It looked delicious.

Okay, maybe we could pull it off though I wish I hadn’t had lunch.

“You manage that, I’ll buy you a piece of Jenna’s jewelry,” Tate muttered.

“He’ll buy one for me anyway,” Laurie told me. “I have so much silver I could open my own store.”

Tate’s brows drew together over narrowed eyes and it was such a scary look, I fought the urge to lean away from him. “You bitchin’ about my silver?”

“No,” Laurie retorted. “I’m just saying you’re generous.”

“Sounded like bitchin’,” Tate returned.

“Well it wasn’t,” Lauren fired back.

“Yeesh, only these two could fight about Dad buyin’ Laurie gifts,” Jonas, Tate’s teenaged son, muttered, wandering in, looking like mini-Tate, giving me the understanding that in a few years, me and every woman over twenty-five years of age in Carnal would be moved to become a cougar.

Then he went directly to the cake, shoved his finger in, swiped off a load of frosting then shoved his finger in his mouth.

“Jonas!” Lauren snapped.

“What?” he asked, eyes big, mouth full of frosting.

Lauren looked to the ceiling before she aimed her eyes at her boys.

“Get out before I throw the cake at you,” she threatened.

“Waste of cake,” Jonas muttered.

“Out!” Lauren semi-shouted, her arm coming up, out straight, finger pointed to the back hall.

Tate grinned at Lauren then at Jonas who was grinning at Lauren then his grin went to his Dad.

“We better go before her head explodes,” Jonas muttered to his Dad.

“Right,” Tate muttered back and they made a move, saying their good-byes to me. But I watched as they left, Tate hooking Lauren around her belly, he leaned down, kissed her neck and said low but loud enough for me to hear, “Cool it, Ace. I like your head where it is.”

She rolled her eyes but I didn’t catch the full roll because Tate moved his mouth from her ear to hers and he gave her a short kiss.

When he was done, I heard her say softly, “Later, Captain,” which got her another short kiss though I looked away because I noted this one, albeit short, included tongue.

I looked back when I sensed him moving, he gave me a hot guy, bearded, badass finger flick and he was gone.

I was still watching where he disappeared into the hall and therefore jumped when a champagne cork popped.

I looked to Laurie and grinned a happy, champagne cork popping grin.

Lauren grinned back, poured the champagne and brought the glasses to me.

She handed me one then lifted hers whereupon she toasted, “To you and Chace and the time when you’ll bicker over stupid shit and love every second of it.”

Call me weird but that was the best toast I’d ever heard in my life.

I lifted my glass. “To me, Chace and bickering.”

We grinned at each other like idiots before we downed half the glass.

Laurie cut the cake.

As we gabbed, we managed to get through a third of it.

So her boys got a treat when they got home.

Which, I suspected, was her intention all along.

* * *

Three days later

I idled in my Cherokee as Chace’s garage door went up.

No, strike that, our garage door went up since I was now living there.

I loved my apartment. I made every inch of it mine and I thought it was awesome. Further, my stuff didn’t really fit with Chace’s décor.

When we moved me in and I fretfully shared this with him, he pulled me loosely in his arms, dipped his face close and told me, “This décor isn’t mine either. It’s Ma’s. Do what you want. Anything you want. I don’t give a fuck. Just as long as you’re happy here.”

I’d be happy on a deserted island that had nothing but a palm tree and a lifetime supply of sunscreen as long as Chace was there. And it was because of statements just like that I would.

I didn’t tell him that.

I just whispered, “Okay.”

The door went up, I drove in, parked, hit the garage door opener to set the door closing and hauled my booty out kind of hoping that Chace felt like pizza since I didn’t want to cook. It had been a taxing day at the library. In fact, it had been taxing since the City Council had its meeting, thus reminding folks they had a library, and it got more taxing after I’d been buried alive, thus making me an object of interest.

I knew it would die down and I was happily anticipating that day.

I moved through the back hall into the kitchen and as I was planting my purse on the island, I called, “Chace! I’m home.”

“Just out of the shower!” he called back. “Be right out!”

Hmm. Chace just out of the shower.

Why was I suddenly not tired anymore?

I started to move through the hall, my mind on Chace and his shower when my eyes hit a big box sitting on the sectional.

