“You have a really cute ear.”
Without missing a beat, he said, “Yes, that’s my good ear. The other one isn’t quite as nice.”
I started to chuckle, which made him gasp and groan, because a certain part of his anatomy was losing its rigid structure and being squeezed out of a very satisfied Miss Kitty.
He rolled us to the side and I pulled away, the room’s air cool on my glistening front. The sensation of the side of my stomach touching the sheets made me aware of my floppiness, so I kept rolling, onto my back. With my bra on, my br**sts weren’t headed for my armpits, so this was the most flattering pose.
Even though I was still self-conscious, I felt more comfortable in the nude around Dalton than I ever had with another guy. Not that there had been many guys, but I’d done a thing or two, some of them with ice cream.
He grabbed my robe and excused himself to the washroom for a moment, then came back and stretched out alongside me. His panther-like body made everything he was touching look better. Even me.
He took my hand in his and raised it to kiss my knuckles, a sweet smile on his face. He tugged me toward him, and I rolled back onto my side, floppiness be damned.
This is what mornings are like in heaven, I thought.
“This is nice,” I said.
“I feel so relaxed, but I don’t dare fall asleep or you’ll make like Cinderella and disappear on me.”
“This is my house. Where would I go?”
I reached over and traced the contours of his hipbone with my fingertip. He twitched, like he couldn’t decide if he was ticklish in that spot or not. I kept tracing along the hollow, then looped up around his navel. His skin was so smooth and firm, his body breathtaking in its beauty.
As I was admiring him, he reached around my shoulder and unhooked my bra, then pulled it away. My girls slipped down without the support. Usually, being na**d with a guy in a room full of sunshine, I would have reached for a sheet to provide some cover, but this time I didn’t.
He reached over and palmed the bottom of one breast, lifting as though curious about the heft. My nipple hardened at his touch, sending a pulse of desire down the core of me.
“You’re so feminine,” he whispered. “Like the pure embodiment of femininity.”
I ran my finger up the valley of his chest, enjoying how perfectly suited to my fingertip the shape was.
“And you’re so masculine,” I said.
“Thanks, but I wasn’t fishing for a compliment. I meant what I said.”
His words gave me one of those smiles you feel all the way to the back of your head, like an ultra-tight bun.
Maybe his god-like body was why I didn’t feel more self-conscious. Even if he slept with really attractive women, if they were mere mortals, they couldn’t compare to Dalton’s beauty. So what if my thigh was the same circumference as his waist? He and I were simply not in competition with each other. We were in beautiful contrast.
~
We lay in bed together for a while, neither asleep nor awake, but somewhere in the middle.
I woke up with a start when the bathroom door slammed and the shower turned on. Shayla was awake. It was still Saturday, right?
A handsome man was snuggled up next to me, a streak of sunshine across his muscular calf, turning the dark brown hair golden. It was nearly one o’clock.
He stirred next to me and groggily threw one tanned arm over me.
I whispered, “You can stay sleeping for a bit, but I’m going to get started making some lunch.”
He grumbled, “Breakfast.”
“It’s after one.”
“Scrambled eggs and ketchup?”
I told him I would do my best, though I suspected we had neither item in the kitchen. Had he asked for tofu hot dogs and chipotle-infused mayonnaise, that I could have provided. I quickly pulled on my clothes and headed downstairs.
Nope, no eggs in the kitchen.*
*Except for chocolate ones.
Off I went on a quick jaunt to the corner store, three blocks away, on Spider Avenue.
On my way into Moody’s News & Milk, I spotted a headline on a copy of The Beaver Daily that caught my eye: Hollywood Loots Local Treasures.
A lady with a toddler was coming in behind me, so I held the door open for her. She thanked me, and scooped the one and only copy of The Beaver Daily left on the newsstand. I quickly assessed my need for local news and decided not to fight her for it, since I had my own inside scoop, na**d in my bed.
The woman gasped audibly.
I turned to see what the fuss was about. “What does it say?”
She covered her mouth with her hand and laughed, the newspaper shaking in her hand. Her toddler wandered off to rearrange the gum and candy on the toddler-height shelf near the checkout.
“I get it now,” she said. “Beaver-Daily. Not Beaverdale Daily. It’s like Beaverdale-y.”
Ah, so she was just cottoning onto the pun-like name of our local paper.
“All part of the charm. We’re a charming town. Chock full of charm,” I said.
“I’ve lived here for five years. I even wrote a big article about the town a year ago for Small Town Life in America, but I missed that detail.”
I nodded politely and went off to locate the items I’d come there for: ketchup and farm-fresh local eggs. Even though Dalton would probably frown at the carbohydrates, I picked up a loaf of bread as well.
As I paid for my things, I got the sense the woman was peeking at me over the newspaper she was reading. Her kid was running amok, two fists full of candy. I paid for my stuff and got out of there, eager to share my first breakfast with a certain sexy actor.
The woman watched me all the way to the door, and I didn’t think much of it, until…
… I turned the last corner before my house and nearly ran into a film crew, swarming around a big-haired woman with too much makeup.
With horror, I realized the woman with the snooty expression was the same one who had chased Dalton into Peachtree Books exactly one week earlier. We. Hate. Her.
Something crashed and there was the sound of terra cotta breaking. Not my f**king geraniums.
I wasn’t wearing any sleeves, but I pushed them up anyway and prepared to kick some serious ass.
“This is private property!” I yelled into the teeming mass of them.
Nobody paid me any attention.
I cleared my throat, set down my grocery bag, and yelled, “GET OFF MY LAWN!”
A couple heads turned, but nobody got off my lawn. The guy with the camera who was standing on my steps took another step up and rang the doorbell. My doorbell.
Well, I sure showed them, because I wasn’t in my house. Hah!