Total pages in book: 109
Estimated words: 109608 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 548(@200wpm)___ 438(@250wpm)___ 365(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 109608 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 548(@200wpm)___ 438(@250wpm)___ 365(@300wpm)
He sighed, caught her hand on the arm that was draped around his waist and pulled it carefully to his lips so as not to wake her. He touched his mouth to her knuckles.
With equal caution, he set it behind him and slid out from in front of her.
When he got back from the bathroom, she was up on an arm, blinking crossly at the window.
Those annoyed eyes came to him.
“What time is it?” she asked.
“It’s six,” he answered.
“Is there an actual six o’clock in a day where I don’t have a cocktail in my hand?”
Damn, she was funny.
He chuckled, walked to her and sat on the bed in the crook of her lap. “Yes, that would be the one referred to as six in the morning.”
“I don’t recognize this in Nora Time.”
“Then go back to sleep, baby,” he murmured.
“No.” She shook her head. “I can’t. We need to pack. And our rental car is being delivered this morning. I also need to go over Hale’s grocery list. He might miss something.”
Chloe and JT arriving home that day, they all had their assignments.
And it was Nora doing the assigning.
Her and Elsa.
“And, of course, I have to go through the motions of looking fabulous before all that happens,” she concluded.
“You look fabulous now,” he told her.
And she did. Cute and soft and entirely too fuckable for their day’s schedule.
“Stop looking at me like that, Jameson,” she snapped. “We haven’t discussed it, but I believe we both understand we cannot consummate this delightful change to our relationship in Genny and Duncan’s guest room with your daughter ensconced right across the hall.”
He lifted his eyes from where they’d gotten caught on her mouth.
“Or Judge and Chloe’s,” he added.
“One question,” she demanded.
“What is it?” he asked.
“Were you going to ravish me in the aft lounge before we got our dire news?”
He burst out laughing at the word “ravish.”
But, fuck him, he was about to do just that before they got their news.
So he was forced to answer, “Yes.”
She looked away and huffed out an exasperated sigh.
He caught her chin and brought her back to him.
“We can make out in Genny and Duncan’s guest room,” he suggested in a low voice.
“Have you seen your chest?” she queried haughtily, glancing down at it like it caused offense and he needed to apologize for it.
He was chuckling again when he answered, “Yes.”
“Well, allow me to inform you, as a heterosexual female, that it would be nigh on impossible to simply make out, as you so eloquently put it, with you and your bare chest, and not have that get out of hand.”
Good to know.
“I could put on a T-shirt,” he offered.
“I’ve seen it already this morning. It’s taunting me now. You’d have to put on a snowsuit to take my mind off it.”
Jamie again burst out laughing.
Nora waited until he was done before she spoke again, but she wasn’t fooling him. Her face was soft, her expression content. She loved to make him laugh.
And Jamie loved that she did, and more, that she brought so much laughter back into his life.
Yes.
He loved that quite a bit.
“If we must be up and mobile at this godforsaken hour, I need coffee,” she ordered imperiously.
“I’ll get right on that.”
“You do that.”
“Kiss first.”
She lost all snootiness and whispered, “Jamie.”
“Quick one.”
“I have morning breath.”
“No tongue.”
She rolled her eyes.
Jamie stole a kiss.
When he pulled away, she was pouting, and that didn’t fool him either.
Her expression was no longer content.
It was happy.
So…good.
Jamie had managed to start their day off right, nonetheless.
Dru and Hale were in Chloe and Judge’s kitchen, cooking enough food to refrigerate and freeze, it would keep that couple fed for a month.
Sully and Gage were outside, exercising the dogs.
Elsa was in the study, doing some work.
Laird was in Tom’s arms, and Tom was out on the back deck.
Genny was in an armchair, JT cradled in her lap.
Duncan was at work, and so were Matt, Rix, and Alex, and Mi and Sasha had had to go back down to Phoenix to do the same thing.
Mika and Cadence were on a run to the grocery store to get something Hale had forgotten.
And Chloe and Judge had arrived home with JT half an hour ago.
Jamie’s son had his wife cuddled to his chest where they both lounged on a couch, Chloe covered with a blanket, so Judge was as well. Venus was curled at their feet.
Jamie was in the other armchair, legs stretched in front of him, crossed at the ankles, waiting for his turn with JT.
All this was as it was when Nora floated down the stairs.
She stopped at the foot of the couch and stared severely at Chloe.
“Your postpartum wardrobe is unacceptable, darling,” she announced.
Judge’s gaze raced to his dad.
Jamie simply fought smiling and shook his head to communicate that, yes, Nora had undoubtedly snooped in Chloe’s closet, but no, he didn’t need to be concerned, because that was all she’d done, and she had a purpose in doing it.