She stopped, her brows bunching, as her fingertips encountered two puckered scars high on his hip. ‘What’s this?’ she asked.
He lifted up, rolled off her, dislodging her hands. Propping himself up on one elbow, he leaned over her. ‘That was really something,’ he murmured, dropping a proprietary kiss on her nose. ‘For an amateur, you’re awfully good at that,’ he said, echoing her earlier compliment.
Her heartbeat kicked up a notch at the approval in his eyes and she forced herself not to care that he hadn’t answered her question. She could always ask him again.
After all, they couldn’t spend all their time together making love. If what had just happened was anything to go by, they’d end up killing each other. Funny to think, though, that she was just as excited about the time they would spend together out of bed as well as in it.
He placed one heavy palm on her midriff, traced the edge of her belly button with his fingertip. She felt the surprising jolt of arousal at her core, and wiggled out from under him. ‘Now don’t start that again,’ she said, bending over to scoop her dress off the floor.
‘Why not?’
She sent him a wry look over her shoulder. ‘I need a quick shower, if that’s okay? And then I need breakfast.’ Her lips hitched. He looked so impossibly tempting with that puzzled frown etched on his brow. ‘A girl can’t live on great sex alone, you know.’
‘This is true.’ He got out of bed on the other side. She watched him locate his boxer shorts, admired the tight orbs of his backside flexing as he bent to pick them up.
No wonder he was so comfortable naked. Why would anyone so staggeringly good-looking ever have a reason to be self-conscious? But somehow the thought of his looks didn’t feel intimidating any more. Maybe because of the memory of his face, harsh with desire and demand, as he’d climaxed.
He pulled the boxers up his legs, and the strips of sunlight rippled over the scars she’d felt on his back. And suddenly she knew exactly what had caused them. ‘Who shot you?’
He twisted round. Glanced back. ‘Huh?’
She pointed to the circular, puckered scars. ‘There on your back—those are bullet wounds, aren’t they?’
‘Yeah.’ He sounded nonchalant, but didn’t offer an explanation.
‘What happened?’ she pressed—the distressing thought of him being shot and in pain making the happy glow from their lovemaking dim considerably.
He shrugged. ‘I messed up.’
‘How?’
He glanced at her. ‘You really want to know?’
‘Yes, I really want to know,’ she pressed some more, ignoring the shuttered expression.
He heaved a sigh, but to her surprise began to talk. ‘We were on a stake-out. A low-level meth head. But we had intell he was in contact with the area’s main dealer. When he turned up he had a girl with him. She was strung-out, looked no more than thirteen or fourteen and he…’ Zane paused, shrugged, the movement so stiff it made Iona’s breath get trapped in her throat. ‘I broke cover, against orders and got shot for my trouble, and we didn’t pick up the dealer.’
‘You protected her,’ she murmured, her chest tight.
He looked up, his gaze blank with memory. ‘She was a kid. I couldn’t sit by and do nothing.’
No, she thought, someone like him with such a strong streak of integrity wouldn’t. No wonder she felt so safe with him. ‘You did the right thing,’ she murmured, impossibly touched by another tiny insight into his past and what it revealed about him.
He gave a harsh laugh. ‘My commander didn’t think so. He said the kid was collateral damage. I got suspended from duty and quit two months later.’
‘You still did the right thing.’ Did he doubt it?
He hitched a shoulder, his gaze sharp and intent. ‘Maybe.’
He strolled round to her side of the bed, took her hand and hauled her up. ‘Let’s go grab a shower.’ His hands strayed down to her naked behind, squeezed.
She wriggled out of his arms, her emotions suddenly too full to risk that kind of intimacy. ‘I don’t think so,’ she said, keeping her voice light and flirtatious. ‘If we shower together we’ll get distracted. And it’ll be midday before we have breakfast.’
‘I’ve never known a woman to eat like you do.’
‘Do you have a problem with that?’ she said coquettishly, knowing from his admiring gaze that he didn’t.
‘Not at all. One of the things I love about you is your appetite,’ he said, but she wasn’t convinced he was still talking about food.