Page 64 of Too Hot to Sleep
"All the better to torture you, my dear," she murmured with a smile, rolling her shoulders in response to the delicious thrill of his tongue. "Ken, I was thinking."
"Hmm?"
She turned in his arms and tugged at the lapels of his black tuxedo jacket. "Since we have the rest of our lives to make love while I'mnotwearing my wedding gown, why don't we—"
He grabbed her around the waist, grinning. "I like the way you think, Mrs. Medlock."
He carried her to the bed in the luxurious honeymoon suite they'd reserved and set her on the edge. She started to slip off her shoes, but he stopped her, pushing her gently back on the bed. He then removed the satin heels with much ado and kissed his way up to the top of her white thigh-high stockings.
Just knowing the pleasures that lay ahead had her writhing against the covers. "Blue lights, Ken," she whispered, their private shorthand when one of them could barely wait for the other to love them.
His laugh was throaty as he unfastened his waistband. "I love it when you talk dirty, ma'am."
"Oh, but isn't this better than phone sex?" She moaned as he entered her, swift and hard.
"Is it ever," he breathed against her neck. "I love you, Georgia."
"I love you, too," she panted, meeting his long, filling strokes. Her climax was close, and he knew it.
His face glistened with perspiration as he talked to her, murmuring sizzling, erotic words. Her thighs burned with the need for her release. He drew her knees up and levered himself over her, driving deep, bringing her to the brink, then over, in a rhythmic flood of ecstasy. She cried out his name over and over. His orgasm intensified hers as he expanded and pulsed inside her.
Georgia moaned and smiled to herself as he eased his head down to her shoulder. At this rate, they'd be pregnant by tomorrow. "Ken?"
"Hmm?"
She laughed, fanning herself. "The next time we get married, can it not be in the middle of a heat wave?"
He lifted himself on his elbows, his eyes sensuously glazed. "But since we met in a heat wave, I thought it was only appropriate. Besides," he said, nipping at her neck in preparation for round two, "a heat wave is the best time for lovers."
"Why?"
Ken growled against her neck. "Because it's too hot to sleep."
Epilogue
Present Day
KEN MEDLOCKopened the door from the garage into the house and was greeted with silence. Disappointment arrowed through him. After more than twenty years of unbridled noise and chaos of raising three rambunctious boys into energetic, active teenagers and all the running back and forth it entailed, he remembered times when he'd wished for five minutes of quiet. Now he yearned for the commotion and clatter of his family.
And he knew Georgia did too, to fill the distance that had grown between them.
At the thought of his cherished wife, an ache filled in his chest that had nothing to do with the aches his big body had accumulated from nearly three decades on the police force. They had once burned up the sheets at every opportunity. But lately, he'd felt his wife slipping away from him, and he'd felt equally at a loss as to what to do about it.
Until today.
Georgia had been on his mind even more than usual, to the point of distraction. At lunch, he'd idly walked over to a bookcase in his big new office and picked up a photo of them on their wedding day. It wasn't one of the many staged pictures the photographer had arranged, but rather, a candid photo one of the guests had taken. He and Georgia had escaped to a hallway at the church for a stolen kiss. The expression on his wife's upturned face had been one of pure joy. He wanted to put that smile back on her face again, but he wasn't sure how. Until ahappy memory had floated into his mind, something he'd said to his new wife on their wedding night.
The next time we get married, pick a wedding gown that has fewer buttons.
Despite a pressing schedule, he'd left the office and gone to a jeweler, emerging with a ring encrusted with the three largest sapphires he could afford. To symbolize yesterday, today, and tomorrow. He planned to propose again and suggest they renew their vows. He loved her dearly, and he wasn't ready to give up on their marriage, even if she had lost interest in him physically.
But he was nervous. Georgia was a beautiful, vibrant woman with accomplishments and interests of her own. For most of their relationship he'd felt humbled by her ability to juggle a career and motherhood and wifedom with seemingly little effort. But he suspected she was tired, and now that she didn't have the responsibility of being a mother, he was worried she was ready to move on from their marriage, too.
When momentary panic descended, he pulled his hand over his mouth. He couldn't imagine life without Georgia.
He set the jeweler's box on the table and pulled out his phone to see if she'd texted him, but she hadn't. He resisted the urge to text her to ask when she'd be home. He didn't want to intrude on her night out with her friends. But he was eager to tell her how much he loved her and that he was willing to do whatever it took to find their way back to each other.
He stowed his phone and walked to the bedroom to change out of his uniform, hoping against hope his gesture wasn't too little, too late. He glanced at their bed that seemed too big and too cold these days, then loosened his tie. He'd unbuttoned the top button on his shirt when his phone rang.
