Page 5 of Unruly Kris

“Says me.” Cath said, running her fingers through his hair as he opened his eyes and made a face at her. “I’m going to get breakfast going, coffee’s here for you.”

She started to move away, only to find herself caught as he snagged her hand, tangling his fingers with hers and dragging her gently back onto the bed. She could have resisted but instead she allowed. Immediately he covered her with the blanket, snuggling her close to him and pressing kisses to her temple. “Don’t need coffee, need this.”

“We have places to be,” She reminded him gently. “We’re rolling out in an hour and a half. You need to get up.”

“I am up.” He kissed her, a sweet lazy kiss, letting his tongues tangle with hers. Taking her hand, he playfully slid it down the front of his pajama pants until it was resting on his cock. She could feel it rising under her fingers and with it the temptation to just give in and laze the morning away with him in bed. Instead with regret, she gave him one more longing kiss and slid out from under the blankets, rising to her feet.

With a grumble of discontent, he closed his eyes, and she watched as he began to doze off again. With a grim but determined smirk, she went and opened the window to let the cool morning air in, then returned to the bedside and snagged the edge of the comforter. She gave it a sharp tug, flipping it off of him with almost expert precision and draping it over her arm. As soon as the cool air hit his skin, Kris made a noise of dismay, his hand scrabbling around the edge of the bed, trying to find the blanket Cath was holding tantalizingly out of reach.

He opened his eyes, taking in Cath standing at the foot of the bed, staring at him with a raised eyebrow. With a groan, he gingerly swung his legs over the side, running his fingers through his hair as he reached for his coffee. “You’re a task master,” he muttered groggily. “A very very sexy taskmaster.”

“The term is drill instructor,” she informed him smugly. “And I don’t let my recruits laze around either. Up and about with you, I’m going to start breakfast.”

She returned to the kitchen, before she could give in to what she really wanted to do and crawl back into bed with him. Her plans for today were time sensitive unfortunately and her ironclad military training wouldn’t let her stray too far off schedule. With a wry grin, hearing him yawn loudly and start to head for the bathroom slowly, Cath leaned against her kitchen counter and sipped her coffee. Knowing she had enough time to make breakfast before he made an appearance, she added more brew to top off her cup and turned the small radio she kept on her counter to a local station playing Christmas carols. After a moment of contemplation, she set the cup aside and reached under the counter for her frying pan and got to work so they could roll out on time.

5

As Cath drove them to their destination for the day, a farm hosting an agricultural show, far out of the city and into the rolling hills of Ventura County, she could feel a sense of nostalgia settle over her she hadn’t felt in a very long time. Ventura was part of the heart of farming in Southern California and if she closed her eyes, she could almost imagine she was back home getting ready to help with whatever chores needed to be done to keep the farm running. It was a strange feeling; being in the military normally killed homesickness quickly due to the fact that postings could be anywhere. She wasn’t one to moon over the past, so she chalked it up to having Christmas on the brain and tried to concentrate on not getting them lost on the unfamiliar roads.

Beside her in the passenger seat, Kris was alternating between sipping one of the lattes he had thrown into a travel mug for each of them before they left the house and watching the scenery as the city retreated behind them. She had to give him credit, even a year and a half ago, if she had asked him to accompany her to a farm show, she got the feeling he would have laughed at her or shown up dressed to kill and complaining every ten seconds until she wanted to shoot him and feed him to whatever pigs she could find. Now, with only the minimal details she had given him last night, he was willing to give up the bulk of his Saturday to try and help her, despite waking up sore and having to take the painkillers the doctor had given him for only the second time since he had been home.

“We’re almost there,” she said as she took the turnoff they needed on the highway. “It’s about 15 minutes off the highway. How are you feeling?”

“Physically, better.” He sighed and slipped his shades on awkwardly with one hand. “But my pride is taking a hit every time I can’t do something.”

“It’s not forever,” she reminded him, reaching over and squeezing his hand. “And it doesn’t make you any less of a person to take the time to recover.”

Kris leaned back in his seat and let out a frustrated sigh as he stared out the window. “I know, I just hate feeling useless, like look at the tree last night. If I had been in top shape, we could have gotten it home easily and decorated it like you wanted to.”

