InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Purity 9: Subterfuge ❯ The Rub ( Chapter 212 )

Valerie walked into the bedroom with a frown.  Evan was somewhere in the house; she knew he was, but finding him was an entirely different matter.

Some noises drew her toward the bathroom, and she stopped short in the doorway when she spotted him, holding a bottle of something over the toilet, draining the contents in a steady stream, and she blinked.  "Is that my color-wash shampoo?" she asked, leaning against the frame as she crossed her arms over her chest.

"Yep," he said without looking up from his task.

She watched him for a few more moments.  "Why are you dumping it down the toilet?"

"Because," he said as if it was the simplest thing in the world, "you're not allowed to dye your hair anymore.  That's why."

Her mouth fell open for a second before she snapped it closed.  "That stuff is expensive, Roka," she pointed out calmly.  "Almost thirty bucks a bottle."

"I'll buy you some more," he told her.  "Just not color-wash junk."

Biting back a smile, Valerie shook her head.  "That's so wasteful . . . It was a brand new bottle, too."

"You're missing the point.  You were born blonde.   You should stay blonde."

"I don't say anything when you dye your hair," she pointed out reasonably.

He snorted and flushed the toilet as he dropped the now-empty bottle into the trash can nearby.  "That's completely different," he declared.  "I do it to hide who I am—something you're grateful for, if you remember."  Then he hopped back a step, leaning back with his body and forward with his head like he was afraid something in the toilet was going to get him.

Pushing herself away from the door frame, she wandered over, eyes widening at the pile of brown-tinted bubbles that rose almost to the rim of the toilet.  Before they could escape, however, the suction action pulled them harmlessly down the drain, but she made a face at the trace stains that ringed the inside of the bowl.  "You're going to scrub that out, aren't you?" she asked without looking at Evan.

"Kind of looks like someone had some major issues, doesn't it?"

She smacked him in the center of his chest with the back of her hand as she continued to stare at the toilet.  "You're such a pain.  Besides, I darken my hair because it keeps people at work from thinking that I'm just some stupid blonde."

Evan rolled his eyes.  "You're an attorney, V.  I don't think anyone's going to think you're a stupid blonde."

She sighed.  "I can't believe you did that."

"Believe it, baby."

She laughed.  "Jerk."

He slipped an arm around her waist and planted a kiss on her temple.  "So was there a reason you were looking for me?  Want me to take you for a ride on the hEvan Express?  I have a radio interview later on, but I could spare a few . . ."

"Hmm," she drawled, turning toward him, slipping her arms around his neck.  "Unfortunately, that'd be a bad idea at the moment—and what do you mean, a 'few'?"

He nuzzled her neck.  "Okay, a little longer than a 'few' . . . and for the record, I think it's an awesome idea—best one I've had all day."

Closing her eyes for a moment as a delicious shiver ran down her spine, she let herself savor the feeling before gently but firmly pushing against his chest.  "Mike's here," she said when he tried to lean in again.  "Says he 'needs' to talk to you."

"Aww, that is so un-sexy," Evan complained.  "Tell him to go the fuck away.  Better yet, tell him you're my new manager and that he's fired."

Valerie laughed and managed to extricate herself from Evan's grasp.  "Anyway, you take your time, talking to him because I've got a meeting with Xavier."

Evan heaved a longsuffering sigh.  "All ri-i-i-ight," he said in an exhalation of breath.

She smiled and him and kissed him on the cheek before sauntering out of the bathroom to change clothes for her meeting.

Xavier wanted updates on the cases she was working on.  At the moment, she only had two, one of which would be resolved within the week when the judge signed the plea agreement, while the other one was fairly straightforward, too, and wouldn't take a lot of work.  It was the kid's first run-in with the law, and he seemed to be genuinely contrite for a fight in a restaurant that started when some guy said some rude thing to the kid's girlfriend.  Jimmy Hall, the hottest young actor in the country, thrived on his 'nice boy' image, so the real problem was for his PR people to deal with, and as far as Valerie could tell, the only reason that Jimmy had been brought up on charges was because of his fame since he'd only hit the guy once.  But she'd already gotten a call from the DA, who was interested in cutting Jimmy a deal, and as long as said-deal was decent, Jimmy would probably take it and call it good.

