“That’s a lot better than okay,” he teased, tracing a finger over her lower lip. “There’s so much more I want to show you.”

“There’s more? I might need some food and some oxygen and maybe some celebratory wine first. But I’m yours tonight.”

“And tomorrow?” he asked. He was still half hard inside her. Still wholly dangerous.

“Tomorrow, too,” she said magnanimously. As far as she was concerned, the man could have her body for the rest of both their lives.

“Oh, hey. Asking for a friend,” she said lightly. “Are guys freaked out when a girl cries after sex?”

“Depends on why she’s crying,” he said gruffly, his own voice tight with emotion.

“Because you made her feel like a goddess.”

Aldo let out a shaky breath. “You’re my fucking miracle, Gloria.”

“And you’re mine.” She grinned up at him, started to pull him down for a kiss. But he paused, his eyes dancing with mischief.

“I am pretty incredible, aren’t I?”

Old Aldo was back.

62

“Why do you have my laundry basket?” Gloria asked when Aldo whistled his way out of her bedroom with a week’s worth of laundry.

Ivan launched himself off the back of Gloria’s couch to pounce on something on the rug only visible to insane kittens.

She was still getting used to having Aldo around her place. Sometimes she glanced up and found him half-naked, reading reports on his laptop, and she would inwardly swoon. He made everything normal seem sexy and fascinating.

That one-night seduction had driven their relationship directly into the fast lane. They spent every night together whether it was here at her place or in Aldo’s house. Where the walls were now that perfect hunter green she’d once fantasized about.

His broad shoulders heaved up, then dropped. “I’m doing laundry today. Figured I’d save you a trip to the laundromat.”

Gloria stopped fiddling with the coffeemaker and stared at him. It was as simple and as devastating as that. She was in love with the man.

The realization nearly took her out at the knees. It was a menial, domestic task. One that she’d been doing herself since junior high. Glenn didn’t know where the laundromat was, let alone how to operate a washing machine. In all their years together, he had never once thanked her for all the clean shirts and pants she’d neatly stowed for him.

“Why do you look like you’re going to cry?” Aldo asked, suddenly concerned.

Ivan raced over and attacked her bare foot. She shook him off and threw one of the cat’s four million stuffed mice across the floor. He darted after it, a dangerous, fluffy hunter on the loose.

“You’re really going to do my laundry?” she asked. He’d even stripped the sheets that they’d nearly shredded last night from the bed.