Page 63 of Rough Ride

“Yeah. But it would be nice if you didn’t spank like a girl.”

He laughed. “Oh, you’re going to pay for that one.”

She laid her head on his shoulder and smiled. She liked the sound of that.

twenty

They lay in bed hours later listening to the rain patter on the roof. It was all very domestic. And that was odd.

They both had snoozed off and on and he couldn’t remember feeling so settled.

“I didn’t think it rained this much,” she said, sliding her arm around his waist as she laid her head on his shoulder.

He liked hearing her voice in the dark. Hell, he just liked hearing her voice period. He’d never been this content with a woman before. He could just lay here for hours beside her.

And that should scare the hell out of him. It didn’t though. In fact, he had been craving this with her. He wanted these slow and easy moments along with the raunchy sex.

“It usually doesn’t. But then, it depends on the season.”

He could feel her smile against his skin. “I kind of like it. It’s so soft, so relaxing. And everything smells so much better after. It’s like it layers Hawaii with good things. Do you ever have any big storms?”

“Yeah, love, we call them hurricanes.”

There was a beat of silence, then she chuckled. She pulled herself up to her elbow to look down at him. Her hair fell over his chest tickling him.

“Has anyone told you that you’re a smartass?”

He laughed at the way she turned his words around on him. “Yeah, once or twice.”

Her laughter faded as she cupped his face. She leaned down and kissed him, never closing her eyes.

“Thank you.”

He’d had more than one sub thank him in his time, but this…well it meant more. There was something in the way she said it, and the way his heart contracted when she said the words that told him it meant more than anything any sub had ever said to him.

Instead, he wanted to show her. He slipped his hands beneath her back and legs, pulled her over and rose out of bed.

She giggled. “It’s nice to have a man who can pick me up.”

“Like you’re hard to pick up.”

“Hey, I know I am not light as a thistle, as the saying goes.”

He stopped and looked at her. “No, but you’re a woman, full of wonderful curves to explore and those legs…woman, I hope you’re not trying to be coy about your weight. There is nothing wrong with it.”

She smiled and touched his face. “No, not at all. But, I do know that I am not easy to pick up.”

He grunted at that. He hated skinny women. If they were naturally that way, he didn’t mind, but he never liked a woman who starved herself. Plus, they rarely had asses worth spanking.

He walked her into the bathroom and she sighed.

“I also like a man who has a dream bathroom,” she said.

He stood and looked around the room. “Joe had someone design it. I guess it’s nice.”

She laughed. “And that’s so like a man. You guess it’s nice? That claw foot tub is to die for.”

He set her on the floor. “And we’ll use it…after.”

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