Valerie had been reluctant to take on any other cases, though, and that's why Xavier wanted to talk to her.  She wasn't entirely sure why she felt such a sense of reticence, either, but she couldn't quite shake the feeling that she didn't want to commit herself to anything at work that she couldn't easily work out.  She supposed that if she were to stop and really think about it, it would probably have to do with the idea that things were already so up in the air, as far as her life went.  So many things had changed in the span of a week that it was hard for her to grasp, and she couldn't help but wonder if her choice in fields of law was ultimately the right one for her.  Granted, had it not been for her current position, she might not have met Evan, but still, she couldn't help feeling that there was so much more she could do if she were to change her focus from representing stars who got in trouble to something a little less high-profile but perhaps far more fulfilling.

Besides, Evan had mentioned that he wanted to go to Maine for an extended vacation, of sorts.  He wanted to be near his mother as she got further into her pregnancy, and Valerie couldn't really fault him for that.  She really liked them, anyway, and she'd figured that spending the summer in Maine might well give her the time away to really think about her career, too.

So her main reason for meeting with Xavier was to tell him that she was going to take some time off, not that she thought he'd really mind.  All she'd really have to do was to tell him that she was going to be keeping Zel Roka in check, and that would be more than enough incentive for Xavier to give his seal of approval.  It might not be the entire truth, but as long as Evan paid her retainer fees, which, of course, he would, then Xavier wouldn't really care.

"So what's the scoop, Mikey?" Evan asked as he vaulted the banister and landed neatly on the floor.

Mike shot him a chagrined look over a cup of coffee and chucked a newspaper at him.  "That."

Evan caught the paper and glanced at it with a frown.  It didn't take him long to spot the picture that Mike was so obviously up in arms about.  Front and center on the first page of the entertainment section was a picture of Valerie driving out of the gates of the mansion early in the morning, along with a caption that alluded to the idea that Zel Roka's attorney might be more than just an employee and that it appeared that she was taking up residence with the rockstar.  Beside that was a picture of Bone and his crew moving the boxes out of Valerie's apartment building with a smaller inset of Bone unloading the same boxes here.  The pictures were slightly blurred by the dense bushes around the front gates, but whoever had taken them had gotten enough of the vehicle and the man carrying one of her boxes to back up the claim,  "Big deal," Evan said, tossing the paper onto the coffee table.  "So they got a picture of her leaving here.  Nothing wrong with that."

Mike shrugged.  "Not in the short-term, no, but you'd better be thinking about the long term.  Didn't you go out of your way all these years to hide the connection between Evan Zelig and Zel Roka?"

Dropping onto the sofa with a heavy sigh, Evan nodded.  "I gotcha," he muttered.

It was all in the master plan, wasn't it?  The real reason he'd hidden his true identity . . . Sure, he had done it to protect his immediate family, but he had also known all along that there really was a deeper meaning behind it all.  Hiding who he was because he'd hoped to one day have a mate, a family of his own, and as much as he might love the limelight, he didn't want to impose that upon them.  Valerie might understand, and she knew what it was, the insanity of the life of Zel Roka.  She'd seen it for herself on multiple occasions, but not to the extent that it would be if it were common knowledge that Zel Roka and Evan Zelig were one in the same.  As it was, Evan had a pretty good system for making sure that he kept the two separate, and the times that he spent with Valerie, he was most definitely not Zel Roka.

In a broad sort of sense, he'd known all along that eventually, the alter ego would have to disappear, and one as large as Zel Roka?  When the time came, Zel Roka would have to die.  That wasn't something that he was planning on any time soon.

"Point taken," Evan concluded.

Mike didn't look satisfied.  If anything, he seemed more agitated than before.  "Look, I'm not trying to bust your balls," he said.  "I think Valerie's the best thing going in your life.  I'm just saying that you should probably look into some other kind of arrangement."

"What kind of arrangement do you mean?" Evan asked, sitting up a little straighter, the edge in his voice a viable warning.

Mike sighed and shook his head, holding his hands up in front of himself as though he were trying to placate Evan.  "That's not what I mean.  Now, listen.  Why don't you think about buying another place?  This one is known as Zel Roka's house, so if you want to continue to keep the two separate . . ."

Relaxing a little, Evan considered that.  Mike had a valid point—one that he probably would have thought of himself, given time.  It wasn't that he was afraid of what hooking up with someone might to do Zel Roka's image.  He simply didn't want to have to lock Valerie into the crazy lifestyle that surrounded Zel Roka.  Having to exist within the constant bubble of security detail and the ever-critical eye of public scrutiny?  It had a way of destroying people and tainting even the best of relationships.  He'd seen it happen time and again, and Valerie was way too independent for him to ask her to put up with such a thing, too.

