Temptation

"Joey, Joey wake up."

Joey Jordison let out a groan as he made an attempt to role over but stopped, feeling a weight on his stomach. Figuring it was his cat laying on him he opened his eyes to see his girlfriend and hopefully soon to be fiance, Erica, sitting on his stomach.

"Hi."

"Hey. What time is it?" Joey asked sleepily, unsure as to why he was being woke up.

"Its um..." Erica trailed off as she leaned over and grabbed the small, plastic square alarm clock off the side table. "Two a.m."

"Is there a reason you woke me up at two in the morning?"

"Hey, be nice. I got you up with my chest basically in your face."

Joey snickered and shut his eyes before murmuring, "That`s beside the point."

"While I was doing some photo editing Corey texted me. Apparently he and James are getting tired of Stone Sour and want to start doing some work on Slipknot," Erica said as she shimmied down her boyfriend`s waist so she was straddling his hips, then laid on his stomach, arms folded over his chest with her head rested on her hands.

"Why is he texting you this and not me?"

"He did. You just wouldn`t pick up. Besides, he wanted to know if I could go on tour again as your photographer."

Joey nodded and shut his eyes again, bringing a hand up to rub his girlfriend`s back. He had met Erica back in 2004 when Slipknot started touring again. Corey Taylor had met Erica at a record store in L.A not long after the new album was done. After he found out the band needed a tour photographer he had hired her without a second thought. Not even a week into tour Joey and Erica had become all but become best friends and were almost inseparable, except for when he was on stage of course.

During the tour the band had in memorial to Paul Gray the two friends became a couple and have been dating ever since. Joey figured that if she could handle him and the band at such a horrible time while grieving herself, that he needed to marry her. And soon. There aren`t many people in the world that could handle all that, but she did. Sure, during that time the couple had fights, though to neighbors it probably sounded like a game of who could scream and yell the loudest, but they always made their way back to each other. No matter if it was hours, days or even weeks. They still came back.

"When do you think tour should start up again?" Joey asked softly, rubbing his girlfriend`s back.

"A month or two, maybe three," Erica murmured in reply, leaning up to press a light kiss to the hollow of her boyfriend`s neck.

"Mmmm. Why so long?"

"It`ll give everyone some time to get ready, figure out venues, dates to play, how long the tour will be....things of that nature."

"Why do you seem to have this figured out more than I do? I`m the one who`s the musician here," Joey mused, teasing her a bit.

"You forget lovely boyfriend that I have to do planning like this all the time for photo shoots," Erica grinned, her tone just as teasing.

"Alright. I`ll call the guys in the morning and we`ll start talking about tour."

"It`a technically the morning."

Joey playfully groaned and grabbed Erica`s hips, quickly and carefully rolling them over so he was hovering over her. He then buried his face in her neck and slid his arms under her, wrapping them around her.

Erica let out a squeal of "Joey!" as she gripped his shoulders when he rolled them over. She soon relax and closed her eyes, smiling a bit. He was being playful now, meaning he was more awake.

"Have you ever thought about what you want in life?"

"Of course. I used to do it all the time as a kid. I wanted to be a photographer and I did it."

"No, I a mean what you want now," Joey corrected, lifting his head from her neck to look up at her.

"I`m looking at it sweetheart," Erica murmured while running a hand through her boyfriend`s hair.

"It`s nice to know you want me. Anything else?"

"Well I...no never mind. It`s silly."

"No, what is it?" Joey asked.

"Sometimes, late at night when I can`t sleep I`ll wonder what it would be like to wake up to the sound of little feet running on the wood floors. Or I`ll wonder what you would look like with a little baby in your arms," Erica confessed, her voice almost a whisper.

"That`s not silly. That`s...shit that`s stuff I think about. Iv`e actually been thinking about that a lot lately."

"Then why are we talking about this now?" Erica asked with a laugh.

"I don`t know. I was going to do this at another time but..." Joey trailed off and carefully got up, walking over to the closet. After a few minutes of digging through the closet Joey walked back out and walked over to the bed, holding something behind his back.

"Joey, what are you doing?"

"You know I love you right? Because Iv`e loved you for a long time. I realized how much I loved you after Paul died. You took care of me and the guy`s so well, while you were grieving too. When that happened I knew I had to have you for as long as possible. Man, this sounded so much better in my head. Um, Erica will you marry me?" Joey asked, pulling a small black velvet box from behind his back, opening it as he spoke the last words.

Erica sat up and nodded, "Yes. Definitely yes."

Joey grinned and slid the ring onto her finger. The ring was silver with one main black diamond with two rows of small black and white diamonds.

"I know it`s not the most simple thing in the world, but I thought you would like it."

"It`s beautiful," Erica murmured before giving Joey a soft kiss, quickly being pulled into a much deeper kiss. Though the kiss was interrupted when Mokie jumped on the bed and squeezed in between the couple.

"Mokie, I love you but that was unfair," Joey grumbled, making Erica laugh as she laid back down.

"So, about those little feet running around."

"As much as I love the idea of us having a baby, Corey would kill us if I got you pregnant by the time we started touring again."

"No he wouldn`t. Corey would love the idea of a mini Joey running around just as much as I do," Erica stated with a grin.

"A mini me? Oh I don`t know about that. I was thinking more of a mini you."

"How about both?" Erica asked, rolling over onto her stomach.

"Both?" Joey asked, eyes widening.

Erica laughed at his expression and leaned over and gave him a kiss. Life was going to get a whole lot more interesting for the couple. Now if only they could figure out a way to tell everything to the rest of Slipknot.