingers and palms.
She pressed into him, and he fell back, taking her with him until she lay on top of him, her hair a curtain around them, and their lips and hands touching with an urgency that was probably natural and expected after being apart for eight years.
That urgency seemed to catch her up and pull her. There was no fear, no thought of going back, because being with Reid always felt right, and this was exactly where she wanted to be.
Chapter 17
Reid lay spooned with his wife, his front at her back, his legs behind hers, and her feet, which had been cold at times during the night, pressed against the tops of his.
Was it possible that he even missed her cold feet?
He tucked his arm more tightly around her and pressed his nose and lips into her hair. Yes. He even missed her cold feet.
He just hoped he could keep from being an idiot again. He couldn’t let his stupid pride dictate how he treated his wife. Or the direction his life went.
He wasn’t so cocky and arrogant that he thought he’d fixed everything himself, just by saying he was sorry.
He figured he was probably due for a lot more humbling experiences before his life was over.
A lazy grin stole over his face. Humbling himself wasn’t that bad. He’d woken up this morning holding his wife, and he’d had a pretty good night. Maybe apologizing had more benefits than what he had given it credit for.
“I can see your satisfied smirk,” Emerson said sleepily.
Said satisfied smirk grew bigger. “Oh yeah?”
“Oh yeah. Now I can hear it, too.” She moved against him, and he dropped his lips down to kiss the sensitive spot on her neck below her ear.
“Now you can feel it.”
“I didn’t quite catch that. Maybe you’d better do it again.”
He chuckled and dropped another slower, lighter kiss in the same spot, just brushing his lips against her neck, and he was rewarded with a shiver.
“How much time do you think we have before the kids show up?” he asked, moving slightly lower and feathering a kiss on her sensitive skin again.
“Surely they’re not going to show up at the break of dawn, are they?” she said, her words a little muffled, still sleepy, but laced with a seductive undertone that had everything to do with his lips on her neck.
“I doubt it,” he said, his voice low in her ear. “I feel like that’s a risk I’m comfortable taking.”
He could hear the laughter in her voice when she said, “I don’t know what that says about me, that I’m willing to take that exact same risk. It’s kind of scary.”
“I like it. The woman has gotten bolder.” He laughed. “I think the tips of your ears are getting red. I wasn’t really talking about last night, but I suppose that