“Well I am,” I reminded him. “I have to work.”
His grin stayed fixed and he reminded me right back, “Yeah, but your day starts at nine thirty. You can sleep in.”
This was true.
I held his eyes.
Then I whispered, “Round two?”
His eyes got intense and he whispered back, “Oh yeah.”
Oh.
Yeah.
“Okay,” I breathed, he bent his head to touch his mouth to mine then rolled off.
I skedaddled off the bed and to the bathroom to prepare for round two.
And yeah.
Seriously.
Sex was awesome.
*
Twelve fifteen that night
I laid in bed snuggled into Chace’s side, his arm under and around me, hand under my nightie drifting a short path up my spine and down to the top of my undies, my arm around his gut, cheek to his shoulder, top leg tangled with both of his.
We’d had almost a week of us being all the us we could be.
He worked, I worked. He ran or swam or did weight lifting, I went to the gym. We had dinner together. We walked to Bubba’s from my place after dinner once to have drinks. He watched sports, I read.
He did not, however, watch any of my shows and stood firm on this even when I semi-begged him to give Supernatural a go telling him Dean Winchester was most assuredly his type of guy. Although I gave up, I decided next week I’d try again. Dean and Sam could lapse into heartfelt, man conversations and there were demons and ghosts and a variety of apocalyptic storylines. But still, I figured Chace would get into it mostly because they drove a kickass Impala. And all men (or most men and the men who were all man were most of them) liked cars.
Anyway, I had last week’s episode taped. Since I was spending all my time with Chace, if he didn’t watch it with me, when was I going to get my dose of Dean and Sam?
The sex was regular (after the ban, morning and night!) and got better and better (deliriously so). As Chace guided it, I became more confident and we got to know each other better, in bed and out.
It had been another wonderful week.
Brilliant. Fabulous. Amazing.
The only pall was Malachi.
He hadn’t shown all week and daily I asked for reports from Chace about what Deck was uncovering.
Deck, so far, had found nothing.
Chace had also come up with zip. This included him expanding his search by contacting every school in the county and every surrounding county to see if a boy called Malachi was enrolled.
Nothing.
“Kid’s a ghost,” Chace had muttered and his tone eloquently underlined he didn’t feel this was good.
I didn’t either. How could he not be on the register of any school in five counties?
“I’m worried about Malachi,” I muttered into the dark silence and Chace’s hand stopped drifting and his arm curled tight around me.
“I know, baby,” he whispered.
“This amount of time, he’s running out of food.”
“Deck’ll find him.”
I lifted up and looked down at him in the dark. “Chace –”
His other arm reached across his body and I felt his hand cup my cheek.
“Faye, baby, Deck’ll find him. Nothin’ we can do. Not right now. You need to sleep. You got work tomorrow. Tomorrow night, we got your family. And Deck’s stymied. He doesn’t like to be stymied. Not ever but definitely not by a nine year old kid. This was a favor he was doin’ for me. Now it’s his mission. He won’t give up, Faye, and he’ll find him.”
I sucked in breath.
He was right. There was nothing we could do after midnight on a Friday night. I had work the next day and we had to face my family tomorrow night.
This was supposed to be a dinner for Mom, Dad, Chace and me. Then Liza found out about it (Dad and his big mouth). Now she and Boyd and her kids were coming and it was a pre-birthday bash for her son, Jarot.
Don’t ask me about the name Jarot. I told her he’d be teased and called “carrot” and he was. She loved the name and she was Liza, when she loved something she was perfectly willing to pitch numerous fits to get it. So Boyd gave in mostly to shut her up. Luckily, he gave in after demanding the right to name their second kid. His name was Robert. Suffice it to say, Robbie didn’t get teased on the playground.
Then again, Robbie was a bruiser.
Jarot played with Legos all the fraking time and Liza, Boyd and Dad were convinced, with the stuff he built, that he was going to be an architect.
He was almost nine.
Robbie had been sent home from school three times for punching kids in the nose.
He was six.
No one said what they thought Robbie was going to be mostly because the optimistic choice was the next Great White Hope in the boxing ring. But the practical one was he was going to be a drug dealer’s enforcer.
“Oh, all right,” I gave in on a mutter then settled back in.
Chace’s hand at my cheek sifted back through my hair before it fell away and his hand at my spine went back to drifting.
I relaxed.
“We’ll find him, Faye.”
It was quiet but it was a promise.
I pressed closer.