CHAPTER 7
In the early morning hours, Charlie awoke to Dani wrestling and mumbling in her sleep, looking for the man sleeping beside her. Her desperation was palpable and he was immediately and irrevocable sorry for having ever made her worry like she obviously did. He shushed her gently his lips on her ear and spoke the words that let her return to restful sleep. "Dani, I'm here and I'm never gonna leave." She settled down grasping his arm and wrapping it around her torso. He snuggled her into the curve of his body and held her like a child holds a precious teddy bear.
When she woke the following morning, her bed was warm and the soft breath on her neck told her Crews still slumbered. She moved his arm carefully and tried to quietly rise without him.
"Where you going honey?" He said sleepily.
She sighed at the affectation and he simply chuckled low in his chest and drew her closer again, rolling her onto her back.
"I know," he said somberly, "don't call you that, except that I can't help it." He kissed her lightly. "You taste so good. Sweeter than any fruit…like something indescribably good and something I can't get enough of…" he continued to nibble lightly on her neck as his hands worked lower and slower. He was rapidly building that fire again and when his rough palms grazed her thighs Dani Reese made a groan that she wasn't sure had actually come from her because she couldn't recall having wanted anyone that badly before.
"Please let me call you honey…I promise I won't use it in public…much."
"Crews?" she questioned. He hummed a response.
"Anyone ever tell you that you talk too much?"
"So…less talk, more truth?" he delivered a play on words with a familiar Zen saying.
She nodded and gently kissed his damaged bottom lip with a tenderness Charlie didn't know she possessed. His welcoming groan was utterly satisfying. Served him right to hurt for all the time they'd lost. She recognized that she'd missed him in every instant of it waking or sleeping. He completed her and as he rolled them onto her back, pinning her under him, she told him "Yes."
"Yes, what?" He wondered.
"Yes, I'll marry you," she grinned. Adding, "If I'm going to be forced to live with you for the rest of my life, I might as well make it legal. That way if you run off again I'll have the financial wherewithal to track you down to the ends of earth."
He arched and eyebrow at her, "I'm not leaving Dani. You have my word."
"At this point I'm more terrified of you walking out that door and never seeing you again than I am of what they'll do to us at the department, of what my mother will say, than of how strongly I feel…" her choices once made was without regret or hesitation.
"Tell me something," he kissed along her neckline and moved to unbutton her shirt. She nodded. "You got any vacation coming?" She nodded again.
"Let's go somewhere together. Baja or Cancun? Let's go to that beach you wanna to lay on and forget all this."
"You'll be fried to a crisp," she shook her head.
"I'll wear a hat," he grinned.