“Yeah, well, maybe.” Control, he had to keep control, he couldn’t scare her. Start slowly, let her take the lead.
She did. She kissed his cheek, his nose, his chin—light forays, then at last she lightly touched his mouth, her lips seamed. She touched her forehead to his. “That was nice.”
An understatement. “Yes, nice,” he repeated as he lightly stroked his hands up and down her back over her tiger stripes. He wasn’t going to lose it, wasn’t about to let that happen. He stilled his hands. “So what do you think? Maybe another kiss?”
“I can’t imagine having a lover since we’ve been married. I mean, look at you.”
“No, you haven’t. Neither have I. You and I—we’re a team, Sherlock, a unit.”
She was silent a moment. They were a unit. That sounded right. She put her palm flat on his chest, wished he didn’t have on a shirt, wished for a moment his boxers were on the floor. She pressed him back onto his back, bent over him, and kissed his chin. “If we made love, it would be like taking a lover. I know that sounds weird, but I don’t remember us as a unit, and I see you as a kind of hot stranger—”
“Sherlock? Savich?” Their bedroom door burst open and there stood Justice Cummings, sounding both scared and excited.
Sherlock snapped to immediately, jerked up. “What’s wrong, Justice?”
He realized what he’d interrupted and took a quick step back, stammering, “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have barged in like this, but I remembered something and I knew it was important and you’d want to know right away. I remembered because of my dream.”