Second Thoughts (29 page)
Authors: Bobbie O'Keefe
“Not until it’s consummated,” he explained.
“Oh.” Those blue-green eyes were again mesmerizing her. “In that case, I vote for legal,” she whispered. His gaze, and the legal state of their marriage, chased everything else right out of her mind. They stood at the side of the green sedan for a long while before she remembered they needed keys and she had them.
As he watched her search the voluminous bag she called a purse, he said, “When you start braking for green lights, it’s my turn to drive.”
Coming up with the keys, she squinted questioningly at the sun, as if it might have arrows pointing out directions. “Which way is south?”
His chuckle was fast and deep. He snagged the keys. “Get in the car. That side.”
Their marriage had been legal for several days now. Putting the room key on the nightstand next to the bed, he faced her.
“Well,” she said.
“Well,” he agreed.
“You realize that it’s already been a week, and we haven’t had a fight yet?”
“Don’t let it bother you. We’ll get around to it.”
He slipped his feet out of the thongs. Connie checked out the feet, the bowed and hairy legs, and the flat stomach and hard chest exposed by the unbuttoned shirt. When her eyes finally met his, his mouth quirked.
“Umm,” she said, “you look good.”
“Dear wife. That goes both ways.”
“SteelMan earned my life-long gratitude by bringing you back to me.”
“I’d say that goes both ways as well.”
Television’s one-time most eligible bachelor, and he was all hers. And she was his. “Would you accuse me of understatement again if I said he’d forever won me as a fan with that feat?”
He just stood there with that smile.
She walked toward him, taking her time. “You know, in some ways, the second time around is better than the first.”
He tilted his head. “Hmm?”
“Maybe because we’re older and wiser, and know just how precious our love is?”
“Hmm.”
“I’ve noticed you’re giving me a lot of space.” She continued her slow journey. “Have you noticed that the more you give me, the less I seem to need?”
“Hmm.”
There was one step left. She took it, but didn’t touch him. Instead she looked up at the curve of his lips, the light of anticipation in his eyes, the ardency in the set of his face and heard his quickened breathing, all of which were as potent as foreplay. “Hmm,” she echoed, voice also a little on the breathy side. “Got quite a limited vocabulary there. Does it denote limited energy and enthusiasm as well?”
“Uh-uh.” He put his arms around her, one at her back, stooped to get the other under her knees, and then he lifted her up only to turn around and put her down atop the bed.
He was short on neither energy nor enthusiasm.
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Bobbie O’Keefe