“It accidentally got blown up.”
Morelli turned and focused on me. “Car bomb?”
“Hand-held rocket.”
The line of his mouth tightened a little, and his eyes narrowed ever so slightly. “It was an accident?”
“I was on Stark Street.”
“That explains it,” Morelli said, his attention back to the bag of food.
He ate the chocolate cake first. He gave some potatoes to Bob. And he put the rest in the fridge for later.
“This is a nice surprise,” he said, settling back into the couch. “Do you want to take your clothes off?”
“Whatever happened to romance? What about foreplay?”
“Foreplay goes faster without clothes.”
“Fast is important?”
Morelli flicked his eyes back to the television. “They’re changing the pitcher. We probably have ten minutes.”
“I need more than ten minutes.”
Morelli grinned at me, and his eyes got soft and dark. “I know.”
“And I get distracted by television.”
He remoted the television off. “Yeah, I know that too.”
“What happens after ten minutes and the new pitcher’s ready to go?”
“Fireworks. And then you tell me I’m amazing.”
“Suppose there aren’t fireworks after ten minutes?”
“I’m no quitter,” Morelli said.
I knew this to be true. “I think I’m getting in the mood,” I said to him. “And I can see you’re already a couple steps ahead of me.”
“You noticed.”
“Hard not to.”
He nuzzled my neck, popped the snap at the top of my jeans, and slid the zipper down. “Let me help you catch up.”
FOUR
MORELLI IS ALWAYS fully awake at the crack of dawn, ready to go out and enforce the law or, if I’m in his bed, to grab a quickie while I’m still half asleep. I opened an eye and saw that he was moving around in the dimly lit room. He was clean-shaven, his hair was still damp from his shower, and he was dressed in slacks and a blue dress shirt.
“Is this dress-up Friday?” I asked him.
“I have court.” He took his watch off the nightstand and slipped it on. “I’ll probably be there most of the morning.”
I looked under the covers. I was naked. “Did we have sex this morning?”
“Yeah. You thanked me after and said it was great.”