"Yeah, thanks," Evan said as Valerie descended the staircase in one of her no-nonsense work outfits.  "I'll call around later, make a few appointments to talk to someone about it."

"Okay," Mike said, heading over to grab something to drink.

"All right, Roka, I'm leaving.  Stay out of trouble until I get home?"

Evan shot her a cheesy grin as she leaned down to kiss him goodbye.  He tried to catch her and slow her down, but damned if she wasn't good at evasion.  He heaved a sigh to let her know exactly what he thought of it, and she laughed.

"Bye, Michael," she called.

Mike lifted a hand.  "Later."  He took his time, wandering back over with a couple of bottles of  hard tea.  They heard the front door close, and Mike grinned as he handed Evan a bottle and sat down.  "So . . . you told her about you?"

Scratching his head, Evan made a face.  "Yep."

His reaction earned a raised-eyebrow-ed look from his manager.  "She doesn't buy it, does she?"

"In a word?  Nope."  Evan chuckled.  "She thinks it's some weird story I made up."

Mike nodded slowly, as though he thought that it made sense, and given that he knew Valerie, Evan figured that he could understand that kind of reaction.  "Did you show her what you look like without your concealment?"

"'Course I did.  She thinks I was playing some weird trick on her."

Mike didn't look too surprised by that, either.  "Well, you'd better do something to convince her . . . You at least make any progress on getting her to marry you?"

Draining half of his hard tea in a series of long gulps, Evan shook his head when he finally came up for air.  "Kind of.  Sort of."  Then he grinned.  "Not really."

"She doesn't want to marry an idiot like you?"  Mike grinned, too.  "Can't say I blame her for that."

"Actually," Evan admitted with a shrug, "I don't really know.  I did tell her, though, that if she wants to do the marrying, she's gotta do the asking first."

Mike blinked, his bottle poised at his lips and frozen there.  "Come again?"

Setting the bottle aside, Evan reached up over his head to stretch.  "I told her that she'd have to do the asking," he stated once more.

"Why would you say a fool thing like that?"

"Because I've already asked her a million times, and she always turned me down."

Mike stared at him for a long moment before slowly shaking his head.  "Oh, I get it," he concluded finally.  "You're afraid that she's going to say no again."

Evan made a face but didn't answer.

Mike sighed and got to his feet.  "All right, I've got to go.  Don't forget your radio spot later on and give Wicked a call.  They want to ask you about your new material."

Evan lifted a hand to indicate that he'd heard Mike as he got up to head over to his desk.

'Find a new place, huh?' his youkai-voice piped up.  'Good thing V likes shopping.'

Evan nodded absently, sitting down and turning on the computer.  He liked this house, sure, but he could fully appreciate just what Mike had pointed out, too.  This house was too well-known for being Zel Roka's den of iniquity.  He'd keep it for appearances, sure, but there was something to be said for finding a new house, too.  Mike had suggested it more than once, that Evan might want to consider it for use during his downtime.  Evan had never bothered before, simply because he just hadn't had enough spare time to mess with it.

Glancing over at the coffee table with a frown, he thought about those pictures.  No, the sooner he took care of it, the better off they'd be because V might well be familiar with the craziness that went hand-in-hand with the existence of Zel Roka, but trapping her in that kind of thing?  She'd hate it.

He sighed as he fired off an email to the real estate agent that had helped him find this house.  He was a good guy—also youkai—who understood Evan's situation since he dealt almost exclusively with youkai, and, while Evan gave a brief summation of things that he figured both he and Valerie would want in a house, he also mentioned that she would ultimately have the final say in the matter.  For some reason, the email made him smile.  He already sounded rather domesticated, didn't he . . .?

'Yeah, and about that . . . You're being a pussy, do you know?'

Evan snorted indelicately and shut off the computer.  'What do you know about it?'

His youkai-voice echoed the sentiment.  'I know that you're just being a wuss.  Not asking her to marry you?  Just because you think she'll turn you down flat.'

Making a face, Evan stood up and wandered over to the glass doors that opened into his back yard.

