“Really? Well, well. She might’ve stopped by early, like you did. I hope not, but—”
“He came out when I started rounding up the dogs. He blushed.”
“Aw.” She crooned it, then laughed. “That’s so sweet.” After she set the jar down on the bathroom counter, she pulled the band from her hair—shook out all that rose gold.
He went rock hard.
“Strip it off,” she ordered. “Let’s see if I can make you blush.”
“I don’t blush, and I’m not sweet.”
“We’ll see.” She tugged off her shirt, but flicked his hand away when he reached out. “Uh-uh. A deal’s a deal. Let’s get wet.”
Maybe it was another way of focusing, channeling, blocking out. But who was he to complain? Naked, he stepped under the spray. “Your bathroom needs to be updated and redesigned.”
“I’ll take that under advisement.” She made a circle with her finger, so he turned around and gave her his back. “It feels a little rough,” she told him as she scooped the scrub out of the jar. “But in a good way.”
She began to rub it over his back in slow, steady circles. “The texture, the flesh-to-flesh contact, the aroma—all add to the experience. Your skin wakes up and feels more—Uh-uh,” she said again, when he reached back. “I do the touching till we’re done. Hands on the wall, Doyle.”
“Did you get naked in the shower at the spa for this?”
“No. I’m adjusting it for home use. You smell wonderful already, and mmmm, smooth.” She leaned in, let her breasts ride over his back before using more scrub farther down. “Is this all right?” she asked as she circled those firm hands over his ass.
“Yeah.”
“Why don’t you close your eyes, relax? I’ll just keep going until you tell me to stop.”
Those hands ran down his legs, the rough texture tingling over his skin to be sluiced away by the spray, then explored by her lips, her tongue.
Need banged in his blood until his hands on the wall were fists. Rich scent curled in the steam, became erotic until even drawing a breath aroused to aching.
“Fiona.”
“Just a little more,” she murmured. “I haven’t even started on the front yet. You’ll be... unbalanced. Turn around, Simon.”
She knelt in front of him, water gleaming off her skin, sleeking her hair back. “I’ll just start down here, and work my way up.”
“I want you. You couldn’t need for me to want you more than this.”
“You’ll have me, as much as you want. But let’s see if you can hold out till I finish. Let me finish, and you can do whatever you want with me.”
“Jesus Christ, Fiona. You drive me insane.”
“I want to. That’s what I want tonight. But not yet.”
He reached down for her hands, let out a strained laugh. “Don’t even think about putting that stuff on my—”
“That’s not what I’m going to put there.” She skimmed her tongue over him until he bit back a moan. “Can you hold out?” she murmured, torturing him with her mouth as her hands worked up his legs, over his belly. “Can you hold out until you’re inside me? Hot and hard inside me. That’s what I want when I’m done. I want you to take me and use me until I can’t stand it, then I want you to take me and use me more. I won’t tell you to stop. I won’t tell you to stop until you’re done.”
She took him to the edge, then those tormenting lips slicked over his belly, up his chest, while her hands circled, circled.
“The water’s going cold,” she murmured against his mouth. “We should—”
He put her back to the wet wall. “You’ll have to take it, and me.”
“Deal’s a deal.” Her breath caught and shuddered out when he slid his hand between her legs.
“Wider.”
She gripped his shoulders, shuddered once as his eyes burned into hers. As he drove into her, they burned still. He took her, ruthlessly, so that her cries echoed with the slap of wet flesh, the sizzle of cold water. When her head fell on his shoulder, he continued to thrust while his hands made rough use of her body.
His own release ripped through him and left him raw.
He managed to shut off the water and pull her out. When she staggered, he half carried her to the bed. They dropped onto it wet and breathless.
“What do you—” She broke off, let out a whistling breath, cleared her throat. “What do you say about honey almond now?”
“I’ll be buying a case of it.”
She laughed, then her eyes popped open as he straddled her. His eyes, still hot, met hers as his thumbs flicked over her nipples. “I’m not done yet.”
“But—”
“I’m not done.” Leaning over her, he took her hands, lifted them, clamped them around the iron rungs. “Leave them there. You’re going to need something to hold on to.”
“Simon.”
“What I want, as much as I want,” he reminded her, and slid down, lifted her hips. “Until I’m finished.”
The breath trembled between her lips now, but she nodded. “Yes.”
Eighteen
As a sop to healthier eating, Fiona tossed some strawberries onto her Froot Loops. She ate them leaning against the kitchen counter, watching Simon drink coffee leaning against the one across from her.
“You’re stalling,” she decided. “Stretching out another cup of coffee so you’re here until people start coming in for the first class.”
He reached into the cereal box she’d yet to put away, took a handful. “So?”
“I appreciate it, Simon, nearly as much as I appreciate being sexed into a coma last night. But it’s not necessary.”
“I’m drinking this coffee until I finish.” He experimented by dunking a Froot Loop into the coffee. Sampled.
Not half bad.
“I’m staying until I leave,” he continued. “If you have something you have to do, go do it, but I’m not leaving you alone. Deal with it.”
She scooped up more cereal, munched it while she studied him. “You know, somebody else might’ve said, ‘Fee, I’m concerned about you, and I don’t want to take any chances with your safety so I’m going to be here for you.’”
He dunked a couple more. “Somebody else isn’t here.”
“That’s very true, and maybe there’s something perverse in me that prefers your method.” He might’ve been dunking colorful rounds of cereal into his coffee like tiny doughnuts, but he looked scruffy and irritable. God, why did she love that? “What are we going to do about this, Simon?”
“I’m going to drink my coffee.”
“And, using the coffee as a metaphor, are you going to keep drinking it until they catch the person who’s killing those women, and may want to add me to his scorecard?”
“Yes.”
She nodded, ate more cereal. “Then stop hauling that stupid duffel over here every night. I’ll give you room in the closet, clean out a drawer. If you’re sleeping here, it’s ridiculous not to leave some of your things here. You deal with it.”
“I’m not living here.”
“Understood.” He’d inconvenience himself for her, but he’d be careful not to step over the next line. “You’re just hanging out here, and drinking coffee with coffee-soaked Froot Loops—”
“It’s pretty good.”
“I’ll put it on the menu. And sleeping here after making crazed love with me in the shower.”
“That was your idea.”
She laughed. “And a damn good one. Restrictions that apply are acknowledged. Leave your damn toothbrush in the bathroom, Simon, you idiot. Put your underwear in a drawer and hang up a couple of shirts in the closet.”
“I’ve already got a shirt in the closet. You washed it because I left it on the floor.”
“That’s right. And if you leave clothes on the floor, they’re going to get washed and put away whether you like it or not. If I can agree to you drinking coffee, you can agree not to haul that duffel back and forth like a security blanket.”
When his eyes narrowed, she narrowed hers back at him. And smiled. “What? Did that hit the mark?”