He said nothing for a long, humming moment. “You’d do this, pass this case, because I asked you?”
“No. I’d do this, pass this case, because in these circumstances I figure you’ve got the right to ask me. I don’t lift off when you say jump, ace, any more than you do for me. But when it matters, it matters. Is that what you want me to do?”
“It was, before you came in here.” He crossed to her now, and took her face in his hands. “It was, I’m forced to admit, when I was near certain you’d refuse, and given me a handy outlet where I could blame you for the whole mess of it. Then I could have worked off some of this mad with a good, bloody row with you.” He kissed her brow, her nose, her lips. “You didn’t, so I guess that good, bloody row is out of the question.”
“I’m always up for one.”
Now he smiled. “Hard to work up the energy for one when I’m also forced to admit you’re right. Actually, thinking about it, that’s a considerable irritation. Everything you just said bull’s-eyed the entire ugly situation. The victims deserve you, and I’m damned if the department gets the satisfaction of having you toss this one back because of me. And damned again if I’ll have fingers pointed at me as a cheat who’d use his wife. I’ve done plenty in my time to deserve finger-pointing, but not this.”
“Are we square?”
He gave her shoulders a light rub before he stepped back. “It seems we are. But the term wife is not synonymous with bimbo. I love my wife very much. I’ve only slept with bimbos—occasionally. In the past.”
He was still seething mad though, she noted. However cool and collected he might seem, she knew him, and saw the black temper bubbling under the surface. She couldn’t blame him. But there were other ways to work off a rage than a sweaty session in the gym, or a good, bloody row.
“I still need that shower.” She headed for the door, glancing over her shoulder on the way out. “Wouldn’t mind some company.”
She ordered the jets on full, at a temperature of 101, and let the heat punch its way into her bones. With her eyes closed and the water pulsing over her head, the worst of the headache she’d been carrying eased off.
When arms came around her, the tension inside her body shifted to a different arena.
“Sorry,” she said with her eyes still closed. “You’ll have to get in line. I’ve already got a guy scheduled for shower sex.”
Hands slid up to cover her breasts; teeth nipped lightly into her shoulder.
“Well, maybe I can squeeze you in.”
She started to turn, but those hands held her in place while his mouth roamed over her neck and shoulders. Little bites while the steam began to rise.
With an arm hooked around her waist, he flipped open the compartment in the glass block and let a river of fragrant soap pool into his hand. He slicked it over her breasts, torso, belly. Slow circles while the water pumped and pulsed.
Everything inside her tightened into delicious knots that released only to snap taut again. The wet heat, the smooth hands teased all of her senses to the edge of nerves, drenching her in sensations.
She lifted her arms, taking them back to wind around his neck, to open herself. Those lazy circles traveled down her again, slid slippery between her legs. Her body bowed, her breath escaping in a moan as he tipped her over the edge.
She shuddered for him, shuddered and bucked against his busy hands, fueling his needs even as he sated hers. His own system began to churn, greed and want and lust and love so twisted together they created one mass of heat that spread from heat to heart to loins.
A unit, he thought. Two lost souls, steeped in shadows, that had found each other. He shouldn’t have forgotten, even in temper, the miracle of that.
When he pulled her around to face him, her eyes were heavy, her face flushed—and her lips slowly curved.
“Oh, it’s you. I thought there was something familiar, but I wasn’t sure.” She reached down, took the hot, hard length of him in her hands. “Yeah, I recognize this.”
She kept those sleepy eyes open and on his when he pushed her back against the wet wall. While the jetting water thundered he took her mouth, took her taste and quivered with the thrill when her lips met his with equal passion.
Then, gripping her hips, he plunged into her, swallowing her cries, her gasps, her moans, as he drove them both.
Her fingers slid down him, dug in for purchase as shock and excitement ripped through her. There was nothing but the heat, the wet, the glorious hard body against her, in her. The pleasure shot her up so high she had to fight for breath to even moan his name.
Then it wrung her out, made her weak, made her woozy. She felt him let go, felt him give himself to her as she went limp.
“Ta cion agam ort.” With his body warm and pressed to hers he murmured it.
I love you, Eve thought, in Gaelic. Knowing he used it when it mattered most to him, she smiled.
Feeling relaxed and accommodating, she let him pick the meal and ended up eating some sort of lightly grilled fish with a side of spicy rice mixed with crispy vegetables. She might have preferred a burger and fries drenched in salt, but she couldn’t complain.
And the chilly glass of Italian white made it all go down smooth as silk.