There was truth to that—truth that Evan hated to have to admit, even to himself.  The thing was, he really didn't know exactly what she was thinking, especially about something as serious as marriage.  He'd marry her in a heartbeat, no questions asked, but Valerie . . .? Yes, they were together—she'd even called herself his girlfriend—but what did she really want?

And even if he asked her, he had a feeling that she might well think that he was just joking around.  She'd probably think that it was just an extension of the whole youkai-thing that she still hadn't even remotely started to believe.  That was the real reason that he'd pretty much left the whole question of marriage strictly in Valerie's hands.

Heaving a sigh, he shook his head.  There were just too many things that he didn't know.  But he'd already been patient this long, hadn't he?  He supposed that he could do it a little longer, too . . .

"I'm losing my mind."

Uttering a soft little laugh as she closed the web browser on the jeweler's site she had been browsing.

"That's right . . . You want to do it, then you're gonna have to ask."

She must be going crazy if she was actually considering it.  Still . . .

What if he said no . . .?

He wouldn't do that, would he?  After all, he was right; he had already asked a number of times.  Granted, she'd always thought that he was just blowing.

Or had she just wanted to believe that he was joking around at the time?  If she had said yes back then, would he have really gone through with it . . .?

Somehow, she had to wonder.  That he'd already had an engagement ring for her should speak volumes, shouldn't it?  So if that were true, then it meant that he had become serious about it somewhere along the way.  The question was, was it really what he wanted?

"Stop that," she told herself briskly, shoving the thought out of her mind as she stubbornly shook her head and glanced at the clock.  Almost ten.  Evan's radio interview should be just about over.  He said that the radio show lasted about an hour, and it started at nine.  All he was doing was hanging out with the D.J. and playing some of his favorite songs.

She'd started out, looking at various real estate sites since Evan said that they needed to look for a new house after showing her the newspaper and telling her that he wanted to buy a place for him and her that wasn't known to be Zel Roka's house, and she'd agreed.  Then he'd gone on to tell her that he wanted her to pick it out and that he'd already called someone to help, but she might as well look around to get an idea of exactly what she wanted.  On the one hand, she was happy that he cared enough to take her preferences into consideration.  On the other?

She frowned as she stood up and shuffled over to pour herself a glass of wine.  On the other hand, she didn't want everything to be one-sided, either.  She'd had enough of that kind of life with Marvin.  When she thought about it, she knew that everything was ultimately up to her to do or to arrange, and at the time, she'd really believed it was what she wanted.  Oh, sure, Marvin had his say, too, usually when it came to his schedule and the obligations that he couldn't break: the things that so often resulted in her, having to change things around.  With Evan?  She smiled to herself.  With Evan, she wanted him to help her decide things—everything . . .

Well, almost everything, maybe.  There were moments when she had to question his judgment, like his choice of décor in his bedroom . . .

"Hey, baby, pick out anything you want to look at?" Evan asked as he breezed into the room.  She turned as he dropped his jacket over the back of a chair.  It was a different jacket since the one he used to wear the most was ruined by the chlorine in the pool.

"No," she said with a smile, picking up a notepad along with a pen to hand to him.

"What's this?"

"I wrote down the things that I definitely want in any place we look at, and now it's your turn," she told him.

He glanced over her list and nodded slowly.  "Sounds good to me," he said, tossing the paper onto the coffee table in favor of pulling Valerie into his arms.

She rolled her eyes and braced her hands against his chest to keep him at bay, at least for the moment.  "I'm serious, Evan."

He grinned.  "Your list was good," he told her.  "Honestly, I don't care as long as I have a music room, and you put that on your list, so . . ."

"Yeah, but you're missing the point," she grumbled, chagrined that he didn't seem to grasp just what she was trying to say.  Still, on some level, it made her happy, too—happy that he cared enough about what she might want to leave the decisions up to her.

He heaved a sigh when he realized that she was, indeed, serious.  "Honestly, V, I can't say that I'm that fussy about any of it," he said.  "As long as you're there, then I'm good."

She blinked, her arguments dying on her lips as she stared at him.  He meant it, every word of it.  It was all there in his eyes despite the gray-green contacts that he was currently wearing to mask the true color.

"You wanna go fuck now?"

And just like that, the momentary spell cast on her by his words was broken, and she sighed.  "Forget it, Roka," she said, shoving against him in an effort to get him to let go.  "You just had to ruin it, didn't you?"

He chuckled and pulled her closer.  "It's a rare talent," he told her.

