Chapter Sixty-One
Sixty-One
Luke came out of the bathroom and settled back down into the tumbled bed. He could not remember ever feeling better in his life.
“Your turn,” he said.
Sophy got up, pulled on her robe, and handed him the room service menu. “Order breakfast. I’m starving.”
“I’m on it.”
He watched her disappear into the bathroom. A sense of satisfaction welled up deep inside. They were truly a couple now—connected on a bone-deep level that he could not explain.
He studied the menu with close attention, because he was hungry, too.
He placed the order and waited for Sophy to reappear.
A buzz of anticipation aroused all of his senses.
There were going to be more mornings like this one, mornings when he and Sophy would have breakfast together.
He wanted a lifetime of mornings with Sophy.
A lifetime of nights. A lifetime of dreams made real.
She emerged still enveloped in the robe. Her hair was loose around her shoulders. She looked soft and cuddly and incredibly sexy. He was getting hard again just looking at her.
“How long until room service arrives?” she said.
“Really? You’re thinking about breakfast instead of ravishing me? I’m crushed.”
“I’ll do a better job of ravishing you once I’ve had some protein and a couple of cups of coffee.”
“Promise?”
“Promise.”
“Okay, then.”
She sat on the edge of the bed and gave him an expectant look. “Tell me when you first knew that you were falling in love with me.”
He smiled. “I told you. The night you opened the door of the shop and informed me that I was late and that you were going to bill me triple the usual rate for a reading.”
She frowned. “I’m serious.”
“So am I.”
“That’s very sweet but it’s hard to believe.”
“Yeah, I had a hard time believing it, too. I figured my brain was a little scrambled because of the long drive and the fact that I was worried about Deke. So I put the issue aside. I was planning to deal with it in the morning. But then I had an unscheduled dream.”
She brightened. “About me?”
“No, about Bruce.”
“Oh.”
“I dreamed about the night I found him bleeding in the middle of the road. It was as if he’d been waiting for me. That was my imagination, of course. He was in shock and would have died. It was sheer coincidence that I came along. It could have been anyone.”
“But it was you and now the two of you are a team.”
“I think Bruce would say we’re a pack, but yes. Anyhow, when I woke up I knew I was in the same situation as Bruce had been when I found him—standing in the middle of the road, waiting for you to come along.”
“Hmm.” She considered that briefly. “You were on the doorstep, not in the middle of the road.”
“Details.”
“And you weren’t bleeding from a gunshot wound.”
“No, but I was in crisis mode. I had to find Deke and I had to decide if I wanted to take control of the company. On top of that my intuition was telling me that things were about to get a lot more complicated, which turned out to be true.”
“Still, you hadn’t been shot.”
“I’ve explained that my dreams need to be interpreted.”
“I get that, but I don’t see how you can interpret that particular dream as anything other than a straight-up dream about the night you found Bruce.”
“Are all librarians as unromantic as you are?”
“We prefer to deal in hard facts.”
“You want hard facts? I’ll give you hard facts.”
He pulled her down onto the bed and lowered himself along the length of her body. She reached down and took his erection into her hand.
“That is a very interesting hard fact,” she said.
“It certainly struck me that way.”
He bent his head to kiss her. A series of sharp raps on the door made him pause.
“Room service.”
He groaned and eased away from her warm body. “I need better timing.”
Sophy scrambled out of bed. “This is perfect timing. I’m hungry. Give me a minute to hide.”
He watched her disappear into the bathroom. Impulse struck.
“Will you marry me?” he called after her.
“Yes,” she yelled from inside the bathroom.
He smiled, tightened the sash of his robe, and opened the door. The room service waiter grinned.
“Congratulations,” she said.
“Thanks.” He took the heavily laden tray from her hands. “It’s been a whirlwind courtship.”
“Sometimes you just know.”
“Yes. Sometimes you do.”