Ever since I moved to Florida I’d started a new tradition.  Every morning unless it was raining or I was nursing a hangover, I woke up just before the sunrise.  It wasn’t that I was a morning person, in fact I was the polar opposite of a morning person, but every morning I woke up to see the sun rise over the ocean.  I’d roll out of bed early enough to grab a cup of coffee, set to automatically brew just before I woke up of course, and head outside to my deck with Vinnie and we’d silently watch the sunrise.  It was like if I missed a sunrise my day felt incomplete or I knew the day wouldn’t go well.  It was probably all psychosomatic, but whatever it was, I followed my tradition as much as I possibly could.

Just as it was a tradition to watch the sunrise though, it was also a tradition to go directly back to bed after the sun was up and go back to sleep for several hours with Vinnie.  It never mattered that I had a mug or two of coffee in me by then because like I said, I wasn’t a morning person and my body just knew that being up that early wasn’t right.

I woke up the morning after my kiss with Kevin in my usual daze wondering what planet I was on and was trying to figure out if the ringing I heard was the phone, my alarm clock, the door, or simply in my head. Propped up on my elbows with my eyes half closed I listened and heard the ringing again and looked at the clock, "9:00? Who the hell is ringing our doorbell at 9:00 in the morning?" Vinnie groaned and rolled over turning his back to me. "Oh I suppose that means you’re not getting it huh?" The bell was rung again three times in a row and I groaned as I rolled out of bed muttering as I tripped over the collection of chew toys piled near Vinnie’s side of the bed. I stumbled my way through my house cursing and trying to wake up. The bell kept ringing though only serving to piss me off more. "Jesus!" I yelled as I made it to the door. "Do you realize that people SLEEP at this time of morning?" I shouted as I opened door.

"Yeah but I couldn’t sleep…" he smiled at me innocently.

I closed my eyes and began to blush as I covered my face, "Oh God… Kevin." He laughed and I shook my head, "Oh shit I’m sorry… I didn’t mean to yell at you I…"

"It’s okay…" he laughed.  "Uncover your face."

"No…" I whimpered.

"Come on…" he said taking a hold of my wrists gently. I refused to move my hands and he tugged at them laughing, "Kel…"

"No…" I whined.

"Fine. Then you don’t get what I have for you," he shrugged.

I peeked through my fingers, and found him grinning at me, "What do you have?"

"Gotta move your hands…" I sighed and dropped my hands to my sides heavily giving him a look. He smiled and turned around to reveal a single red rose stuck in his back pocket.

I smiled and laughed, "You giving me your ass, Kev? Cause that’s really sweet of you, I love your ass…"

He laughed and turned around pulling the flower from his jeans holding it out to me, "Maybe later… but for now you get the flower, and I have a proposal."

"Kev, we don’t know each other well enough to get married," I grinned taking the rose.

"You know for someone who isn’t a morning person you sure are a smartass…"

"I’m always a smartass, it was my minor in college…" I laughed and smelled the rose. "What’s your proposal?"

"Breakfast, with you and Vinnie. My treat."

I smiled from ear to ear, "Vinnie too?"

"Yup…"

Brownie points. Inviting the dog, major Brownie points. "Ever think of calling a girl to warn her before you come over and propose breakfast at nine in the morning?"

"Where’s the fun in that?" he smiled.

I shook my head at him unable to hold back a smile, "Well we have to wake up Vino then and I have to…" I stopped in mid sentence suddenly realizing that I was standing there in my pajamas. "Oh god!" I groaned in horror.

"What?!"

"I’m not dressed! Jesus, Kevin…" I covered my face again and felt his hands on my shoulders.

"It’s okay… you look adorable," he told me quietly and turned me around pushing me back into the house.

"Mmm hmm… messy hair, boxer shorts, a holy tee shirt and morning breath, real cute…" I moaned as he followed me in the house.

"Where’s Vinnie?" he laughed.

"In bed…"

"Where’s his bed?"

"My bed…" I smiled.

"Oh…" he grinned.

"You go wake him up and I’m going to shower…" I said as I stepped into the doorway of the bathroom. "Oh and Kev?"

"Yeah?" he asked turning around in the hall.

