Rags To Riches: A Desire To Serve. Janice Maynard

went up on an elbow and conducted her own exploration. Just as slowly. Just as thoroughly. His chin and throat got soft kisses, his shoulder a nuzzle and a teasing nip. She followed by lightly scraping a fingertip down his chest and through hair that arrowed toward his groin.

      “Now here,” she said with a wicked grin as her fingers closed around him, “we have a real masterpiece.”

      “You won’t hear me argue with that,” he returned, his grin matching hers.

      She gave a huff of laughter and stroked him, gently at first, then with increasing pressure. The friction coiled him as tight as a centrifuge, but he was confident in his ability to extend this period of mutual discovery awhile longer yet. Right up until she bent down, took him in her mouth and shot his confidence all to hell and back.

      His breath left on a hiss. Everything below his waist went on red alert. He managed to hang on for a few moments longer but knew his control was about to blow.

      “Grace…”

      The low warning brought her head up. Her lips were wet and glistening, her eyes cloudy with desire. When he would have reversed positions, she preempted him by hooking a leg over his thighs. She guided him into her, gasping when he thrust upward, and dropped forward to plant her hands on his chest. The skin over her cheeks was stretched tight. Her hair formed a tangled curtain. Blake had never seen anything more beautiful or seductive in his life.

      “Forget Van Gogh,” he said gruffly. “Not even he could do you justice.”

      He shoved his hands through her hair and brought her down for a kiss that was as fierce as it was possessive.

      * * *

      Grace came awake with a twitch. Something rasped like fine sandpaper against her temple. Blake’s chin, she decided after a hazy moment. Unshaven and bristly. Deciding to ignore the movement, she burrowed her nose deeper into the warm crevice between his neck and shoulder.

      “Grace?”

      “Mmmm.”

      “You awake?”

      “Nuh-uh.”

      “No?”

      He shifted, and the chin made another scrape. Grace raised her head and squinted at the dim shadows wreathing the room.

      “Whatimeizzit?”

      “Close to six, I think.”

      “Jeez!”

      Her head dropped. Her cheek thumped his chest. She tried to drift back into sleep but laughter rumbled annoyingly under her ear.

      “Not a morning person, I take it.”

      “Not a 6:00 a.m. person,” she mumbled, sounding sulky even to herself.

      “I’ll keep that in mind for future reference.”

      It took a few moments for that to penetrate her sleepy fog. When it did, she pushed up on an elbow and shoved her hair out of her eyes. She wasn’t awake enough to address the subject of the future head-on. Or maybe she just didn’t have the nerve. Still a little grumpy, she went at it sideways.

      “Are you? A morning person, I mean?”

      “Pretty much.” An apologetic smile creased his whiskery cheeks. “I’ve been awake for an hour or so.”

      She groaned and would have made a dive for the pillows, but he shifted again. She ended up lying on her side, facing him, with her head propped on a hand and her thoughts hijacked by a worry about morning breath. She ran a quick tongue over her teeth. They didn’t feel too fuzzy. And her lips weren’t caked with drool, thank God! She refused to think about her uncombed hair and unwashed face. Or how much she needed to pee.

      Blake, of course, looked totally gorgeous in the dim light. A lazy smile lit his wide-awake blue eyes, and he was tantalizingly naked above the rumpled sheets. He even smelled good. Sort of musky and masculine and warm.

      When she finished inspecting the little swirl of dark gold hair around his navel and brought her gaze back to his face, she saw his smile had taken on a different slant. Less lazy. More serious.

      “I did some thinking while I was lying here waiting for you to rejoin the living.”

      She guessed from his expression what he’d been cogitating over but asked anyway. “About?”

      “Us.”

      The arm propping her up suddenly felt shaky. Did he want to alter their still-evolving relationship? Renegotiate the contract? After last night, she was certainly open to different terms and conditions. Still, she had to work to keep her voice steady.

      “And what did you conclude, counselor?”

      “I want to make this work, Grace. You, me, our marriage.”

      “I thought we were making it work.”

      “Bad word choice. I meant make it real.”

      He reached over to tuck a tangled strand behind her ear. She held her breath until he’d positioned it to his satisfaction.

      “I want to spend the rest of my life with you. You and Molly and the children we might have together.”

      Oh, God! Were they really having this discussion with her teeth unbrushed and her face crumpled into sleep lines? She couldn’t fall on his chest again, lock her mouth on his and show him how much she wanted the exact same things.

      “Hold on.”

      Surprise blanked his face at the terse order. A swift frown followed almost instantly as she threw off the sheet.

      “I’ll be right back.”

      She spent all of three minutes in the bathroom. When she emerged, he was sitting with his back against the padded silk headboard. The scowl remained, but the fact that she was still naked seemed to reassure him. That, and the joy she didn’t try to disguise when she scrambled onto the bed and knelt facing him.

      “Okay, I can respond properly now. Repeat what you said, word for word.”

      He hooked a brow and repeated obediently, “I want to spend the rest of my life with you.”

      “Me and…” she prompted.

      “You and Molly and the children we might have together.”

      A giddy happiness gathered in her throat, but she had to make sure. “And you can live with the fact that I won’t…can’t tell you Anne’s secrets?”

      “I don’t like it,” he admitted honestly, “but I can live with it.”

      “Then I say we go for it. Molly, more babies, the whole deal.”

      The laughter came back, and with it a tenderness that made her heart hurt.

      “Whew! You had me worried there for a moment.”

      “Yes, well, for future reference, you probably want to wait until I’ve brushed my teeth to spring something like that on me.”

      “I’ll add that to the list,” he said as she framed his face with both hands.

      She reveled in the scrape of his whiskery cheeks, amazed and humbled at the prospect of sharing the months and years ahead with this smart, handsome, incredible man. Every tumultuous hope for their future filled her heart as she leaned in and sealed their new contract.

      * * *

      Given the rocky start to her marriage, Grace would never have believed her honeymoon would turn into the stuff that dreams are made of.

      Last-minute negotiations averted the threatened strike, so no further business issues intruded and Grace had her husband’s undivided attention. As she’d already discovered, he woke early and disgustingly energized. She wasn’t exactly a sloth, but she did prefer to open her eyes to sunshine versus a dark, shadowy dawn. They compromised by making love late into the night, every