I stood in front of the mirror in my bedroom (yep, I had totally claimed the big one) after blow-drying my hair when I saw him appear in the doorway. He was on his way to his room after his own shower, wearing pajama pants and a towel wrapped around his neck. I was exhausted, but not so exhausted I didn’t appreciate the form in front of me. I watched him in the mirror as he appraised me as well.

“Have a good shower?” he asked.

“Yes, it felt amazing.”

“Heading to bed?”

“I can barely keep my eyes open,” I replied, yawning hugely to punctuate.

“Can I get you anything? Water? Tea? Anything?”

I turned to face him, as he stepped inside. “No water, no tea, but there is one thing I’d like before I go to sleep,” I purred, taking a few steps his way.

“What’s that?”

“Goodnight kiss?”

His eyes darkened. “Oh, hell, is that all? That I can do.” He closed the distance between us and slipped his arms easily around my waist.

“Kiss me, you fool,” I teased, falling into his embrace as if in an old-time melodrama.

“One kissing fool, coming up,” he laughed, but within seconds no one was laughing. And within minutes, no one was standing.

After falling into Pillow Town, we scrambled about, arms and legs twisting this way and that, kisses becoming more and more frantic. My shirt bunched up around my waist, and the feeling of his hi-there against my hoohah was indescribable. He rained kisses down upon my neck, licking and sucking as I moaned like a whore in church.

To be fair, I’d never actually heard a whore moan in church, but I had a feeling it sounded a lot like the unholy sounds pouring forth from my mouth.

He flipped me about like a rag doll and settled me on top of him, my legs on either side, the way I’d wanted to be for so long. He sighed, gazing up as I impatiently pushed my hair away from my face so I could truly appreciate the magnificence I was perched on.

We slowed our movements, then stopped altogether, staring unabashedly at each other, appraising each other without shame.

“Incredible,” he breathed, reaching to gently cup my face as I nuzzled his hand.

“That’s a good word for it, yes. Incredible.” I turned to kiss his fingertips. He stared into my eyes again, those sex sapphires doing their voodoo that made me a puddle of voodoo goo. For him to woo. See what he did to me?

“I don’t want to screw this up,” he said suddenly, his words breaking me from my Seussian rhymes.

“Wait, what?” I asked, shaking my head to clear it.

“This. You. Us. I don’t want to screw this up,” he insisted, sitting up underneath me, my legs wrapping around to his back.

“Okay, so don’t,” I ventured, unsure where this was going.

“I mean, you need to know, I have no experience with this.”

I raised an eyebrow. “I have a wall back home that would disagree with that…” I laughed, and he crushed me to his chest, inexplicably hard. “Hey, hey…what’s up? What’s going on?” I soothed, my hands rubbing up and down his back.

“Caroline, I, Jesus, how do I say this without sounding like an episode of Dawson’s Creek?” He stumbled the words while talking into my neck.

I couldn’t help it, I chuckled a little as Pacey flashed into my head, and that brought him back. I pulled away a bit so I could see him, and he smiled ruefully.

“Okay, Dawson’s be damned, I really like you, Caroline. But I haven’t had a girlfriend since high school, and I have no clue how to do this. But you need to know, that what I feel for you? Shit, it’s just different, okay? And, whatever your wall would say back home, I need you to know that this? What we have, or will have? It’s different, okay? You know that, right?”

He was telling me I was different, that I was no replacement for the harem. And this, I knew. He looked at me so earnestly, so seriously, and my heart opened even more. I pressed a gentle kiss to his sweet lips.

“First of all, I do know this. Second of all, you’re better at this than you think.” I smiled, pressing his eyes closed and kissing each eyelid. “And, for the record, I loved Dawson’s Creek, and you did the WB proud.” I laughed as his eyes sprang back open and relief rushed in. I tucked him into my nook and held him there as we rocked back and forth, the rush of the earlier hormones subsiding as we found this new space, this quiet intimacy that was becoming almost as addicting.

“I like that we’re taking things slow. You give good woo,” I whispered.

He tensed underneath me. I could feel him shaking a little.

“I give good woo?” he laughed, tears springing to his eyes as he tried to control his laughter.

“Oh, shut up,” I cried, smacking him with a pillow. We laughed for a few more minutes, falling back into the lush bed, and as the jet lag finally overtook us, we settled in. Together. There was no question in my mind now about sleeping in separate rooms. I wanted him here. With me. Surrounded by pillows and Spain, we nooked. The last thought I had, before slipping into sleep with his strong arms wrapped around me…I might be falling in love with my Wallbanger.

Chapter Seventeen

I WAS AWAKENED THIS MORNING by a great rumbling. Forgetting where I was for a split second, I automatically assumed I was home, and we were experiencing a tremor. I was halfway out of bed with one foot on the floor before I noticed that the view outside my bedroom window was decidedly more blue than it was at home, and decidedly more Mediterranean. And the rumbling? That was no tremor. It was Simon snoring. Snoring. Snoring to beat the band, and by beat the band I mean beat that band up with his nose—which was emitting the most unearthly sound. I clapped my hands over my mouth to hold in the laughter and crept back into bed, the better to appraise the situation.

True to form, I’d taken over most of the bed in the night, and he’d been relegated to the far corner, where he was now curled into a little ball with a pillow tucked between his legs. But what he lacked in square footage, he made up for in sound. The sounds pouring forth from his nasal passages registered somewhere between grizzly bear and exploding tractor trailer. I wiggled across the mile-wide bed, curling myself around his head and looking down at his face. Even while making these horrific sounds, he was adorable. I carefully placed my fingers next to his nose, and plugged. And then waited.

After about ten seconds, he inhaled and shook his head, looking around wildly. He relaxed when he saw me perched on the pillows next to him. He smiled a sleepy smile.