The sauna.
Malone points to the door. “Wait for me in there.”
I obey. I don’t even consider arguing, not when the idea of letting heat work its way into my tired body sounds like a little slice of heaven right now. I know that’s not all that’s on the menu, and it only makes my anticipation grow. The sauna is a square room with a wooden bench seat in a U-shape against three of the walls.
A few minutes later, Malone returns, wrapped in a white towel. She perches on the bench next to me and lets out a long sigh. She closes her eyes and rests her head against the wall. “Relax.”
Relax. Is that supposed to be a joke? How am I supposed to relax when a mostly naked Malone is sitting six inches away?
I shift to face her. Now is the time to put some distance between us, to accept the boon of silence she’s obviously intent on offering me. Except… I don’t want to. “Malone.”
“You are outstandingly terrible at following orders.”
She’s not wrong. And yet, I can’t seem to stop myself from reaching out and running my finger along her sharp collarbones. Her skin is already dewy with sweat, just like mine, and I find the sight intoxicating.
“Aurora.”
I ignore the warning in her tone and skate my fingers down to the spot where her towel is tucked into a fastening over her chest. The tiniest of tugs, and it slithers free.
“Aurora.” She opens her eyes. “What are you doing?”
“I don’t know.” I shift to my knees in front of her and part the towel, pushing it aside to bare her body. Malone isn’t flawless, for all that she’s so gorgeous, it actually hurts to look at her. There’s a small scattering of scars on her torso and one on her thigh that looks like it might have been a bullet wound. But, gods, the strength poised in her narrow frame. I place my hands on her thighs and coast them up her hips and sides, inching closer.
“You don’t know.” She arches a brow, but I don’t miss the way she parts her legs a little more to make room for me.
“No.” I lean forward and rub my face over her breasts. Even after coming so much today, I’m practically shaking with need from being this close to her. “I just…need you right now.”21MaloneEvery time I think I understand Aurora, that I can anticipate her moves, she throws me a curveball. Another time, I might luxuriate in the surprise to have her kneeling between my legs, running her soft hands over my body. Another time, I might play this out beat by beat, twining the pleasure around us until we’re both shaking with need.
Another time.
Now, I simply sit and let her touch me. Let her trace patterns over my skin and follow them with her heated gaze. For once, there’s no conflict in her dark eyes when she looks at me. Simply desire. This woman looks at me like she’s not sure if she wants to start at the top or the bottom, but she’s most certainly going to get to every inch, given enough time.
She leans down and presses a line of kisses from my sternum to my lower stomach. Soft. Sweet, and yet not sweet at all. “Do your shipments often come up short?”
I exhale. “Mining for information?”
“Not really.” She drags her tongue over my hipbone. “Just seems like something you’d want to handle yourself.”
As tempting as it is to shut down this line of conversation, I have the strangest desire to make her understand. “When you run a territory, you can’t drop a nuclear bomb for every little transgression.”
She pauses and looks up at me. “You’re the nuclear bomb?”
“Yes.” I give in to the urge to stroke my fingers over her temple. “Sara and their team are more than capable of handling things like this, and it allows the threat of me to be maintained.” I should leave it there, but I find myself continuing. “They don’t deserve my personal attention; it wouldn’t do for them to get ideas.”
“Bringing a shotgun to a knife fight.”
I give a tight smile. “Yes, something like that.”
She’s still watching me closely. “But why not do that? It’d stop any dissent in its tracks. People would fall all over themselves to prove their loyalty.”
While she’s not wrong, it exhausts me just thinking about it. “I am feared, Aurora. With good reason, and by design, but it doesn’t change the fact that it wears on a person to see terror in the eyes of every person they come across.”
“But your people love you.” She sits back, trailing her fingers down my thighs. “Your employees for both businesses worship the ground you walk on.”
“They still fear me.”
She opens her mouth, stops to reconsider, and finally shrugs. “Power has a price.”