“It’s her first Christmas!” I snapped.

“She’s not gonna remember it.”

“So? I like baby clothes and she’s the only baby I know.”

“Jesus,” he muttered, beginning to move us along.

I followed him noting he was going at a good clip through the canned food section.

Oh well, Outlaw Al was going to eat well all the way into the new year with what I’d already nabbed.

Chace turned the corner and guided us up the aisle, my hand darting out whenever we passed something we needed and tossing it into our cart. Since I was actually paying attention to shopping and my man wasn’t, I ran into the cart when he stopped it and I didn’t notice.

He was staring ahead and I looked around him to see a few people in the aisle, no familiar faces so I looked at the back of his head.

“Chace?”

He turned to me.

“You were standing right where you are now. I was at the end of the aisle.”

I quit breathing.

Oh God. Oh God.

Chace kept talking.

“Near on eight years and I’m finally in this aisle, shoppin’ with you.”

Well, actually, we’d been in this aisle together dozens of times over the past months.

Still.

“Honey,” I whispered.

“Don’t know why folks need diamonds and pearls, fur coats, first class tickets, island adventures when simple shit like this is the best thing you could ever do.”

He was absolutely right.

Kind of.

I licked my lips.

Then I asked, “Is it bad that I wouldn’t mind an island adventure with you?”

He studied me, warmth in his face before he said, “No.”

“And it’s not outlandish to think that perhaps your mother will buy me a fur coat for Christmas,” I noted. “So, um, you’ve given me a diamond, she’s given me pearls and diamonds so that just leaves first class tickets and I’m okay with coach.”

His lips twitched but I wasn’t joking. Valerie bought me expensive stuff all the time. It was sweet. It was over the top. But she started to get upset when I demurred so I stopped doing that and it was now tradition.

He moved from his end of the cart to my end of the cart, stopped in front of me, lifted a hand to slide the hair off my shoulder and curled his fingers around my neck.

Then he dipped his face close and muttered, “Only my girl says the word ‘outlandish’.”

“It is in the English language, Chace. I didn’t make it up. I’m sure others say it too,” I told him, going for tartly but it came out breathily because he was close, his face was still warm but his gaze was intense.

“How embarrassed are you gonna be after I make out with you in the spot where I first saw you?”

Oh my.

“Um… you say that like it’s a given you’re going to do that,” I remarked.

“It is,” he replied.

“Chace –” I started but his hand at my neck pulled me to him and up. His other arm curled around my waist then his mouth was on mine and I had no choice (though I wouldn’t pick another one) but to neck in the grocery store aisle with Chace where he first saw me.

When he was done, he turned me toward the handle of our cart, moved in behind me and put his arms around me, his hands beside mine on the handle. He started us forward and I wasn’t embarrassed even though other patrons were grinning at me.

No, all I could process was thinking grocery shopping was simple. It was every day.

But it was one of the best things you could ever do.

* * * * *

Chace

Five hours later

In his sleep, Chace sensed the light going out.

Faye was done reading.

Before he could hook her around the waist, he felt her shift into him.

He knew what that meant.

Her hand glided up his hip to his waist.

He knew what that meant too.

He grinned, curled his arms around her and rolled to his back, taking her with him.

Her mouth went to his neck.

“Done?” he whispered into her ear.

“Kind of,” she muttered against his neck, her lips gliding down.

His hands slid over the satin of her nightie at her back. “You wanna use me, honey, you gotta do all the work. I’m wiped.”

Her lips slid up as her hand stopped playing with his chest hair and moved up his chest, his neck and her thumb came out to stroke his jaw.

“That’s too bad,” she whispered in his ear. “Because, see, the hero in my book just did all this stuff to the heroine while she was na**d and on her knees then –”

She shut up because Chace’s arms closed tight around her, he sat up and cats scattered.

The instant he was up, he growled, “On your knees.”

“You sure?” she asked, her musical voice lilting and playful, cute and f**king hot. “If you’re tired we can sleep.”

He lifted her off him and planted her in the bed on her knees.

Then he shifted to his knees behind her, his hands moved to the hem of her nightie, he yanked it up and off and felt her soft, sweet gasp in his dick.

Then his hands glided from her waist to her belly, one going up, one going down.

“You wanna act it out or wing it?” he asked the skin of her neck.

“Wing it,” she breathed when his hands hit two particular spots.

He grinned then muttered, “Right, baby.”

Then he winged it.

Half an hour later, they came simultaneously, Faye impaled on his cock, her head twisted, forehead pressed into his neck, one of his arms wrapped around her belly, his other hand at her breast, his eyes aimed over her shoulder and down, watching her touch herself while he f**ked her.

It was sensational.

Then again, with Faye, from the very beginning, it always was.

* * * * *

Months later, the night before Chace and Faye’s wedding

“Told you, you’d make it legal,” Deck said.

Deck was sitting beside him in a rocker on his front porch, his feet, like Chace’s, up on the railing, legs straight, ankles crossed.

They were both staring at the dark plain, the hazy lights of Carnal the only thing that lit it. He hadn’t even turned the porch light on.

Chace didn’t reply.

“You didn’t waste any time, brother,” Deck continued.

Chace disagreed. After pulling his girl out of that box, he wanted to marry her the next day. A year and six weeks’ wait was way too f**king long. Faye agreed, they’d talked about a Christmas wedding and were both all for that until Liza stuck her nose in. Then their small, intimate Christmas wedding somehow became a huge, summer wedding and that somehow, Chace reckoned, was because his Faye actually wanted that and more, she liked planning her wedding with her sister. They were having a blast. So he let it go.