My network card is dead so I have to do all this at work in between customers. Sorry, guys! I'm trying to get someone to fix it asap. Patience is all I ask for.

-Kiddo

I faltered and fell back a step, and then another and another until I was far enough away to look him in the eye.

"I-I-I don't t-think I heard you correctly."

"What?" Quil's eyes popped open as if he just realized what he had said.

"Not that. I'll do anything but that." I put my hands out in front of me as if that would really stop him. "I'll give Embry his monthly flea bath or cut his toenails, but not that. I will not get married."

He stood shocked for a moment before laughter began to erupt from deep in his chest.

I looked up at him, slightly confused. Shouldn't he be weeping and begging me to take him into my bosom and bear his children? Actually, scratch that. Guys who cried like that totally freaked me out. Not that Quil was the crying type, but still... one should not hope for such things. I wouldn't mind him burying his face in my bosom, though.

"You're laughing! Why are you laughing?"

He grabbed one of my arms and pulled me to him rather softly. I buried my burning face into his chest, hoping that he wouldn't notice my embarrassment with how high his body temperature was.

"I didn't mean right now, Claire." He murmured, still shaking slightly as he held me against him. I could have been angry, but there's just something so wonderful about being close to him. It could have been the way he smelled, too.

"What did you mean, then?"

"A few years from now? Maybe a little longer."

"Oh," I chewed on this new information for a little while. "In a few years I could consider it."

He made a 'humphing' noise and continued to stroke my hair like he did when I got upset when I was younger, although now it was utterly different and sensual.

"That's good to hear."

"Shut up and hold me." I demanded, glancing over at the desk where he had been sitting. "What were you working on anyways?"

"Bills, a car payment, checks that needed signed," He jostled me jokingly. "A prenuptial, the usual."

I jabbed him in the side with my fist. "What really?"

"Buying some land in Canada for the pack." He admitted, his big hands tangled in my hair.

"They let you deal with that sort of thing?"

"I'm not a complete imbecile, you know." He disengaged his fingers from my head to run them up and down my back to the top of my jeans and back up.

"I know, Quil." I willed his hands to move a little farther down by standing on my tip-toes.

He removed his hands immediately. "Claire..." He warned. "My self restraint can only hold out for so long."

"Is that why you want to marry me?" I was fishing and we both knew it. The second I found a barb in his armor I would take him down in hopes that he would take me.

"Partly, yes." Quil's arms dropped down to my hips and he rested his cheek on the top of my head. Even standing like this he had to bend slightly.

"Why else?" I prodded again, sliding my hands up his chest to wrap them around his neck.

He paused for a moment, watching the assent of my hands. "Because I want you to be mine."

"I told you, I'm not a p-"

"I know, I know," He cut me off with a sigh. "I just want everyone else to know it."

"That's not what I meant."

"Shut up now, Claire." He mocked me, lifting his head to give me a devilish grin.

"Don't even think about it. I'm not in the mood anymore." I scowled, but in my head I was thinking, 'Please , please, please, please...'

"Too late," He tightened his grip slightly before throwing me up and over one of his massive shoulders and carrying me towards his bedroom.

"You caveman!" I squealed, but didn't fight him as he kicked his door shut and dropped me onto the bed that I had crawled into with so many times before.

"Claire," He plopped down next tome and drug me onto his lap.

"Yeah?" I didn't have time to ask anything else. I was too busy kissing him by then.

If this is how Quil acted when he felt possessive I was going to go out of my way to be even more trouble for him. And if he threatened to withhold anything I would go to Sam. Sam was always willing to dole out punishments and speeches about Quil keeping me safe.

"You know something?" Quil asked, pulling away to let me catch my breath.

"What?" I moved a little so he was forced to lie down and I could straddle him.

"You are nothing but trouble." He pulled me down to him by the back of my neck.

"Oh?" I sat back up, wiggling a little and watching his face change. "So how come this is okay, but you putting your hands on my butt isn't?"

"Right now my good sense and judgment is overrun by passion."

"Really?" I stopped wiggling.

"Really. Now get back down here."

I was more than happy to comply.

Later, after Quil had regained reason and I had been kissed within an inch of my life I curled up next to him on his bed in the crook of his arm, feeling very fragile and small next to his rising and falling chest of pure muscle.

"I never noticed you cut all your hair." I ran my hand over the short buzz that remained on his head.

"It's because you can't see that high up." Quil told me, sounding completely content with himself.

"Shut up, Quil. I'm trying to enjoy this before Mr. Hyde comes back out to visit." I inhaled deeply, drawing in as much of this moment as I could.

Quil rolled so he was lying on his side and looking down at me. "I don't really feel that bad about it anymore."

"Pray tell why?" I rolled to face him, mimicking his pose and planting a possessive kiss right over his heart.

He raised an eyebrow at my antics, but didn't push me away. "Well, for starters... Sam did say once you were sixteen I was free to er... 'express' my feelings in a physical way."

"He said we could have sex?!" I was torn between embarrassment, horror and excitement.

Quil could at my blunt words. "I shouldn't let you spend so much time with Embry, you're starting to talk like him. No, he didn't say that. But since we are... engaged to be engaged, I figure a little happy time is fine."

"I can see some sort of logic in that, even if it is double-standard-ish." I sighed in contentment and tucked in closer to him.

"Mine," Quil whispered, kissing the top of my head and rolling back onto the bed, dragging me on top of him.

"Not yet," I warned, yawing.

"Soon enough." Was the last thing I heard before I fell asleep. "I'll never let anyone else touch you ever again."