Chapter 23: Casseroles

I woke to sunlight on the quilt and the weight of his arm across my waist.

It was Sunday, and nobody was in the next room, and I was sore in the best possible places.

Randy lay behind me with his chest against my back, still asleep, breathing slowly into my hair.

The rest of him was not asleep.

He was hard against the curve of my ass, warm and heavy, and he twitched when I shifted.

I lay there for a full minute, grinning at the wall.

Then I turned over, careful, until we were face to face on the pillow.

His lashes lay dark on his cheeks and there was a crease on his cheek from the quilt.

I had never seen anything more beautiful and I had once been to the Art Institute.

I slid my hand down between us and wrapped it around him.

He let out a long soft sigh in his sleep.

"Mm," he said, without opening his eyes.

"Good morning."

"Is this the dream part?"

"It's the real part."

"Keep going."

I stroked him slowly, the whole length, loose and lazy, with my thumb circling the head on every pass.

He opened his eyes, a little at a time, blue and drowsy and wrecked.

"You're going to kill me," he said.

"You keep saying that."

"I keep meaning it."

I watched his face while I did it.

It was the first time I had watched him wake up wanting something.

The sight was so open and unguarded that I wanted to cry.

His mouth parted.

His hips began to rock, small and slow, into my fist.

"Tell me what you want," I whispered.

"This. Don't stop."

"I'm not stopping."

"Your hand's perfect."

"Say it again."

"Your hand's perfect. It's small and it's warm and it knows exactly what to do."

"What else?"

"You're beautiful in the morning."

"I look like a raccoon."

"You look like a woman I'd marry."

It slipped out of him, and we both froze, and neither of us took it back.

I kept stroking, and he kept watching, and his breath came faster and rougher.

Then his hand closed over my wrist and stopped me.

"Not like this," he said. "Not yet."

"Where, then?"

"Roll on your back."

I rolled.

He rose above me on his elbows and pushed my knees together with his own.