I feel Becca’s body snuggled up against me before I even open my eyes.

Well, at least I know she isn’t hanging up more pink shit.

I roll over and pull her tighter against me, spooning her against my body. I’d loved her body from the first moment I’d yanked open the door to that damn minivan, but I have to say, I love it even more when it’s pressed against mine, soft and warm and boneless from sleep and way too much sex.

Too much sex. Who am I kidding? There's no such thing.

“Hmmmm…” she murmurs, her eyes tightly closed. “It looks all bright and daylight-ish out there.”

There is light coming through the windows, although I didn’t normally consider the sun rising to be a tragedy.

“Yeah, terrible,” I whisper in her ear. She smiles, her eyes still closed.

“You’re right, you know.”

“About the sun rising being a terrible thing?”

“Yeah, that,” she says sarcastically, a smile playing about her lips. I can feel her eyes roll, even though they’re closed. “I…” She opens her eyes and stares at the far wall while she’s pausing and thinking. “I really hated life before you showed up. I was living with a guy who thought that all he had to contribute to our relationship was occasionally getting hard enough to fuck me, if he hadn’t already worn himself out with other women.” Her voice is hard, sarcastic. Pissed as fuck. I can feel the anger in her body, vibrating through it. “No reason to get a job. No reason to take me out on a date. No reason to pick up around the house.

“And work…” She sighs, her voice heavy with anger. “I used to like it, you know? The ins and outs of law, figuring out what all should be included in a contract and what should be left out. It was like a giant jigsaw puzzle that had to be put together, and in an arcane language that most everyone else doesn’t speak. I liked the challenge of it. I liked pushing myself to the limits mentally, and…well, everything this job has become, was what I was so happy that it wasn’t before.”

She is staring at the wall instead of at me, and I know that she’s using it almost as a way of shielding herself. If she can avoid looking me in the eye, then it’s almost like she’s talking to herself. It’s less scary.

I get that.

I stroke her hair away from her face, running my fingers through its soft lengths, the light brown waves glistening in the light pouring through the windows. There are these red highlights in her hair that shine, and I try to catch the red with each stroke of my fingers but it just slips away, a shimmering illusion.

I’ve never done anything like this before with a woman, and I have to admit…it’s nice. Really weird, but nice.

“I recently got a new boss and he isn’t as…appreciative of my assets as my old boss was.” She gives a strained laugh. “Apparently, he likes the really curvy girls, and I just don’t have enough in the tit department to keep him interested. I mean, he’ll stare and whatever, but…I’m not enough.”

I try to imagine a world where Becca isn’t the perfect woman in every person’s eyes, but quickly give up. Such a thing is simply inimaginable.

“We also got a new client out on Long Island, and it’s just a real awful job, all the way around. Lousy work environment, lousy workload, far away from the office, a shitastic commute, and I get home every night just hating life. I didn’t used to be that way. I didn’t used to hate the world like this.

“So when you opened up that van door and demanded that I drive you back into the city, all I could think was that this sounded like a vacation to me. Anything to keep from having to go into work that day.”

Her voice breaks and she turns in my arms and I can finally see her face and see that she’s tearing up and I snuggle her against my chest.

“Shhhh…shhhh…” I whisper as I stroke my hands down her hair and back again and again, trying to soothe away her pain. “It’s going to be okay.” I didn’t know how, and I am pretty sure I’m lying to her as I say this, but I can’t stop myself from saying it. I want to make everything okay. I want to make her okay.

“You can’t run away from life,” I finally whisper, when her sniffles have subsided. “I know life has sucked hardcore for you lately, but you can’t just stay here and hide from it all.”

“I know,” she says ruefully, looking up at me and then away. She’s staring into the distance when she says, “I just don’t want to face it right now. You know? Maybe I’ll feel stronger in a few days. It’s like I could do it—I could survive all of this—I could make it through each day, just barely but I was, and then…it was like you gave me permission to stop trying, so I did.”

I hug her against me, feeling her amazing curves against every inch of me. Some inches of me begin appreciating this even more than others and she laughs, meeting my gaze again. “Really? Already?”

“Always,” I breathe and then I’m kissing her, pushing my tongue into her mouth and she’s moaning against me and life is great again.