“Don’t you see?” I stare at him, willing him to understand. “It’s not going to last. She’s going to be ripped to pieces when all this is over, and Hunter asking her to marry him is just a forceful tactic to getting what he wants.”
Dean’s eyes glitter with something like anger.
Is it wrong if I find him to be even more beautiful?
“Are you even hearing yourself? Sera can say no, she can even tell him to go fuck himself. I don’t know what you’re getting at.”
“He’s going to destroy her and I’m going to have to fix her and I can’t do it anymore. I don’t have it in me to fix anyone else. I’m tapped out.”
I hadn’t meant to say those words, hadn’t even thought them into existence until they were suddenly fully formed and occupying sound-wave space.
“I don’t understand you,” Dean says, rubbing his face with both hands. He sounds a little bit like Darth Vader without the breathing problem. “You keep going back and forth, and I don’t know whether to shake some sense into you, or… Or, shit, just come here.” He opens his arms, and tries to get his legs out of the way.
“C’mon, Kat, I’m waiting. My offers for Dean-cuddles will only last for the next five seconds before they self-destruct…”
I launch myself at him, forcing him backwards, but his arms just wrap themselves around me and hold me tight to his chest, I can feel his heartbeat and I end up stuffing my face in the crook of his neck and shoulder where he’s so warm and wonderful. Potter squirms around near my knees and jumps off the couch.
“You know you’re being stupid, right?” He mumbles, the sound vibrating from his chest to mine and hello, happy nipples.
Don’t ruin the moment, do NOT ruin the moment!
“I’m being realistic.”
Dean exhales loudly, and holds me tight enough to cause injury. I don’t mind at all. “You’re being stubborn.” He sounds like he’s mad at me, but he ends up squeezing me even tighter.
“You think couples don’t have fights; that they don’t get into it once in a while?”
I grunt my no. “I’m not a kid. Of course people get into fights. You can’t get along twenty-four-seven.”
Dean nods against me. If I move just a little bit south we’d be absolutely connected in all the best ways, but I shouldn’t ruin this, not now, not when he’s being nice and I’m being nice and we’re having an actual conversation.
“What I’m saying is Hunter isn’t enough for Sera. He’ll never be enough.”
Dean growls, and the rumble hits me in my vagina and I start squirming. “He’s not enough for you, maybe, but he’s enough for her. Don’t you talk about him with her? Don’t you see her face?”
“I’m always looking at her face.”
“You don’t see it. You don’t see it at all. Sera’s head over heels for that lucky asshole, and all you’ve got are smoke screens to try and keep them apart. That’s low, Kat, even for you.”
I move to pull away, but his arms are like steel across my upper back, and one giant hand goes to the back of my head and starts running his fingers through my hair. Slow strokes, sweet strokes, the kind that just might put me to sleep and make me do whatever he wants.
“MacLaine,” I can hear him grinning, “and Sera are going to get married and you’re going to be crazy ecstatic for her and scream at the top of your lungs because that’s what girls do when they congregate and get excited over shit. It’s adorable and hair-raising at the same time.”
I scrunch my nose but he can’t see me. “It’s actually a special language we use in front of guys so they won’t know we’re talking about them.”
Dean’s hold loosens on me and I wonder if I’ve said something wrong. But I get a smile when I look down at him, crinkly eyes and all.
“I knew it! How about we stow the serious crap, and watch a movie? Return of the Jedi or Return of the Jedi?”
Chapter 20
Surprise, surprise, we end up watching Return of the Jedi. And while I think the movie has its strong points, I’m not insane into it like Dean is.
Out of the corner of my eye, I can see him mouthing the words, and just being totally absorbed in it. I think if I took his pants off right now he wouldn’t even notice.
God, I hope he doesn’t want me to dress up like Princess Leia with that hair-do. Hell, no.
I’m separated from Dean by with Potter back in my lap, and Pongo and Kal have somehow found a way to wedge their bigger canine bodies between my curled legs and Dean’s stretched out ones. I don’t even know how I got to the far corner of the couch. One second I was snuggled all close and warm to my Viking, next, the whimpering started and Dean got up to put the DVD in and I lost my spot.