“Yeah, and instead we got to relax with a bottle of wine, chill on the couch and watch Black Christmas, which is just as good. The tree will be there tonight for us to work on.” She meant every word; she didn’t care that the tree had been delayed or that their night had been quieter than she planned. It was all confetti compared to the fact that he was on the mend.

“Tonight, when we get home, I'm cooking dinner for us, one armed or not,” He wagged a finger in censure at her, but his eyes were playful. “And you’re going to sit on your cute butt, with a glass of wine and keep me company, but not lift a finger, got it?”

Cath smiled and tried to hide her amusement by checking her rear-view mirror for non-existent cars. It did no good however, he saw it and the way she turned her head away to hide it, checking her side mirror as she pulled off the highway.

“You find it amusing I want to cook for you?” He raised an eyebrow and glanced at her over his glasses. “After everything you’ve done for me in the past few weeks?”

“No!” Cath was quick to reassure him, keeping a watch on the road as she pulled into the parking lot, and reaching up to stroke the back of his neck. “It’s just... you called my place home twice in under two minutes.”

“And?” He was watching her carefully, and she had a feeling that a lot depended on what she said next. Every major milestone in their relationship so far had been about how they negotiated the boundaries of their lives, this was no different and no less important.

“And I was just thinking how much I enjoy hearing you call it that.” She could hear the emotion in her voice and cleared her throat, trying to steady herself by focusing on the task at hand. Trying to bring all the emotional training she had carefully cultivated over the years into play before she embarrassed herself. Like on most occasions when it came to Kris however, she found it frustratingly impossible to do. “How natural it sounds.”

Kris gave her a smile that made her heart melt, and she wondered again for the millionth time since they started dating how exactly something as simple as a smile could reduce all the walls she created around herself to smoking heaps of rubble. How, on a regular basis, such a simple gesture could make her feel like her stomach was full of iron butterflies. “That’s because for the first time in a long time, home isn’t a place, it’s wherever you are.”

For a moment, Cath couldn’t think of how to respond, afraid for a heartbreaking second anything she could say would be woefully inadequate. The bowl ball of anxiety she could feel sitting on her chest was a constant reminder that she had never thought she would find herself in these situations, and had neverpreparedherself to feel this way. All her life, even before she was a soldier, she hated walking to a situation blind, be it a school exam, a social situation or a martial arts class. She prided herself on being prepared just about any situation she found herself walking into, but nothing ever prepared her for this, and that left her feeling acutely uncomfortable – rattled even – at how to show how happy she was at his words, at how she felt the same way about him.

She sighed mentally, wondering how many these situations they would find themselves in before he would get frustrated at her ability to respond easily. In her mind, there had to be a finite line in the sand they would eventually reach over it. The fact she didn’t know where it was twisted her stomach into tight knots and brought a wave of fear so intense that it caused her to white knuckle the wheel as she started looking for a spot to park.

“Stop reading my mind,” she admonished him, trying to sound prim. “It’s not polite to snoop.”

Kris chuckled and waited until the car had come to a full stop before sliding closer and pressing his lips to her in a hungry kiss. After a moment, he pulled back, looking her in the eyes. “I don’t need to read your mind Cath, I can read your face like a book, it’s all I need.”

There was a sarcastic comment on the tip of her tongue she would have used easily with Danny, or any of the soldiers on base, about how he was full of shit or how she was trained to hide any facial expressions that give her emotional state away. Instead, knowing it would have been a lie, she leaned in, fisting her hands in the fabric of his shirt, and kissing him with everything she had. He reached up, dragging his fingers through her hair, teasing her scalp as she smiled against his lips.

Breaking away reluctantly, Cath forced herself to take a steadying breath, trying to convince herself it was for purely physical reasons, and not because the amount of love she felt for him at that moment scared her to death. She reached out, tracing his lips with the edge of her thumb. She opened her mouth to say something and then stopped, looking down with a small smile. After an instant, she tried again and repeated the same frustrating process.

Kris looked at her inquisitively. “What?”

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