My head wasn’t aching nearly as much as it probably deserved to when I opened my eyes in the morning. And my stomach only had a slightly sour feeling instead of the nausea I would have expected. Beckett and his magic water cure.

Beckett.

Oh god.

He’d sent me to bed last night like an overtired toddler on a sugar high. Oh god. What must he think of me? How badly had I embarrassed myself? I tried to remember what I’d said to him, but I couldn’t untangle the words that had come out of my mouth from those that had been trapped in my head. And what had he said to me?

You’re not crazy, Emmy.

Well great. Not super helpful. Were those words that he said to calm down the babbling drunk girl? Between that and the mystery of first while we were in the bathroom, I didn’t know what was going on in his head.

I shook my head with a moan. This is why shots were always a bad idea. I did not make good decisions while drinking shots.

The clock read 7:18. Great. I hadn’t even managed to sleep in. Beckett and his magic water cure wreaked havoc on the bladder. And now my tangled thoughts were going to keep me from falling back to sleep. Worst of all, Beckett was on the other side of the door. Because why not have to confront your idiocy first thing in the morning?

Please let him be asleep, I thought as I tiptoed out of bed. He was, thank god.

I ninja’d my way to the bathroom and nearly cheered when the doorknob stayed in place. I peed, then stared at my reflection while I washed my hands. My hair was a fright show, and my eyeliner had spread out like it was trying to start a colony under my eyes. I made a yuck face at myself and caught a glimpse of green in my mouth. The crayon-bright color of my tongue reminded me that I’d been drinking something called Dirty Girl Scouts last night. Creme de menthe and Irish cream. Tasty, but wow, this was a gross side effect. I decided to brush my teeth.

Then there was nothing left for me to do but go back into the living room. I crossed my fingers and sent up a prayer that Beckett would still be zonked out on the futon.

Nope.

He was sitting on the edge, elbows propped on his knees, staring straight at me when I came out.

“Hi,” I said, freezing like a deer in the headlights.

“Hungover?” he asked.

I shook my head. “Not bad. Thanks for all the water.”

“What do you remember from last night?”

Oh god. The acid in my stomach turned into a tidal wave. I swallowed hard. “All of it.”

“You sure?”

Now my heart was paddling desperately on the tidal wave, trying not to drown. I nodded. “I’m sure.”

“Good.” He stood and crossed the room in three strides before he captured my face in his hands and kissed me. And it wasn’t the dry, chaste kiss from our wedding, or the over-the-top kisses for show at the barbecue from the day we moved in; it was a breath-stealing, toe-curling, stomach-dropping kiss. It was a kiss that refused to give up its hold. That begged me to quit oxygen for just a few minutes, please. I could live without breathing, surely, if he would just keep kissing me forever.

Beckett's hands slid over my shoulders and down my back, grabbing my butt and lifting me until I wrapped my legs around his waist. I wanted to cry with relief, and laugh, but more than that I never wanted to stop kissing him. He carried me to the bedroom, and lay me back on the sheets, kissing me all the while.

When his body settled onto mine, I finally broke the kiss with a gasp. The weight and heat of him was so much better in real life than in any dream. He fit against me in all the right places, and left me aching for him to fill in any gaps.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

“God yes.” I rolled my hips against him.

“That was the longest night of my life,” he said.

“I thought—”

He cut me off with another kiss.

“I told you you weren’t crazy.”

Hungrily, I pulled him in, winding my arms around his chest, as if I could draw him beneath my skin if I just tried hard enough. I was embarrassingly desperate. Not just because of the long dry spell, or the dreams that left me unsatisfied. But because it was Beckett here with me, and Beckett whose mouth was exploring the soft spot below my ear. My friend. My husband who I was definitely supposed to be sharing an apartment with, not DNA.

I managed to form a question: “Are you sure you want to do this?”

“I would have thought that was obvious.”

“No, I mean…” I couldn’t think clearly. My body was made of lava and electricity. “I mean us. I don’t want to make things weird.”

He laughed and rubbed the tip of my nose with his. “Yeah, wouldn’t want to make our very normal marriage weird.”

“What if—what if—?”

“Do you want to stop?” He went still, lifting his weight off me slightly.

I arched my back, seeking contact between us again. “No. I just—I’m nervous.” I couldn’t believe I’d said it. He was either going to hit the brakes, or tease me.

Instead he said, “Me, too,” in a soft voice. “It’s okay. It’s just me.”

“That’s what makes me nervous.”

