Cuddling was seriously underrated. I loved lying with Lucah for a few minutes as the glow faded from our bodies. It was almost better than the actual sex. I said almost.
“So I know you have dinner with your parents on Sunday, but how would you like to come with me to my brother’s on Saturday? You could meet Gracie and Fiona.” Other than Ryder, I hadn’t gotten to meet any members of Lucah’s family. When he had finally revealed his true identity and, um, for lack of a better term, “come out of the closet”, and showed me the boxes hidden in his apartment, I’d found tons of photographs of his family. I’d had a lot of them framed and now they littered the apartment, along with more pictures of Lucah and me, Sloane and me, and a few of Lucah’s deceased parents.
“I would love that,” I said, and I almost wanted to cry. Love made you more emotional about pretty much everything.
He kissed my forehead and stroked my back.
“I wish you could have met my parents. My mom would have adored you and I’m sure you would have won Dad over as well.” Yes, because of my winning personality.
Lucah rarely talked about his parents, but he’d been doing it more and more; about how his mother would scrimp and save to make sure their Christmas was special, even if they barely had anything. She knew how to take a dollar and make it work for her.
“They’d be so proud of you,” I said. I didn’t need to know anything about them to know that was true. I was pretty damn proud of him. He was a good man. I wouldn’t have fallen for him if he wasn’t.
“I used to wonder about that. If they would approve of what I was doing, the way I was earning my money. In a weird way, I think I was earning it for them. Trying to make up for what they couldn’t have, even if they were gone.” I turned on my stomach so I could look at his face.
“I love you.” I said it a lot, but it bore repeating.
“I love you, Sunshine. You’re the first person, other than family that I’ve ever allowed myself to be me with. You snuck your way into my life and before I knew it, I couldn’t get rid of you, even if I wanted to.”
It made me giddy and I wanted to giggle with happiness when he said things like that.
“Well, it’s not really my fault. You’re the one who kept pursuing me. So. You only have yourself to blame.” He pinched my nose.
“You’re probably right.”
“Excuse me. I’m ALWAYS right. That’s how this works.”
“Yes, Miss Clarke.” Damn right.
One of the upsides, which was also a downside, of dating Lucah was that he was a morning person. So when I didn’t want to get up, he had all kinds of ways to make me wake up. Fortunately, a lot of these involved his penis. Waking up with something like that inside you was quite something. Much better than a blaring alarm.
The next morning I awoke to a tongue in my ear and something hard pressing into my back. I moaned, but not because of the hour. I moved back against him as he entered me, ever so slowly from behind.
He was always warm in the morning, and the sleepiness in my body was quickly replaced by desire as he moved in and out of me, kissing my shoulders and muttering in my ear. We both came quickly, and when he was done, I was definitely awake.
“Good morning,” he said, and pulled out.
“Good morning to you too,” I said, rolling back over. My body was liquid and I didn’t feel like I had any bones. He was going to have to carry me into the shower and hold me up.
“Is this going to be one of those mornings when I have to make and then bring you breakfast, and turn the shower on for you?”
“Is this a day that ends in Y?” He grinned and went to put on his boxers. If I ever had to live by myself, I was probably going to starve. Both my parents were good cooks, and then I moved in with Sloane and now I had Lucah to make me breakfast every morning. I used to just grab something on my way to work, but Lucah said he worried about the state of my arteries from all the donuts. That made me glare at him and ask if that was a safe way of telling me I was fat. His response was to slap my ass and take me to bed and show me just how much he loved every inch of me.
Twenty minutes later, he brought a tray with scrambled eggs and salsa, toast, fresh fruit, a blueberry smoothie and a cup of green tea.
“I want to have your ginger babies.” He’d even put a little flower in a vase on it. I was terrible about plants and Sloane was worse, but Lucah had brought a few of them into the apartment when we’d moved in. He told me that since he moved so much, he could never really have plants, so he was happy to finally be in a place where he could. Who could say no to that?
“I don’t know if we’re quite ready for that yet, Miss Clarke. But I think you would be a beautiful mother.” Lucah had the power to completely liquefy my heart as well as the rest of my insides.
“You haven’t seen me with your nieces yet. Maybe I’ll be terrible with them.”
“I doubt that.”
Honestly, I hadn’t had very much experience with kids, and not just because I was an only child. I didn’t have a whole lot of relatives, or friends with kids. None of my close friends had them.
Like tended to hang with like, and a lot of the girls who had gotten married and started families young, I never felt I had much in common with. Nothing wrong with that, we were just different kinds of people. I didn’t want to have kids until I was at least thirty. Had to get my career on track first.
Lucah joined me in bed and we ate our breakfast. He’d done well getting me up this morning, so I was actually going to have time to shower and do my hair. Living with Lucah had definitely impacted my morning routine, because two of us needed to shower, two of us needed to brush our teeth, etc.
Sloane and I had different schedules, so we were almost never getting ready at the same time. I forgot sometimes that she wasn’t still living with me anymore. Plus, I was in a new apartment with a completely new vibe.
I was relieved that Lucah’s Spartan style at his other place was just a side effect of moving around a lot and not wanting to have anyone figure out his identity. His neat tendencies remained, however, which was wonderful. I never had to nag him about vacuuming or using coasters on the coffee table.
Yes, he was just about perfect.
I finished breakfast and Lucah dragged me to the shower and shoved me in. When I was finally done, I got out and we switched places. After blowing my hair straight, I stared in the mirror and did the same routine I did every day. The what-do-I-do-with-this-hair routine.