Four to Score (Stephanie Plum 4)

I dragged myself up the stairs and into the bathroom. I stripped and stepped under the steaming water. I washed my hair twice and used a cream rinse, but my hair wouldn't come clean. I got out of the shower and took a look at my hair. It was the egg. It had hardened like cement, and little pieces of eggshell were stuck in the cement.

“Why me?” I said.

Morelli was on the other side of the bathroom door. “Are you all right? Are you talking to yourself?”

I wrenched the door open. “Look at this!” I said, pointing to my hair.

“Looks like eggshell.”

“It won't come out.”

Morelli leaned closer under the guise of examining my hair, but he was actually looking down my towel. “Hmm,” he said.

“Listen, Morelli, I need help here.”

“We haven't got much time.”

“Help with my hair!”

“Honey, I don't know how to tell you this, but I think your hair is beyond my help. The best I could do is take your mind off it.”

I searched through the medicine chest and came up with some scissors. “Cut the egg out.”

“Oh boy.”

Five minutes later Morelli looked up from his job and met my eyes in the mirror. “That's all of it.”

“How bad is it?”

“You remember when Mary Jo Krazinski had ringworm?”

My mouth dropped open.

“It's not that bad,” Morelli said. “Mostly it's just shorter . . . in spots.” His finger traced a line along my bare shoulder. “We could be a few minutes late.”

“No! I'm not going to be late for your mother. Your mother scares the hell out of me.” His mother scared the hell out of everyone but Joe. Morelli's mother could see around corners. His father had been a drunk and a philanderer. His mother was beyond reproach. She was a housewife of heroic proportions. She never missed mass. She sold Amway in her spare time. And she didn't take crap from anyone.

Morelli slid his hand under my towel and kissed the back of my neck. “This'll only take a minute, babe.”

A burning sensation skittered through my stomach and my toes curled. “I have to get dressed,” I said. But I was thinking, Ohhhh, this feels good. And I was remembering what he'd done the night before, and that had felt even better. His hands found my breasts, and his thumb rubbed across my nipple. He whispered a few things he wanted to do to me, and I felt a little dribble of drool escape from the corner of my mouth.

Half an hour later, I was rushing around my room, searching for clothes to wear. “I can't believe I let you talk me into that!” I said. “Look how late we are!”

Morelli was fully clothed and smiling. “This cohabiting thing isn't so bad,” he said. “I don't know why I didn't try it out sooner.”

I stepped into my underpants. “You didn't try it out sooner because you were afraid to make a commitment. And in fact, you still haven't made a commitment.”

“I bought an entire carton of condoms.”

“That's a commitment to sex, not to a relationship.”

“It's a start,” Morelli said.

I glanced over at him. “Maybe.” I pulled a little cotton sundress out of the closet. It was the color of sun-?bleached straw and buttoned in the front like a shirt. I dropped the dress over my head and smoothed over a few wrinkles with my hand.

“Shit,” Morelli said. “You look great in that dress.”

I checked out his Levi's. He was hard again. “How did that happen?”