"Thanks for the rose…"

He smiled and nodded as he headed toward my room, "No prob…"

*****

Kevin threw Vinnie’s tennis ball into the water and giggled as Vinnie plunged face first into a wave trying to get the ball. I smiled from my spot on the blanket basking in the sun and watched Kevin and Vinnie playing together. "Breakfast" turned out to be a trip down the coast stopping at Burger King for breakfast and hanging out on the beach together. The drive gave us plenty of time to talk and gave Vinnie the opportunity to drool out of the back seat window of Kevin’s SUV with his ears flopping in the wind as we went down the highway.

I don’t know what it was, but Kevin was doing a number on me. Sexy, talented, funny, sexy, smart, well-spoken, sexy, charming, and did I say sexy? But on top of all of that, Vinnie liked him, and he liked Vinnie. It was killing me to see Kevin running around playing with Vinnie like no one beside me had ever done before. Smiling and splashing around in the water he played fetch with Vinnie who was leaping around the beach like an oversized puppy.

Kevin looked back toward me and smiled waving and I waved back at him. Then out of the blue Vinnie caught Kevin off guard and lunged at him, knocking him over into the water. I cracked up as Kevin struggled to get back to his feet as a wave knocked him and Vinnie over. As the waves flowed back out Kevin was able to get back up and walked back to the blanket laughing hysterically with Vinnie trotting happily behind. "Did I mention that when he gets excited he sometimes tries to knock people down?" I laughed.

"Um no…" he smiled and laughed plopping down next to me. Vinnie shook the water off of his fur spraying us both and we giggled.

"Guess we have to stay a little longer huh?" I grinned looking at his soaking wet clothes.

"Either that, or I go naked…" he said with a sly grin.

I raised my eyebrows, "Ooh…"

"You like that idea?" he laughed.

"Yeah it’s nice here, I don’t mind staying," I teased with a grin.

"Don’t you want to see my body?" he pouted pulling his shirt up a bit revealing a sneak of his stomach.

If he only knew how badly I wanted to see his body and what seeing the bit of skin was doing to me. "Mmm hmm… later, I’m lying in the sun right now…" I smiled and lay back on the blanket closing my eyes. Even as I closed them though all I could see was him lying there soaked to the bone with his stomach showing and his green eyes twinkling up at me behind his spider-like eyelashes. I couldn’t help but continue to wonder what in the hell was wrong with Kevin. He seemed so perfect, but there had to be something… I was dumbfounded as to why of all of the women in the world, literally, who were swooning over him, why he chose me to spend his time with. A single, thirtysomething woman who spent more time with her monster puppy than she did with other human beings… what was so appealing about me?

Kevin caught me in deep thought with my eyes closed as he lay next to me on his side drying off in the sun, "Hey…" he whispered.

"Hmm?" I responded, eyes still closed underneath my sunglasses.

I felt his damp hand graze my cheek lightly as he turned my head toward him and I opened my eyes to find him leaning in toward me slowly. Even soaking wet he was beautiful. I noticed droplets of water sliding down his face from his wet hair and shuddered at the thought of tasting them and his warm skin beneath. When his lips pressed against mine gently I could taste the salt of the ocean on his lips and let myself get lost in the glorious sensation of his tongue sliding against mine. Whatever his reason for being with me was, I wasn’t complaining about the kisses, that was for sure. By the time we’d finished kissing on the beach my clothes were nearly as wet as his from our bodies being pressed up against each other and he smiled down at me, "Looks like you’re going to have to go naked too."

I laughed and patted his cheek, "In your dreams Heartthrob, in your dreams…"

*****

"Um… garlic?" Kevin asked as he searched through my fridge.

"Fresh out…"I laughed and jumped up to sit on the counter.  "But I have…" I reached into the cupboard near my head and pulled out a bottle and shook it.  "Garlic salt."

"Oh…" he groaned.  "No… no, that wont’ work."

I grinned at the pained look on his face and he cracked a smile at me before looking down at the bowl in front of him on the counter, "You’re the one who wanted to cook. I never claimed to have a grocery store of ingredients here."

"Yeah but I…"

"Yeah but you said nothing about garlic when we were at the store, it’s your own fault… I used the last of my garlic last week and haven’t been grocery shopping since." I said raising an eyebrow at him as I took a drink of my beer. He sighed and mumbled something making me laugh again, "You’re too cute, Heartthrob."

"Do you have to call me that?" he asked looking up momentarily from the potatoes that he was mashing.

"Um… yeah," I grinned.

"Can I call you something corny then too?"

