Free These Boots Were Made for Stomping by Julie Kenner

tired,” he teased.
    “Never,” she said, though her body was limp as a noodle and her eyes drooped. She wanted to stay awake. Wanted to never sleep,
     if sleep meant missing out on any moment with this man. If by closing her eyes and resting she wouldn’t feel his caresses
     or know the heat his fingers generated against his skin.
    But it didn’t matter. The sun was coming up and her eyelids were falling down. And as Lydia drifted off, safe and secure in
     Nikko’s arms, a tiny smile touched her lips.
    Stamina, she realized, was yet another perk of making love with a superhero.

CHAPTER SIX
    Nikko thought that she was even more beautiful asleep, and he would have been content to lie there for hours beside her, watching
     her dewy lips and the slow rise and fall of her chest.
    That, of course, was impractical. Instead, he pressed a soft kiss to her cheek, then went off to explore her kitchen. Not
     badly stocked, actually, and he took his time, figuring that she could use the sleep. They had, after all, stayed up late.
    Cooking had always been his favorite way to relax and, in fact, his house in the mountains had a fabulous kitchen. There was
     something relaxing and engaging about the process. Edible chemistry. And when he hit upon the perfect combination, there was
     very little joy more poignant than sharing it.
    In Colorado, he’d had no one to share his meals. No one he cared about, anyway. And without consciously thinking about it,
     he prepared a simple breakfast for Lydia with extra care, imagining what it would be like to serve her in his huge bedroom.
     Or, better, to take her onto the redwood deck and eat with the sky above and the trees below, suspended there with the world
     spread out beneath them.
    It was an image that was far too appealing, frankly, and he tried to shove it away, forcing himself to instead concentrate
     on French toast, sausage and freshly squeezed orange juice.
    He took a tray in to her and found her waking. She blinked at him, the corners of her mouth curved up; whether from happy
     memories or because she was glad to see him, he didn’t know. Both, he hoped.
    “Hey,” she said.
    “Hey, yourself.” He slid the tray onto the bed beside her. “I thought you might want breakfast in bed.”
    She laughed. “Because I’m too weak to walk, thanks to you.”
    “I’m terribly sorry,” he said, lacing his voice with false sincerity.
    “I’m sorry, too,” she said, seeming genuinely contrite. She propped herself up on one elbow. “About that Silver Streak thing.
     I never meant—”
    He hushed her with a soft finger on her lips. “I overreacted. It’s a sore subject with me.”
    “How come? I mean, I get that you’d rather not be compared to a comic book guy but—”
    “I am the comic book guy,” he said, then told her the whole sordid story. She was, in fact, the first person he’d told it to, other
     than the Council investigators. When he finished, he managed a grin. “When the Silver Streak appeared as a guest in an X-Men
     comic, the Council was more than a little miffed. And then when he got his own comic book . . . well, all Hades broke loose.”
     He shrugged. “Let’s just say it caused me all sorts of problems,” he concluded, the soft skin of her shoulder so distracting
     under his fingertips. “You know how the Council is.”
    How the Council is?
    “Oh, yeah, sure,” she said automatically, then frowned. The truth was, she didn’t know how the Council was, and although in the alley she’d been perfectly content to assume that the Council and the Protector
     thing and all the other odd little statements he’d made had related to her shoes and Shoestra and Hiheelia .com, that theory
     was losing credibility.
    For one thing, she hadn’t seen a single pair of men’s shoes on the Web site. In retrospect, maybe she should have thought
     of that earlier. Because unless her gorgeous Silver Streak was running around in two-inch pumps, he had no business