Then I stopped dead when the box moved.

What the frak?

“Chace!” I called. “There’s a box on the couch!”

“Yeah!” he shouted back.

It moved again and I took a step back.

“It’s moving!” I yelled.

“Yeah!” he yelled back and I blinked because he didn’t sound surprised.

My head tilted to the side and I moved to the box cautiously.

Then I heard the noise coming from the box and I moved to it swiftly, threw open the loose flaps and stared down at two scrunch faced, fluffy haired, tiny Persian kitties, one chocolate point, one lilac.

“Holy frak,” I whispered.

“Mew,” the lilac point mewed up at me.

“Holy frak!” I shouted, reached in and nabbed the lilac point.

“You opened it,” Chace said from behind me and I whirled to see him standing several feet away in a t-shirt that was tight across his chest and loose running shorts.

“Kitties,” I whispered, pressing the squirming Persian to my face.

“You said you wanted a cat,” he reminded me of something I didn’t think he remembered then went on to inform me, “Pets are like kids. One is not enough. So you got two.”

God, he was fraking awesome.

I didn’t have it in me to say this.

Instead, I repeated in a whisper, “Kitties.”

Chace grinned then asked, “You like ‘em?”

“They’re fluffy.” Yep, still whispering.

“Yeah,” he replied, still grinning and now moving toward me. “But do you like them?”

“Their faces are all scrunchy.”

You got it, I was still whispering.

He stopped toe to toe with me. “I’ll take that as an indication you like them.”

I nodded as I swallowed down happy tears.

Chace leaned into me but around me. He came back with the chocolate point and lifted it up close so they were kitty face to hot guy face.

My heart melted.

“You got no choice but to be friendly,” he told it, being Chace bossy but the heretofore unknown cute kind.

My heart melted more.

The kitty lifted a paw and pressed it to Chace’s nose.

Chace grinned at him.

The rest of me melted.

Chace pulled him down, tucked him feet up in the crook of his arm, other hand scratching his belly and his eyes came to me.

“Both boys. They need names.”

“Luke and Han,” I stated immediately and Chace smiled huge.

Then he said, “Fuck no.”

I cuddled my kitty to my chest and suggested, “Spock and Kirk?”

“Again, fuck no,” Chace repeated.

“Sam and Dean?” I tried.

He shook his head, still smiling.

My eyes narrowed then I suggested, “Starbuck and Apollo?”

“I thought Starbuck was a girl.”

Jeez, his television experience was seriously narrow. Everyone knew there were two Starbucks.

“She is, in the new version. She’s Dirk Benedict in the old one.”

He lifted his kitty to his face and asked, “What do you think? Starbuck and Apollo?”

The kitty just stared at him.

“Starbuck?” he asked.

The kitty stretched his legs straight down.

“Apollo?” he went on and the kitty put his paw to Chace’s nose.

Chace curled him to his chest and looked at me. “This one’s Apollo. That one’s Starbuck.”

“Works for me,” I whispered.

Chace studied my face.

Then he muttered, “Cats and bubblemint.”

“What?” I asked.

“That does it for you. Cats and bubblemint. You don’t know what to do with pearl earrings but you look so happy you’re about to burst ‘cause of a coupla cats. It doesn’t take much for you.”

“Yes it does,” I contradicted him quietly, he got even closer to me and our kitties started batting at each other with their fluffy paws but I didn’t notice because Chace was all I could see.

“What does it take?” he whispered.

“All that’s you,” I whispered back and suddenly found myself without a cat, Chace didn’t have one either and I knew this because I was over his shoulder and he was prowling down the hall.

“Chace! We need to go to the store, get cat food, litter boxes, litter –”

“Done.”

God, I loved this man.

But I kept trying.

I mean, I had two scrunch faced, fluffy kitties. Sex was awesome but I had kitties!

“We need to let them out so they can explore.”

What I meant was so I could play with them.

I flew through the air, landed on my back in our bed and Chace landed on me.

“They can wait.”

“They’ll get bored in there.”

“Then hurry and show your gratitude.”

Oo, that sounded fun.

So I rounded him in my arms but planted a foot in the bed and rolled him to his back so I was on top.