"Sure…" I shrugged. "Bring it on."

"I’ll think of something…" he smiled and focused on the cooking.

So once again I sat there in awe of Kevin as he navigated his way around my kitchen making us dinner. Instead of going out to dinner, he offered to cook for me. Not, "Kel-Baby, why don’t you cook something for us?" but instead "I’ll make you dinner, and you can just keep me company so I can learn more about you." What kind of man says stuff like that? I watched him silently as he moved to the sink to work on the salad, which he’d forbidden me to help with, telling me "No… I’m cooking." Vinnie was lying on the floor near Kevin’s feet and rolled over with a groan and put his head on one of Kevin’s bare feet like he usually did to me while I cooked. Kevin looked down and smiled at Vinnie then looked at me and smiled. I returned the smile and picked at the label on my Heineken deep in thought.

I was so lost in my thoughts that when Kevin touched my knee as he stood in front of me trying to get my attention I jumped. He smiled, "Sorry… I didn’t mean to scare you, but you were kind of gone. You okay?"

I blushed under his gaze and nodded, "Yeah. I guess I just zoned out for a second. Got a lot of sun today…"

I could see him searching my eyes and silently urged him not to. His index finger touched the tip of my nose as he stood between my legs, "Yeah we did. Your nose is sun kissed…" He smiled and I stared into his eyes quietly. He kissed each of my cheeks gently, "So are your cheeks…" He kissed his way down my neck to my shoulders as his hands held my waist, "Shoulders too…" He kept kissing my skin heating it up even more than the sun already had. Moving to the other shoulder he repeated the same measures quietly and I held onto his arms with my eyes closed.

"Kev…" I breathed out.

"Shh…" he smiled and placed his finger on my lips before replacing it with his mouth. Once again he pulled me into another world as his tongue worked wonders on me and his thumbs gently rubbed my waist just between the bottom of my tank top and the top of my jeans. My fingers instinctively found their way into his thick hair weaving through it while he pulled my body closer to him. Perched nearly on the edge of the counter his torso was pressed up against mine and I ran one of my bare feet up the back of one of his jean-covered legs wishing that I could feel the skin beneath.

Pulling his mouth away from mine we both took in gasps of air and he dipped his tongue to my skin again, licking in the hollow of my neck as I tipped my head back for him. When he moved his mouth toward the pulse point behind my ear I buried my own face against his neck kissing it gently between rolling my eyes back into my head from his actions and trying not to lose my breath. Every movement he made felt so good. I couldn’t think of a time that I’d felt so good before in my life, and that was saying a lot because I’d surely been around the block a time or two.

While my body told me that I wanted him, badly, my head was telling me not to take it too far too fast, and to make him respect me. As my body won the battle though I began sliding my hands underneath Kevin’s shirt touching his hot skin underneath it. His skin felt amazing under my touch and he shivered as I ran my fingertips over the small of his back. Following my lead he moved one of his hands under my tank top and ran his thumb over my stomach, tracing a slow circle around my belly button and the other slid up my back slowly. Then, as if a sign from the gods, or perhaps my mother, the phone rang and we pulled apart. "I can ignore it…" I whispered and quickly resumed kissing him again on the lips.

He chuckled against my lips and soon was probing my mouth with his delicious tongue again sending me back into Happy Tongue World as my body felt completely alive and the ringing phone quickly faded from our consciousness. His hand moved slowly up toward one of my breasts and I gasped as he moved his thumb carefully across a nipple sending pleasure through my body. I opened my mouth to make a sound of some sort, but then was startled as the ringing of the timer on the oven began filling the room. I groaned and Kevin laughed pulling away, "That’s twice… I think it’s a sign…" I looked into his eyes and then pouted pitifully dropping my forehead onto his shoulder with a cry as I held onto his waist. He chuckled again and pulled me into his arms speaking quietly against my hair, "We’ve got plenty of time to continue this, and I’m not going anywhere. But if we ignore that timer, it won’t be pretty..." He tipped my head up with his hands and smiled, "Okay?" I smiled weakly and nodded. "I promise… we’ll continue this, later."

"Promise?" I whispered looking at his lips, then up to his eyes.

"Definitely…" he smiled.

I sighed and then smiled at him, "Kiss me one more time, Heartthrob?"

He giggled and shook his head pulling my face closer to his, "Sure thing, Hot Lips…"