When we’d first been taken prisoner, I’d honestly been more concerned about how much time we were wasting, how many patients I could have been seeing while I fake-doctored Gustavo, but now the truth of our situation was crystal clear. Riggs didn’t admit defeat out loud, and I was trying hard to play along and stay positive, but we both knew that when the real Gustavo came back, our lives were probably forfeit, and despite my best efforts, I hadn’t been able to convince Gianluigi to let us go.
I knew Riggs had promised to contact Hux on my Horn while I bathed, but when we were first captured, he’d said Champion Security would need a week or more to find us and mount a rescue. We had no idea how long we had until Gustavo came back, but somehow I doubted it would be that long.
This knowledge made everything sharper, realer. It brought things into focus in a way I’d never experienced before. All the big, important things I’d worried about—carrying on my parents’ legacy, making the right choices to take the one right path toward a happy future—seemed so silly with this new perspective.
This soak in the bathtub with Gustavo’s fancy soap would probably be the last time I ever experienced that luxury. The food I’d just eaten might be the last thing I’d ever consume. The words of annoyance I’d spoken to my grandfather before I left would probably be the last things I ever said to him, which broke my heart, and my text convo with Kev would be the last one we ever had… but at least I’d harvested the kumquats.
I missed the Thicket and the people there. I missed the simple life, helping people who needed and truly appreciated me.
And then there was Riggs.
Riggs, who was a bossy asshole but who’d put my safety before his own. Riggs, who’d called me Duchess but had listened to me without judgment when I told him about my family. Riggs, who never answered a question about his job or his clients but told me stories about his Romanian gaffes when he knew I needed a laugh. Riggs, who drove me out of my mind with his high-handedness and out of my mind with lust.
Riggs, who I was realizing was exactly the person I wanted to spend the last days or hours of my life with, even if I hadn’t known it until now.
The two times he and I had touched each other had been explosive. The most incredible sexual encounters of my fairly experienced life. And they’d both been the closest thing to accidental—one insomnia frottage and a fear-fueled blow job. It was enough to make a guy wonder what deliberate, on-purpose sex with Riggs would be like.
Enough to make me want to find out before Gustavo came home and threw us out of a plane.
I hauled myself out of the tub, dried off hastily, and padded to the doorway.
The sight of Riggs sitting on the velvet sofa, Horn in his hand and a little pucker of concentration on his forehead, was enough to make me stop right there just so I could watch him for a moment.
“Riggs?”
“Yeah?” He whirled around to look at me, and his eyes consumed me from my very naked chest to the towel around my waist. “Yeah. Ah, you good?”
He was so damn cute. “I could be better.” I loosened the towel and let it fall to the floor.
Riggs’s eyes grew more intense. “I… I, uh… I could help you with that.” He threw the Horn on the couch and stalked toward me like a prowling animal, and for once in my life, I was happy to be the prey.
“I was hoping you would,” I purred.
But just when I was thinking he was gonna put his mouth and hands on me and make me stop overthinking… he paused directly in front of me, lowered his forehead to mine, and just… breathed me in.
“You smell really good, Dr. Rogers.” He ran his big hands down my arms, and I swallowed convulsively.
“Do you think? I’m not sure what kind of soap Gustavo has here, but it’s nice, huh? Maybe I should get some when I get home.” I licked my lips. “I mean, unless whatever post-abduction therapist Doctors Across Continents hooks me up with tells me that’s really Stockholmy and I should—”
“Carter.”
“Yes?”
“It’s not the soap that smells good, baby.” Riggs rubbed his nose against mine. “It’s you.”
“Oh. Well. That’s…” I coughed slightly. “Good.” I nodded crisply, as if this were no big deal, and I had men calling me baby and sniffing me all the time, though I did not. In every hookup I’d ever had, whether I’d topped or bottomed, I’d always been the baby-er, not the baby-ee. Men looked at me and saw the degree, the polished facade, the air of control, and they made assumptions I’d never cared to challenge.