He thought I was funny. He thought I was beautiful. He got close anytime I was near. He wanted to stand between me and roaring lions. He wanted to help me battle my ghosts. He had two fantastic sons, a screwy but loving family, a great body, an affectionate manner, and he remembered the color of the nightie I wore our first night together in my bed.

I stared into his smiling, warm, quicksilver eyes in the mirror but I wasn’t smiling.

I was searching.

But it was gone.

“It’s gone,” I whispered. His smile faded and his brows drew together as his arms convulsed tight around me in reaction to my tone.

“What’s gone, baby?”

“That poisonous thing in my belly.”

I felt his body still against mine as his eyes locked on mine in the mirror. Then I was turned from the mirror and lifted up. Automatically, my limbs wrapped around him as he walked us out of the bathroom, into the bedroom, and he put a knee to the bed, twisted, and I had my head in the pillows and my man on me.

He didn’t say a word but his eyes searched my face and I let them.

My search was going to be multisensory.

So my fingers went to his face and moved over his skin, his stubbled jaw and chin, his lips, his temples, his thick eyebrows. Then both hands glided down and wrapped around the sides of his neck where it met his shoulders and my eyes went back to his.

“My wild man,” I whispered. “My snake charmer.”

He closed his eyes and shoved his face in my neck, groaning, “Fuck, Tess.”

I turned my head so my lips were at his ear and no lies, no masks, no bullshit, no games, I kept whispering when I told him, “I love you, Brock.”

He growled against my skin then his head came up, his hands slid up the silk at my sides, over my armpits, forcing up my arms. They kept sliding up, up until his fingers laced with mine and he planted them in the pillow above my head.

Then he asked, “My sweet fuckin’ Tess, what am I gonna do with you?”

“I’m yours so… anything,” I answered.

His fingers clenched mine then his head slanted and he kissed me hard and deep and wet and sweet and, most importantly, un-fucking-believably beautiful.

I bucked my back. He let go of my hands, allowed me to roll him and we kept making out with him on bottom, me on top, his hands at my ass.

About that time, as was our luck, a loud knock came at the front door.

My head went up and his fingers dug into my ass as he snarled, “This is fuckin’ unbelievable.”

He had that right.

We waited, frozen in position, and then it came again.