As they kissed, their hands slid over each other’s bodies. Julia wanted to drag him to her bed. Make love with him, then fall asleep in a tangle of arms and legs. Wake up in the morning and make love all over again.
It would be easy to tug him into her bed. To undress him. Let him undress her. But it wouldn’t be fair. They’d agreed after that one night that it couldn’t happen again.
He had a job to do. And his job meant he had to pay attention all the time. He couldn’t be distracted by lovemaking.
So she untangled her arms from around his neck, kissed him one last time and stepped away. “Sorry,” she whispered. “That was wrong of me. But I wanted…”
“Yeah, Julia. I wanted, too,” he said, his voice a deep rasp of desire. “Go take your shower before I forget what a bad idea this would be.”
She nodded and stepped away from him. Fifteen minutes later, she was tucked into bed. She’d hurried from the bathroom into her bedroom without seeing Nico. She was pretty sure he’d deliberately stayed out of sight.
As she huddled in bed, she listened to the water thundering into the bathtub as Nico showered.
She wanted to be in that shower with him.
Pulling the pillow over her head, she tried to block out the noise.
When the shower finally stopped, she turned on her side and forced herself to think of recipes until she fell asleep.
She had no idea how long she’d been sleeping when a sharp “Julia!” woke her. She startled upright, looking around in confusion. Nico grabbed her hand. “Wake up, Jules.” Nico’s face was close to hers, tight with fear. Anger.
He tugged her toward the edge of the bed. “We need to get out of the house. It’s on fire.”