Chapter 8
CHAPTER EIGHT
NICK
Katie wasn't an early riser.
There were moments when he felt like he was tempted to go down to his construction company's warehouse and get a few sticks of dynamite to wake his daughter up, but he resisted.
Barely.
So the morning after his date with Ruth, he wasn't expecting to wake up to the soft PING PING PING of text messages on his phone.
Cracking open an eye, he lifted the phone from the arm of the sofa and looked at her messages
KATIE: Well???
KATIE: You were supposed to give me details!
POUT EMOJI
KATIE: Okay, not any gross adult-like details, but you know that.
KATIE: Cuz that would be gross.
KATIE: Really gross
GAG EMOJI
KATIE: Did you kiss?
KATIE: Did she sleep over?
KATIE: If she did, I'm okay with it. I'm a big girl. I understand how the world works.
KATIE: I'm almost an adult
KATIE: Sort of...
KATIE: Not like I can drink or anything like that.
KATIE: Do kids really get to drink in France?
KATIE: Now I'm hungry. Dana's mom doesn't get up for another hour.
KATIE: SIIIIIGGGGHHHHHH
KATIE: Okay, so I'll let you know before we head home. If Miss Baker is still around when I get there... Can we have her stay for lunch?
With one hand available, Nick had to figure out how to respond to her texts. He might have tried to free his other arm, but it was 'asleep.'
He shifted a little and tried to balance his phone on the blanket he'd pulled over them to keep her feet warm.
DAD: Are you just up or have you BEEN up?
DAD: Not giving you details over text or phone
He let out a breath, thankful for the word suggestions at the bottom of the screen.
DAD: Be the great girl I know you are. See you later.
DAD: Please let her mom know that we'll return the favor after Nutcracker.
DAD: Luv you, Katydid.
There was light coming through the window.
It had to be just a little after dawn.
The time when he was usually lying in bed on his back, staring up at the ceiling. Laying on his side of the bed.
Nick set the phone down, face up, and turned slightly so he could brush his fingertips against her cheek.
"I wonder what side of the bed you like to sleep on?"
Ruth shifted and turned, her arm stretching out above the covers and her arm slipped down between his knees.
It was an awkward position to fall asleep in, but he wasn't about to move unless the world was falling down around their ears.
He could hand a few tight and aching muscles in the morning if it meant that he could hold onto Ruth a little longer.
He smiled when she rubbed her face into his chest.
Nick closed his eyes and imagined what it would feel like if she did that without his shirt on. He wanted to feel a lot of things with her.
Her lips against his bare skin was near the top of the list.
He laughed silently at his ridiculous levels of need when it came to her.
"What's so funny?"
Ruth sounded half-asleep, but it also gave her voice a deeper timbre to it, making it sound husky.
Sexy.
Well, hell, she always sounded sexy, but with the deeper tones and half-lidded eyes that she turned in his direction, he wished that he could wake up to this every morning.
He felt her shift again and before he knew what she was up to, he felt her poke him in the side.
The noise that came out of his mouth was partly a gasp of surprise and the rest of it? A laugh.
He tried to cover it with a cough, but as Ruth sat up, she gave him a look that said she'd heard the laugh.
The look in her eyes was more triumph than curiosity and a moment later, he realized why.
Ruth smiled and leaned closer, finding that exact spot again.
Nick winced and tried to dodge out of the way, but he'd slept in an odd position, so he wasn't as fast as he'd be normally.
She managed to poke him just in the right spot and he laughed, the sound almost a gasp of sound.
"Hey, now." He tried to catch her hands, but she easily dodged his attempt. "That's not nice."
He saw a look on her face that said she was thinking about how to follow up. She ended up sitting back on the couch, her legs folded under her.
She gave him a curious little smile. "I'm not going to press my luck," she explained, "it's nice to know you're ticklish, too."
"It's inconvenient, I guess." She frowned and he realized that he hadn't exactly been clear. "Letting people know your weak spots."
She smiled at that. "It means that they can take advantage of them." Her expression dimmed a little. "Do you like being tickled?"
He shook his head, just a minute movement back and forth. "Not really. Even the threat of it..."
"Your use of the word 'threat' is more telling than anything else." Ruth's smile was more chagrin than anything else. "I won't do it again."
Nick reached out and gathered her close. "There are a number of ways I'd love for you to put your hands on me."
