Coming Home (Sequel to This Time Around)

Chapter Thirty-Seven

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

It was a beautiful autumn night, with a clear, star-spangled sky and a crisp bite to the air. McKenna sighed softly as she snuggled closer to Loki. They were on the same chair where they'd dozed off that afternoon, and she was cozy warm beneath the plaid wool blanket drawn almost to her nose.

"What are you thinking about, Midgardian?" Loki's voice was barely a whisper, his fingers moving lightly over her hair. Up. Down. Up. Down.

"It's so pretty out here," she murmured, tilting her head to peer up at him. "Tonight was so perfect, Loki. Wasn't it?"

"It was." His fingers went still on her hair. "If, on the night we went to watch the fireworks, you had told me we'd one day return as the parents of four children, I never would have believed you." He shifted onto his side so they were almost nose to nose. "All I wanted that night was to find some way to get you to sleep with me. How in Odin's name did you convince me to fall in love with you, a Midgardian?"

A wink accompanied his words and she made a face at him. "Well, you wouldn't have had to work that hard, if you had just ducked when Phil shot you."

He grinned, brushing the tip of her nose with a kiss. "Nah."

"Nah? Did you just say nah?"

"I did." He kissed her again. "And to be honest, I rather liked how it worked out in the end. You, naked and wet, clinging to me in that shower... Mmmm..."

 In the darkness, she could just make out the glint in his eyes, the hint of a grin playing at his lips, but there was no mistaking the growl in his voice, and that made her smile. "And then I went and spoiled the moment."

"You spoiled nothing. You just didn't see the woman I did." Beneath the blanket, his hand skimmed along her hip, to the bottom of her sweatshirt to graze her bare skin. "The woman I fell in love with, the woman I still love with all the madness in my soul."

She chuckled. "Were you listening to Born to Run again?"

He kissed the tip of her nose once more. "You're the one who made me listen to it."

"It's a great album. But Darkness on the Edge of Town is even better."

"Mmmm..." he murmured, shifting to cover her lips with his. She slid one arm about his neck, letting her fingers slip through the hair curling over his collar. As the tip of his tongue swept along her bottom lip, she opened her mouth, smiling as he groaned softly in the back of his throat when her tongue met his.

The hand on her hip slid higher, his fingers warm as they grazed her ribs, slid down over her back, into the valley of her spine. He brushed up, just barely touching her, and yet she shivered against him.

He broke the kiss to graze her jaw and as she tilted her head back, he whispered, "McKenna..." and the hand on her back swept up, his fingers hooking in her bra strap. A flick of his wrist, and she felt it give. A moment later, and that hand was now beneath her bra and on her breast.

"I don't know this chair will hold us," she whispered, her thoughts slow and sluggish as his thumb slowly circled her nipple.

"I don't care," he whispered back, nipping playfully at the side of her neck. "Let's live dangerously, love, shall we?"

She smiled, nuzzling his hair with her cheek. "I do like to walk on the wild side."

He lifted his head to offer up a seductive grin. "I like the sound of—"