He looked away and scrubbed a hand over his head, but then he smiled. “Aw, sweetheart, I gotta make a whole lot of love to you before you’ll forget to go running when I tell you that sad piece of business.”

She blinked. They still needed to make the rice. He’d said as much earlier. She turned away and grabbed a measuring cup. “How much water is it for rice again? Is the ratio two to one or three to one?” This was why she’d never make him smile as easily as other girls probably could. She was barely learning to laugh again herself, and she hated that there were so many things that still made her uncomfortable.

“Andra.” He stepped up behind her and tipped her chin back toward him. She unwound when she met his eyes. They were soft, concerned. They were so beautifully LJ. “That’s better,” he murmured. “All I meant was, I need to find a way to make you like me so much you don’t mind my stodgy old name. Let me see if I can show you, huh?”

She had to swallow to get a word out of her dry throat. “Okay.” Her vision whitened at the edges. What was he going to do? She sucked in her stomach, waiting for his fingers to grasp the button on her jeans.

When he touched her hair, she felt the tingles melt from her scalp all the way down her back. She squeezed her eyes shut, but it didn’t slow the strobe of lights.

His forehead touched the back of her head, his fingers swimming up the coils of her braid as his breath warmed the nape of her neck. She couldn’t think. Everything in her mind was slow and thick and lovely. A small click of plastic broke the silence of the kitchen when the bottom of her measuring cup sagged to the counter.

“Lyndon,” he breathed, and then he moved, his chin touching the other side of her braid and sending thrilling light shows of sensation up into her scalp. “Johnson.”

She dropped the measuring cup. She couldn’t tell by the sound whether it landed on the counter or the floor, but she needed to hang on to something. She reached back for his hands, and they found hers without her having to turn or even open her eyes. Their fingers curled together, and the oddness of the angle didn’t make a bit of difference. His lips touched a kiss in front of her ear, and she thought he might be smiling.

“Thirty-sixth president of the United States.”

She turned around, taking a deep breath that smelled spicy and savory all at once. “You’re named after a president?”