Ruth's smile brightened at that. "And I was just embarrassed that being tickled basically put a stop to... wherever we were going with that last night."
Nick's eyes opened wider at that, and he lifted his hand to his beard. "Maybe I should have trimmed it?"
Ruth leaned in. She put one hand on his shoulder and with the other she reached up to touch his beard.
He'd handled his facial hair thousands of times, cutting and trimming, but it was probably impossible for him to tickle himself.
"What if I did that?" He watched her carefully for any reaction.
She sat there, still. Looking back at him with just a little bit of confusion on her face.
"If I trim, make it a little closer to the skin, it might not trigger that reaction. What do you think?"
Ruth looked like she was holding back, hesitating.
"Or..." He shrugged and then nodded, coming up with an idea. "Maybe I should shave it off?"
"No!" Ruth sat up, her hands reached for his face and covered his beard, knocking his hands away. "Don't you dare!"
She was smiling when she made the declaration.
"I like this." She moved her hands over his beard and the way she touched it, he liked it even more. "I wouldn't mind a little trim." Her fingers combed through his beard at the bottom where it was the thinnest. She frowned a little. "It's softer here at the ends."
Her fingers felt like magic.
"It might be why it tickled."
He smiled, enjoying her touch more and more. "If I trim it, it'll be thicker and maybe even prickle a little."
The look on her face was a revelation for him.
He could see her considering his words, but he saw a little smile turn up at the corners of her lips and then a little glint in her eyes when she looked up at him.
"I wouldn't mind it. Who knows how that would change the way it feels?"
She leaned in and placed a kiss on his lips, a kind of glancing blow before she turned her cheek to brush it against his beard along his jaw.
Nick closed his eyes and enjoyed the sensation of her touching him and the scent of her skin filling his nose.
He reached out his hands and settled them on her hips.
Settled... because anything more was going to get things started all over again and while he might not be all that young anymore, he wasn't sure he'd be able to stop with just a quick roll in the sheets and Katie was coming home in the near future.
He did move her just a hair to the side so he could capture her lips in another kiss.
When he eased back a few minutes later, they were both flushed and breathing heavier. He reached out and brushed a few loose strands of hair from her face. "I guess I'll have to trim and see how that works for you."
His voice softened at the end of his words, leaning in to read her expression as well as he could.
The color in her cheeks hadn't faded at all.
There was a bright light in her eyes that reminded him of the flashes of light off of the surface of the lake by their cabin.
Everything about her just seemed to fit into his life... and Katie's.
His phone PINGed again and he lifted it to look at the screen.
KATIE: I'm headed home! Miss both of you!
WINK EMOJI
KATIE: C U soon!
Nick smiled and showed the screen to Ruth.
Her complexion was the reddest he'd seen so far.
And a moment later, she slid off of the sofa. "I should probably go before she comes home."
Nick reached out and took her hand in his, keeping her from running away.
"She said she misses both of us."
He didn't let go of her hand until he felt the tension bleed out of her body.
"Maybe you could stay for a little. I know Katie would love to have you spend some time with us."
"I..."
He stood up and faced her, his gaze moving over her beautiful face again.
"I know I want to spend more time with you, too."
She nodded, slowly.
"I think I should change my clothes first." She looked over her shoulder at the windows and Nick knew she was looking back at her house. "I think it's best that Katie not know that I stayed over last night."
Nick felt a muscle tick in his jaw. He wasn't upset about her words. He was happy to hear it, actually. He just didn't like the idea that anyone would have something negative to say about Ruth or his family.
It also showed how much Ruth cared about Katie.
"I think if she knew you'd slept here, she'd probably turn... what are those things called?"
Ruth's smile was infectious as she lowered her chin just a tiny bit. "Cartwheels?"
Nick snapped his fingers. "That's what I was looking for."
Ruth leaned in and brushed a kiss across his cheek. "I'll be back after I shower and change." She took a step away and he grasped her hand, tugging her back for a kiss.
A real kiss.
Ruth had to poke him in the shoulder to get him to let her go. "If you don't stop that, Katie's going to come back and I'm going to be standing here looking like a rumpled jacket."
"Best looking rumpled jacket I've ever seen."
Ruth shook her head. "Those pick-up lines are-"
"Old? Like me?"
She rolled her eyes. "You're hardly old and decrepit."
He let go of her hand again and she took a few steps away, pausing at the side door.
"I like silver foxes though. The salt and pepper hair does it for me."