She snorted but gave up with a sigh.  "It's something."

Leaning down, nuzzling her neck, Evan chuckled again.  The balmy heat of his breath sent a shiver down her spine—a delicious kind of sensation.  It really wasn't fair, was it?  That he could so easily destroy any resistance in her with a simple gesture, a breath, a heartbeat . . .

"I made . . . dinner . . ." she managed to say between moments of trying to remember that she really needed to breathe.

"It can wait," he murmured, tilting her chin, dropping his lips over hers.

Just the feel of his lips was startling, almost inebriating.  Struggling to hang onto what little conscious thought she still possessed, she pushed against him weakly, turned her head away.  "It'll . . . burn . . ." she said without any conviction at all.

"Let it," he growled, dragging his fangs along her throat, nudging her blouse open to plant a hot, wet kiss on the hollow at the base of her throat.

She shivered, letting her head fall back as her hands tangled around handfuls of his currently-red hair, powerless to fight against him, against the consuming need that surged inside her.  It was almost shameful, wasn't it?  How fast he could completely and utterly devastate her senses . . .

"I want you," Evan breathed, an underlying sense of desperation resounding in his touch, in his words.  Crushing her against him with one arm, letting his free hand drag up and down against the flimsy fabric of her blouse as the heat of his palm marked an invisible path up her side, lingering on her hip.

She melted against him, clinging to him as she reeled in the sensation of being absolutely lost in him.  She could feel his overwhelming power just below the surface of the restrained gentleness that he showed her, his own body quivering as he barely kept himself in check.  Lips zigzagging a trail of fire along her throat, inching upward in a languid sort of way, he flicked his tongue against her skin, as though he needed to taste her, every inch of her, every bit of her.

The nerves in her body reacted, a dull hum erupting in her ears.  Suddenly, it just wasn't enough—not nearly enough.  The contentment of simply allowing him to do as he would was too much, too compelling, spinning around in her body as the need to touch him, to know him, grew deep inside her.  It wasn't nearly enough just to let him do as he would.  Untangling her fingers from his hair, shoving aside the button-down shirt that he hadn't bothered to fasten, she reveled in him as his body seemed to lurch in reaction to her touch, as her fingertips danced lightly over his skin.  Tracing the hollows on his abdomen, feeling the underlying muscles jerk and leap in an ripple of motion, she pushed her hands up, kneading burning flesh, reveling in the way his body responded to her.

He growled low in his throat, somehow managed to bend over, to scoop her up in his arms without losing contact with her as his lips closed over hers, the gentle draw tinged with a drunken sense of unmasked desire.  The novel feeling of clinging to him was back as she slipped her arms around his neck, as she parted her lips to capture his tongue, using hers to caress him back.  He groaned softly, almost staggering as the reaction hit him.  She tightened her grip but didn't let up.

Reveling in the feel of his lips against hers, she was only vaguely aware when he let her legs drop onto the bed.  He let go of her, relinquished his hold on her, and stepped back with a heavy sigh, as though the act of doing so had cost him dearly.  Maybe it had, but Valerie's little whimper that escaped before she could catch it seemed so loud that it sounded like thunder in her ears.

Or maybe that was simply the sound of her own heartbeat.

Hanging onto one of the bedposts, he stared at her, his gaze lit with an independent kind of light that had nothing at all to do with the ambient bedroom lamps.  Shirt hanging open, tattered jeans clinging to his lean hips despite the thickness of him that strained against the fabric, his breathing was labored, harsh, each breath setting off a ripple of motion in the muscles delineating his chest.  There was something absolutely mesmerizing about watching them, and, as though he could read her thoughts, Evan chuckled.  "Getting an eyeful, V?" he teased.

She could feel the heat stealing into her cheeks but stubbornly refused to look away.  "Nope," she replied flippantly, dropping onto her side, her hands tucked neatly between her knees.  "You're still dressed."

He chuckled again and let go of the bedpost in favor of shrugging off his shirt and discarding his boots and jeans in much the same fashion.

"You should leave the socks on," Valerie quipped, rising up on her elbow to peer over the side of the bed.  "That's pretty hot."

"I know, right?" he replied, hanging onto the post with one hand and tugging off his socks with the other.

She laughed as she scooted off the bed, reaching up to fumble with the buttons on her blouse.  But she stopped suddenly as a rather wicked idea occurred to her, and she only considered it for a moment before shoving Evan onto the bed and wandering over to the panel by the door.

