Page 35 of Left Behind

“Hot damn,” Wiley whispered.

Wiley’s partner, Doug Leedy, looked up. “Were you talking to me?”

“Nope. Just to myself,” Wiley said, and smiled.

***

Wiley was barely out of the shower and buttoning up his jeans when the doorbell rang. His hair was still damp, and he was minus a shirt, but he didn’t want to leave Linette waiting on the doorstep, so he grabbed a T-shirt as he ran to let her in.

The door swung inward. A greeting was on the tip of his tongue. Their gazes locked for a second, and then hers raked him from head to toe. He saw her nostrils flare, and her eyes narrow as they centered on his broad shoulders and flat belly.

“Ah…to hell with propriety,” he muttered.

The door swung shut behind them as she crossed the threshold, and then she was in his arms, sandwiched between the door and his chest. She slid her arms around his neck and lost her mind.

He took her standing up, then carried her to bed and made love to her again, without a stitch of clothes between them until she was completely exhausted, numb to everything but the thunder of her own heartbeat in her ears. Long moments of silence ensued within his embrace, and then he broke it with a question.

“Are you okay?”

She shuddered. “I knew it would be like this, and I will never be okay again. You’re my drug, Wiley Pope. I will never not want you.”

He raised up on one elbow, needing to see her when he said it.

“As in forever want? Because that’s what I want with you.”

Linette put her hand in the middle of his chest, feeling the steady thump of his heartbeat against her palm. “I thought when I watched you get shot that every happy-ever-after dream I had had just ended before it began. I’d never even kissed you, and when you flew backward, my heart stopped. I thought I was dying with you. Your face is what I see when I close my eyes at night. I love your laugh. I love that you’re impulsive and honest to a fault, and I love that wild streak in you. Yes, forever. Forever in my heart. Forever yours.”

“Then it’s settled. How long do you need to be courted before you will marry me?”

Linette blinked, and then burst out laughing. “Our second real date has barely begun, and you have already proposed. Oh, I don’t know. Let me check my schedule.”

He grinned. “Was that too much, too soon?”

“Not really. You’re damn good at the too-much part, but I would like for you to meet my parents.”

“What if they don’t like me?”

She heard the worry in his voice. “They don’t have to. I just want them to meet the man who keeps a permanent smile on my face and who will father their grandchildren.”

He brushed his lips across her mouth. “I love you very much.”

“I love you, too, crazy man.”

“I want to give you the world,” Wiley said.

“Thank you, sweetheart, but right now, I’d settle for food.”

“I can make that happen,” he said. “Did you bring your toothbrush?”

“Uh, no.”

“No matter. I have new ones. Will you stay the night with me, too?”

She slid her hand up the side of his cheek. “Yes, and thank you for the invitation.”

He smiled, and her heart skipped.

Stay wild, my beautiful man. Crazy looks good on you.

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