But they’re also fought on a psychological level as well. If someone is trapped in a fire, you have to calm them down before they can be helped.
If someone is trapped in a fire, you have to calm them down before they can be helped.
“Oh fuck, yeah!” I cheer too loudly and am immediately on the receiving end of several nasty stares. I don’t give a shit! I know exactly what I’m going to do!
***
“Hey, baby!” I find Sophie making a sandwich in the kitchen of our new farmhouse and sweep her excitedly into my arms.
“I’m happy to see you too.” She smiles suspiciously at my exuberance. “Tux fittings go well?”
“Ha! Will and Ryder would like my head on a platter for not wanting strippers at my bachelor party,” I tell her as I pick up a half her sandwich and take a huge bite out of it
“Oh no,” she says, laughing. “Do you want strippers?”
“No, baby, not at all. I have all the woman I want right here.” I grab the full cheek of her ass in my hand, pull her against me, look into her eyes and squeeze until she giggles. “They’ll get over it. Besides, they’re going to do their own thing tonight.”
“And what are you going to be doing?” she asks, biting into the last of the sandwich half between my fingers. I raise my eyebrows playfully and then feed it to her.
“I don’t know. Going over some reading material and last minute arrangements.”
“Should I be worried?” she mumbles with her free hand over her mouth so I can’t see the chewed food. She’s silly that way.
“No, you shouldn’t be. I want you to be the happiest woman in the world.”
“I am.” She swallows and puts on a brave face.
But I know she’s terrified.
“Good, because all the accessories for the tuxes are in now, and the boys and I are ready to show up for a wedding.”
“Oh yeah? Who’s getting married?” she flirts, batting her eyelashes.
“Me. To the most beautiful woman on the planet.” Teasingly, I bend in and lavish her neck with small, light kisses.
“Josh, I have a question.”
“Shoot.” I run my tongue behind her ear.
“When did you first realize you were falling in love with me?”
I stop, pull my head back and look into her eyes and say without hesitation, “The night you came to my room at the hotel, after you stood me up at the Hard Rock event.”
“Really?” She blushes and she’s fucking gorgeous.
“I saw you there, you know,” I finally confess to her.
“You what?” Her voice is full of shock and she pushes away fast, looking at me like I just confessed to murder or something.
I keep a strong grip on her arms to keep her from fleeing. “I looked back just as you were turning around.”
She stutters, “I … you … the blonde …”
“I know. I was dense,” I explain with a grin and a shrug. “It was so fast I wasn’t even one hundred percent sure it really was you. But when you never showed up … well, the party wasn’t any fun without you. And I couldn’t stop thinking about you …”
She lets out the breath she’s holding and smiles
“Yeah, you made me a fucking mess.” She lets me fold her back into my arms, and her body melts against me in relief. “I was thrilled when you knocked on my door.” I remember it so clearly. I had asked her to accompany me to a Hard Rock Café celebrity event. I thought she was going to come until I got the text message where she politely excused herself and declined. An angry Silva, realizing I’d been hitting on her when I wasn’t supposed to be and wanting to keep up appearances, set me up with a blonde model to drape over my arm like an accessory.”
“You’d just gotten out of the shower and answered the door in your towel.” She strokes her hands up my arms, tracing my tats along the way.
“And you were in the smoking outfit I thought I saw you in at the event. When I realized it had been you …”—now it’s my turn to release a hot breath—“I wanted you to come in for that drink so bad.”
“I wanted to,” she confesses.
I tease, “You just wanted me for sex.”
“Well, Mr. North,”—now her fingers caress seductively down my chest—“I can’t deny that at the sight of your muscled, inked skin all steamy hot from the shower my blood was racing.”
“Now look what you did.” I take her hand and put it against my dick. “I’m hard as fuck.”
She smiles at her handiwork.
“I see you’re pleased with yourself.” I unfasten each of the tiny pink buttons down her blouse, starting at her neck.
“Oh, I am.” Her voice is heavy with love and lust.
“You were so brave to knock on my hotel room so late, especially after seeing me with someone else—you had no idea what was happening on the other side of that door—but you did it anyway.”
“Blind insanity.” Her breathing accelerates as I push her blouse back off of her shoulders to expose her creamy skin and lacy pink bra.
“Sheer guts, scrapper.” I reach around her and unhook the lace. “You were fucking fearless.”