“You’re turning down sex. Maybe you’re the one who got knocked on the head.” But she stepped into the frothy, swirling water of the wide tub, and couldn’t stop the moan of pleasure. “Okay, yeah, this is good.”
He took VR goggles out of a drawer, set a program. “Relax.”
“Am.”
He slid the goggles on her, heard her sigh. He got himself a glass of wine, as good as a soother, he thought. And leaning against the door, he sipped it slowly, and watched her while she soaked away the aches.
Home, he told himself. She was home and whole and safe.
10
RELAXED, RESTED, EVE BUNDLED INTO A ROBE. She stepped to the mirror, scooping her hair back to examine the cut on her forehead. Not bad, she decided, and pulled her bangs over it. You could hardly see it.
Which was bullshit, she admitted, blowing those bangs with an irritable exhale, because he’d see it. He knew it was there. She’d scared him, pulled him away from his own work—with a side dish of worry—and for no good reason. If she’d taken two seconds to think, to contact him, to tell him she’d banged up her vehicle, but she was okay, he wouldn’t have worried.
Big black mark in the Good Wife column. She tended to rack those up.
Worse, he hears she’s been in a crash while she’s investigating the murder of another cop. Just not good.
Guilt smeared over relaxation as she walked back into the bedroom. “Listen, I want to say . . .” She trailed off. She scented the red sauce first, then spotted the plates of spaghetti and meatballs on the table of the sitting area. “Damn it.”
“Not in the mood for pasta?” He narrowed those bold blue eyes to give her a critical study. “You must’ve hit your head harder than we thought.”
“I was going to do it—get dinner, I mean. One of the fancy things you like, because—Hell.” She gave up, hurried to him to wrap her arms around him. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I was so pissed off at what happened, at myself, I didn’t think.”
He stroked a hand down her hair first, then gave the choppy ends a quick tug. “I’m not angry with you.”
“I know. You could be, but you’re not. So I have to be even sorrier.”
“Your logic is fascinating, and elusive.”
“I can’t pay you back with sex or salt-crusted sea bass or whatever because you’re too busy taking care of me. So now I’ve got this black mark in my column against the bright shiny star in yours, and—”
He tipped her head up. “Are we keeping score?”
“No. Maybe. Shit.”
“How am I doing?”
“Undisputed champ.”
“Good. I like to win.” He brushed her bangs back to study the injury himself. “You’ll do. Let’s eat.”
Just like that, she thought. Then, no. No, not just like that. She shifted her grip on him so her arms linked around his neck. “I love you.” And kissed him, soft, slow, deep. “I love you. I love you. I’m just going to keep saying it,” she told him as she pressed her body to his. “Racking them up, so I have a supply built up for when I forget to say it. I love who you are, what you are, how you talk, how you look at me.”
Her lips roamed over his face, down his throat, along his jaw, coming back to his with soft, sumptuous seduction. “I love your body, how you make me feel. I love your face, your mouth, your hands. Put your hands on me, Roarke. Put your hands on me.”
He’d planned to see she ate, rested a bit. To keep his eye on her in case . . . in case. Now she was taking him under. Drawing him down to drown in her.
He nudged the robe off her shoulders, so it slithered to the floor. And put his hands on her.
“More. More. I love you.” Her lips skimmed over his ear; her teeth scraped along his neck to add a shock of lust. “I want more. I want you.” She tugged at his jacket, and her laugh was a low, arousing purr. “Too many clothes. Like the first time, you’re wearing too many clothes. I have to fix that.”
To solve the problem, she ripped his shirt open, and laughed again. “Yeah, that’s better. Oh God, I love you.” Her breath hitched from the skill of his hands, his mouth, even as her fingers got busy on the hook of his trousers. Even when she found him, hot, hard.
“In me, I want you in me. I want you crazy and inside me. I want to see what it does to you, while I feel what it does to me.”
He would have lifted her, swept her up and to the bed. Driven himself, driven her beyond reason. But her mouth came back to his, so tenderly. Sweet, so sweet. He fell helplessly into the warm liquid mists of love.