He landed with a grunt, and out of the corner of her eye, she could see him as he propped himself up on his elbows.  He seemed to be curious as to what, exactly, she was doing, but he remained silent as she brought up the music player and took a minute to select a few tracks.  She might have to ask him later, just why he had some perfect stripper-tunes in his music files . . .

He chuckled softly when she stepped away, obviously amused by her choice in ambient music since the song that filtered through the house system was one of the raunchiest, sleaziest of tunes, complete with heavy rhythms and throbbing beats.  Evan's amusement escalated as she reached for the stripper pole and spun around it, turning herself as she grasped it in both hands behind her back, dropping to her knees in one fluid motion.

Her blouse was tricky with all its buttons, but she managed it, spinning it over her head before tossing it into Evan's lap.  The delicate fabric was horribly distended over his erection, and she giggled.  The pants were a little more difficult to get out of gracefully, but she finally kicked those aside, too, and Evan watched in rapt fascination as she danced around the pole.  Gyrating her hips, grinding against it to the beat of the music, she ran her hands up and down her body, leaning forward to give Evan a very nice view of her cleavage.

He groaned and scooted toward the end of the bed, either to get a better view or to try to grab her.  Valerie stepped back and knelt down, stretching out her left leg, bouncing up and down a few times before grasping the pole, wrapping herself around it as she pulled herself back up again.

The bra was easy to discard.  Dropping it on the floor as she continued her dance, she smiled at Evan, paused long enough to wink at him.  He heaved a sigh, reaching down, taking his time as he alternated between stroking himself and toying with the thick silver barbell stud that pierced the head of his penis.  Valerie could feel her body trembling as the anticipation in the air intensified.

Hooking the sides of her panties, Valerie slipped them down her body, only to turn around, to grasp the pole as she bent over, carefully lifting one foot free and then the other as she wiggled her ass, as though daring Evan to take the bait.

She didn't turn to look at him; she didn't have to.  In the mirror on the far wall, she could see him as he scooted to the side of the bed to grab a condom out of the drawer, and he didn't waste a second as he tore the packet open and rolled it into place.  As quickly as that, he was off the bed.  It only took him four strides to reach her, and he didn't stop as he grabbed her hips and yanked her back against him hard.  She screamed as he slid into her, her arms taut as she held onto the pole.

He leaned over her, kissed her back, already damped with a light sheen of sweat from her exertions, and reached around her, rubbing his deft fingertips against the throbbing, aching part of her.  The moment he touched her, she exploded, her body reacting so violently that it wrenched a scream out of her, set off a chain reaction as she quaked and shook and cried out.  He wasn't done by a long shot, ramming himself into her with a ferocity that nearly drove her mad, so intense that she lost the ability to comprehend where one orgasm ended and another one began.

"C'mon, V," Evan goaded, his voice raw, husky, strained.  "Fuck me back, can't you?"

"Y-Yes," she gasped out, bucking her hips as she reared back to meet his thrusts.  Her shallow breaths erupted in a loud groan when he reached up with his free hand, when he grasped her nipple between his fingers and squeezed hard, only to let the pressure off, again and again every time he slammed against her ass.

"Is this what you want?" he whispered to her, slowing his pace deliberately, keeping her balanced right on the cusp, pushing her enough to keep her there yet unwilling to allow her release.  "Is it?  You want to fuck me, don't you, V?"  He paused for a moment, letting himself slide out of her, only to drive it back into her so hard that she cried out again.  "Or do you want me to fuck you?"

"Fuck me forever, Roka," she gasped out.

"Is that what you want?"

"Yes . . ."

"You want my cock?"

"Yes . . ."

"You want it hard?"

"Yes . . ."

"You want it fast?"

"Yes . . ."

"You want it now?"

"Yes . . .!"

He uttered a low growl.  "You wanna come?"

"Yes . . ."

He chuckled huskily and kissed her back again.  "You wanna marry me?"

"Yes . . . God, yes . . ."

"Good," he growled, grasping her hips in his hands once more.  "Don't forget you said that later."

Her shriek preempted any kind of answer she could have given as he thrust himself into her, driving her over the edge into a stunning and shocking realm of satisfaction, as he yanked back on her hard, as his own cry mixed with hers when he followed her there, lost in the reverberations of song.