God, sometimes I just wanted to shake her. In many ways, she’d overcome the worst of her insecurities, but in moments of stress they seemed to all come rushing back. Rather than wasting my breath answering, I stood with her cradled in my arms, and headed for the hallway.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
I stopped for a moment to press a hard kiss to her mouth. Her fingers laced around my neck, but I pulled back before she could distract me from making my point. “I’m showing you how happy I am.”
I nudged the bathroom door open, and leaned past the shower curtain. Bliss squealed and held tighter to my neck, as I turned the shower knobs with her still in my arms. She raised an eyebrow, a sly grin sneaking across her lips. “Our shower makes you happy?”
“You make me happy. The shower is just multitasking.”
“How very responsible of you.”
I kissed a smudge of pancake batter off her cheek, and smiled.
“Yes, that’s the word.”
I set her down on her feet, but her arms stayed tucked around my neck. When she smiled at me like that, I forgot all about the flour on her face or her wild bed head. That smile went straight through me and settled somewhere in my bones.
I kissed her on the forehead and said, “Let’s get you cleaned up.”
I found the hem of her oversize T-shirt, and began pulling it over her head. I’m not sure where the T-shirt ended up because when I realized she was wearing nothing underneath it, my vision narrowed to encompass only her.
God, she was gorgeous.
If you would have told me two years ago that I’d be getting married to a girl that I’d met just over a year ago, I would have called you mental. My romantic history was so horrendous, I’d never really thought of myself as the marrying type. Until her.
Bliss cleared her throat, and my eyes went back to her. To her mouth. Her chest. The small of her waist that seemed perfectly sculpted to fit in my hands.
She was the ultimate game changer. I hadn’t known what it was like to meet a person so full of joy that just by being near her, I was elevated to a happier place. I’d never been with someone who was able to captivate every part of me—mind, body, and soul.
Body, of course, being my primary focus at the moment.
Her bottom lip stuck out, calling to me, and she said, “How long are you going to make me stand here naked while you’re fully clothed?”
I took a seat on the toilet, and smiled cheekily up at her. I leaned back, laying one leg across my other knee, and said, “I could do this all day.”
And I wasn’t lying. I wanted to study her, to memorize her, to be able to close my eyes and see her perfectly as she was.
She rolled her eyes. “Yes, well, it might be a little awkward if I were to stay naked all day. Though it would make going through airport security much simpler.”
I barked a laugh, and she added, “Wasn’t your goal to distract me and make me less self-conscious? You’re falling down on the job, Mr. Taylor.”
Well, I couldn’t have that, now could I?
I gripped her waist and pulled her forward until my chin brushed the skin just below her belly button. She shivered in my arms, and the reaction sent my blood screaming through my veins. I let my lips graze her just slightly and said, “You have nothing to be self-conscious about.”
Her hands laced into my hair, and she looked down at me with glazed eyes. Firmer this time, I dragged my lips over her belly button and up to the valley made by her ribs. I tasted flour on her skin even here, and smothered a laugh.
Above me, she sighed and said, “You’re back on track with that distracting thing.”
Suddenly impatient, I stood and pulled my shirt over my head. I was rewarded with a breathy sigh and a bitten lip that made it incredibly hard not to be cocky. And not to take her right then.
She swallowed, drawing my eyes to her neck. God, I didn’t know what it was about her neck, but it was constantly my undoing. I felt like a teenage boy, wanting to mark that pale, unblemished skin as mine again and again. I brushed a thumb over her pulse point, and she swallowed again, her eyes wide. I laced my fingers through her sleep-addled curls, and tilted her head back.
“How about now?” I asked.
If she was even half as distracted as I was, I’d say I’d done my job. Her eyes pulled away from my bare chest and she said, “Uh . . . what?”
I laughed, but the sound stuck in my throat when her slim fingers smoothed from my chest down to the waist of my pajama bottoms. Her fingers curled around the band, and I swallowed. Looking down, I could see the way her curves reached out toward my body, and I wanted nothing more that to seal our bodies together.
Before I completely lost my train of thought, I said, “No more worrying about my mother, right?”
For either of us.
She gave me a half-glazed glare.
I used one hand to pull her closer, and the other to cup her breast. Then I repeated, “No more worrying.”
“Do you promise to do this every time I do worry?”
I gave a quick pinch to the tip of the breast in my hand. She flinched, and then moaned. Her eyes fluttered closed and her body swayed toward mine.
She breathed, “No worrying.”
And I thought, Thank God.
Because I couldn’t wait another second.
I crushed my lips against hers, wishing for the hundredth time that I could just permanently affix our mouths together. Every part of her tasted divine, but her mouth was my favorite. It was so easy to lose myself in kissing her, mostly because I could tell she was doing the same. Her body pressed against mine, and her fingernails dug into my shoulders like she was dangling off a cliff, and that was the only thing holding her up. The harder I kissed her, the harder her nails bit into my skin. I trailed a hand from her neck down the line of her spine, and her mouth broke away from mine. She shivered in my arms, her eyes closed.