“Oh,” she whispered.

Deck held her eyes.

“Means a f**k of a lot, Emme.”

“Oh,” she repeated on a whisper.

Deck lifted a hand, trailed the backs of his fingers along her cheek, the corner of her mouth and down her neck before he rounded her with both arms.

“You wanna snooze here while I work?”

She nodded. “I’ll go get cleaned up and come back.”

He dipped his head, kissed her and pulled them both to their feet. Emme disappeared for five minutes, came back with a thick throw from the family room and stopped at Deck to touch her mouth to his. Then she went to the couch and curled up.

She was asleep within minutes.

Deck worked for half an hour and only stopped to watch Buford amble in, look at Deck, look at Emme in the couch, take half a second to make a decision, then move to Emme and settle with a groan on the rug in front of her.

Grinning, Deck went back to work and did it until it was time to wake Emme so she could get ready to go to the yard.

* * *

Six days later…

Deck watched as Emme slid down his chest, her lips moving across it, no tongue, just lips, featherlight, the barest whisper, echoed by her hair which was drifting everywhere.

She moved down and ran her mouth across the ridges of his abs

Those abs contracted.

Her exotic eyes lifted to his. There was fire in them but not all that fire was about what she was doing.

Seeing it, knowing what it said, his abs contracted again as his chest got tight.

“Have I told you I liked you today?” she whispered.

“No,” he whispered back.

“Well, I like you.” She kept whispering.

“I like you too, baby.”

He watched her face get soft as she smiled, gifting him with the dimple.

“Come here, Emme,” he ordered.

She slid back up his body.

When her face get close, he drove a hand in her hair, wrapped an arm around her back and pulled her mouth down to his.

She gave it instantly.

Keeping their mouths connected, Deck rolled her onto her back.

Then he gave as good as he got.

And better.

* * *

Four days later…

“I don’t believe you,” Emme snapped, the fire in her eyes flashing.

Deck swallowed a laugh and said, “Babe.”

She planted her hands on her hips. “Babe? Babe? That’s your response? Babe?”

“How’s this for a response? Babe, you’re just plain wrong,” he told her.

“I can’t be wrong about an opinion,” she told him.

“You can when you don’t know what you’re talking about,” he fired back.

She threw her arms out, narrowly missing slamming one into her avocado fridge.

Buford, lying on the faded linoleum of Emme’s kitchen, lifted his head from his paws, gave her a look at her agitated movements then dropped his head back to his paws, getting used to this because this was Emme.

And Emme, being Emme, kept going.

“Gun control laws are too lax.”

“You own a gun?” he asked.

“I don’t need to to know that’s true,” she said by way of answer.

“I own seven.”

Her eyes got huge.

Cute.

He powered through her cute and kept talking.

“Because of a bunch of ass**les, you cannot take away someone’s right to own a gun. Or seven of them.”

“That’s insane,” she breathed.

“Why?” he asked.

“Who needs seven guns?”

“I do.”

“Why?” This was pitched high.

“Work, and I like shootin’ ’em.”

“Can’t you shoot just one?” she asked.

“Not if I don’t have to or I don’t want to and luckily, with the laws the way they are, I don’t have to so I get what I want.”

“Bad people get their hands on guns, Jacob,” she pointed out.

“And they would even if they were illegal, Emme. People get their hands on drugs, have no problem doing it, some of them they even order on-line, and they’re illegal.”

“And therein lies the problem. Guns should be illegal but drugs should be legal.”

Deck stared at her in astonishment at this proclamation before he dropped his head and looked to his boots.

“Alcohol is legal,” she informed his bent head. “I don’t understand why drugs aren’t. And think of all the money we’d have for socialized medicine if we could tax the sale on narcotics and stop spending huge amounts of tax dollars on fighting the war on drugs.”

He lifted his head and begged, “Please, can we not talk about socialized medical care? I like you now and I wanna f**k you later. I don’t mind f**kin’ a woman I don’t like, especially if she looks like you, but it’s more fun f**kin’ one I do.”

She wasn’t listening and he knew this because she didn’t fire back but also because her eyes were narrowed on the stove.

“Shouldn’t that burner be red?” she asked, and Deck looked to her rickety, ugly, avocado stove.

Then he moved to it.

He carefully touched the side of the pot that should be water getting warm to boil new potatoes.

Ice cold.

He then put his hand to the door of the oven where a still very raw beef tenderloin was sitting.

“Fuck,” he clipped, and felt Emme come close to his side.

“Have we lost her?” she asked, and he looked down at his girl.

“I think she gave up the ghost, honey.”

Emme rested a hand on the edge of the stove and murmured, “She had a fine run, what with allowing Alice to cook all those meals for Greg, Marcia, Jan, Peter, Bobby and Cindy.”

Through his chuckle, Deck replied, “Yeah, she did. Though I wish she didn’t kick it when I put a forty-dollar piece of meat in her belly.”

Her head jerked up. “That roast cost forty dollars?”

“Yep.”

Her mouth dropped open.

Deck dropped his to it and brushed his lips against it, and seeing as it was open, he took that opportunity to stroke her tongue with his own.

He lifted his head and asked, “Do you think your phone will work long enough to order a pizza?”

The wonder swept out of her face as pique entered it. “There’s nothing wrong with my phone, Jacob. Or my cell phone. Or yours for that matter.”

“Good, then get your ass to one of them and order pizza. A large one. I don’t care what’s on it, just not pineapple. And boneless wings, at least twenty. Yeah?”