“Think of it this way, I’ve only been with a girl who said we were going to hell the first time I got her in bed. I will be very easy to impress.”

A little spark of anger lit in my belly. Not at him. At Emily. He deserved so much better than what she’d given him. He was one of the good ones, damn it. He’d taken care of me, and made sure I wouldn’t regret what I did last night. He put me to bed when I fell asleep on the couch. He duct taped up a shower curtain for me when I felt too grubby to sleep. He bought me tacos on my birthday, and he held me when I cried. He deserved the best.

I looked into his eyes. “Oh, I’m not just going to impress you. I’m going to rock your fucking world.”

Maybe it wasn’t the most romantic thing I could have said, but it was a mission statement, and I intended to deliver. I pushed him down to the bed, swinging my leg over to straddle him. There was a fire in his eyes and I’m sure it was mirrored in mine.

This was happening. For weeks, I’d been questioning my own feelings. Wondering if it was all in my head. And now, here was the reality. I wanted Beckett. Bad. I wanted to rock his world.

“What do you like?” I asked, because I would give it to him in spades.

“I—don’t know?” His answer and his uncertainty were almost sweet.

“Well, let’s find out then.” I smiled, and tugged his t-shirt up to slide my hands beneath and explore all the beautiful territory I’d been unable to touch all this time. Beckett's eyes went heavy and he stretched under my hands like a happy cat. “You like.”

“I like.”

“Okay then.” We carried on like that, with me checking his reaction to everything. Turned out, there wasn’t much he didn’t like. My hands anywhere on his body? He liked. My lips marking a path down his stomach? He liked. My tongue? He really liked. And he liked touching and kissing and licking my body as he stripped off my stupid UC-I Anteaters shirt and the cotton panties with SMARTY PANTS written across the butt, which was probably the least sexy thing I could possibly have worn for this moment.

But Beckett didn’t care. He knelt beside my naked body and ran a hand from the notch between my collar bones to my pubic bone, making me squirm at the delicate touch. Every inch of me tingled with want. “Are you still okay with this?” he asked.

“God, yes.”

I sent up a prayer of thanks to the gods of sex that I had kept a condom in my underwear drawer that hadn’t expired. Beckett looked startled when I started to roll it on him.

“You’re very full service,” he said.

“This way I know it’s done right.” And with that same attitude, I pushed him back on the bed and once again straddled his hips. “Are you ready for me?”

“Oh, fuck yes.”

We slid together, and the intense feeling of fullness had me seeing stars for a second. Holy crap, it had been a long time since I’d done this. I closed my eyes, letting my head drop back as I waited for the initial tightness to ease.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

“Yyyyeeeessss. I’m very, very okay.”

“Thank god.”

I opened my eyes, giving him a quizzical look.

“I might have actually cried if you’d said we had to stop.”

I laughed, and he grinned. The vibrations of my laughter went all through me, down to the place where we were joined. It made me jump, which only made me laugh again, and this time Beckett started laughing too.

We were still giggling when I started to move, and even after the giggles subsided, we smiled at each other like idiots. But then I found an angle that made my eyelids flutter and we weren’t such dorks anymore. Now I was watching his face, and the way his lips fell open and a little pair of lines that appeared between his eyebrows as the pleasure built.

His hands found my hips, gripping tight. I dropped to my elbows so I could kiss him again, craving even more connection between us.

No surprise, we were both on pretty short fuses. Soon, Beckett's pace told me he was running out of time. I sat up so I could put one hand between us, touching myself to make sure he wasn’t the only one on the home stretch.

He looked down in surprise, then up at me. “Oh fuck, that’s hot.”

We were both breathing fast and hard, and then he stopped breathing altogether for a few seconds and I knew he was about to finish. I increased the tempo of my fingers, but he beat me to it. I didn’t care. It was amazing to watch him. And being a very quick and receptive student, he held perfectly still inside me while I took myself over the edge just a couple moments after.

The orgasm bowled through me, and I collapsed onto his chest. He held me, kissing my face.

“You all right?” he asked.

“Mmm-hmm.”

“Let me see you.”

I pushed myself up to my elbows, finding his eyes filled with concern. I smiled, knowing it had to be a goofy smile. “Stop worrying, you silly boy.”

“Sorry.” He sighed, then chuckled. “That was…wow. I didn’t know it could be like that.”

“You know what this means, right?” I said.

“What?”

“Now we have to get married.” It was a dangerous joke to make, but if I knew Beckett…

He burst out laughing.