THE RETURN

Chapter 43

Olivia awoke the next morning to her phone ringing. With her head planted firmly on Elliot's chest, she reached over to the nightstand, which was where she had left her phone the night prior.

After their lovemaking, he had surprised her with a romantic bath. The bathtub, much like the bed, was surrounded by candles and rose petals. They enjoyed a bath full of laughter, reminiscing all the times they acted like children on the job together. After, they stumbled to bed together with their lips locked and their hands roaming. They had barely fallen on the bed before he was kissing every inch of her body physically possible and making love to her once again. She had fallen asleep to him running his fingers through her hair and telling her how much he had missed her while he was gone.

Elliot groaned lightly as she glanced at the screen. Seeing the name of her realtor on the screen, she hit the answer button, "Margaret."

"Good morning, Olivia!"

She rubbed her eyes, "Good morning."

"I'm so sorry if I woke you! I received your message but decided to wait to call you first thing today. How soon are you wanting to put it up?"

"As soon as possible. We still have to get our things out, so I was thinking after I got our stuff out and it's clean, then you can come over and give us an asking price, take pictures, all that good stuff you do. We're planning on going over next weekend."

"Great! Well, I remember the apartment pretty well, so I'll start trying to get a price together and you can call me when you're ready."

"Thank you so much, Margaret."

"Anytime, Olivia."

As she hung up the phone, she looked up at a now awake Elliot and smiled, "Hi."

The look in her eyes that she gave him was one that always made his heart skip a beat. She looked at him with so much love in her eyes. He could only hope she saw the same in his. "Good morning, beautiful. Did you sleep well?" The nod of her head was followed by a small stretch of her body, effectively pulling the sheet down her breasts. "Who was calling you so early?"

"Margaret, my realtor. She said she'll start working on an asking price and to call her when we have everything cleaned out."

They moved in sync when he turned his body towards her, so that they were both on their sides facing one another. His hand came up to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear as he said, "Still on for next weekend?"

"Yes." When he gave her the biggest smile, she laughed lightly, "What?"

He leaned in and placed a gentle kiss on her lips, "We're moving in together."

She laughed again, "We've already moved in together Elliot."

"It's not one hundred percent official until we have all our stuff together."

She cocked an eyebrow at him, "So what, it's only eighty percent official right now?"

He smiled, "Okay, it's one hundred percent official now, but it still makes it feel even more official." The thought of her only having one address made such a difference to him. It meant that her address on her driver's license and Noah's address on file at school would be the same as his. "I love you."

She smiled and scooted her body closer to his, so that her bare breasts were pushed against his naked chest. As she ghosted her lips over his, she said, "I love you too."

When their lips connected, he didn't waste any time wrapping his left arm around her back to pull her more firmly against him. The kiss was deep and sensual. However, as much as he wanted to make love to her again, they only had an hour to get her to her doctor's appointment. An hour was barely enough time to get anywhere in New York. So, he reluctantly pulled his lips from hers and dodged her efforts to try to reconnect them, "Your doctor's appointment, Liv."