“Which the machine will do.” He simply lifted her to her feet.
“Look I’m not ready to sleep yet.”
“All right. There are other ways to rest, relax, and take a break.”
“Yeah.” She smirked. “You’d think that.”
“Sex, sex, and more sex. And you wonder why I married you.”
“You’ll just have to put that program on hold,” she said, but he pulled her through the bedroom, bypassing the bed, and into the bathroom.
He’d filled the enormous tub sunk into the floor. She could smell the fragrance of the water, something slightly floral and earthy. Soothing. He’d lit candles so the light shimmered soft, and again soothing.
“A warm bath,” he began. “Or as I know you, hot. Some quiet, and a VR program designed to relax and restore.”
As she’d taken off her jacket and weapon harness in the office, he simply lifted her shirt over her head. “Sit and we’ll deal with the boots.”
“I can undress myself.”
“There you are, denying me my small pleasures.”
So she sat on the padded stool, let him undress her. When she stepped down, then sank into the pale blue perfumed water, her sigh was long and deep.
“Okay, it’s good.”
“Jets on low,” he ordered, and now she moaned as the water pulsed against her aching muscles.
“Okay, even better.”
“Let’s shoot for best. Try the VR.”
She didn’t want virtual reality, and though it made her feel weak and stupid, she didn’t want to be alone. What she wanted was standing there watching her with far too much concern.
“You could stand to rest, relax, and take a break.”
“God, couldn’t I.”
“It’s a really big tub. You could practically do laps.”
“Then I’ll join you. One minute.”
When he left she eased back, looked up. The ceiling wasn’t mirrored—thank Jesus—but some sort of reflective material that caught the candlelight and sparked into little stars.
Nice touch.
He came back with two glasses of wine, which she eyed suspiciously.
“Only wine. My word on it.” He set the glasses on the lip to undress.
If he’d tranq’d it, he wouldn’t lie about it. So she picked one up, tried a small sip.
“Beer and a ball game.”
“What’s that?”
“Beer and a ball game,” she repeated. “That’s how cops wind down from the hard. Not with pool-sized jet tubs and wine.”
“It’s terrible how I make you indulge me.”
“Tell me,” she murmured, watching him.
God, his body was so beautiful. Long, lean, carved with muscle. Disciplined, athletic, primal under the exquisitely tailored business suits.
All hers now. Only hers.
The wince and muffled oath he gave when he stepped into the water got a laugh out of her.
“It’s not that hot.”
“If I had a lobster, we’d boil it and eat it.”
“You set the temp.”
“So I did, and now, with no lobster in sight, we’re boiling my balls.”
He’d set it for her, she thought, so she could soak in the heat and the scent, turn off her mind with some relaxation program. She thought of what she’d overheard him saying to Mira, how he’d looked.
He needed this as much as she did.
“You’ve probably got more than Hong Kong to deal with.”
Eyes closed, he sipped wine. “The advantage of holding the reins is you can choose when to put them down for a bit.”
“Maybe you should try the VR.”
He opened his eyes. “Actual reality suits me fine here and now.”
As they faced each other across the bubbling water, she rubbed her foot along his leg. “One way or another, we’ll be going home within a couple days.”
“Couldn’t be soon enough.”
“Oh, so right there with you. I guess we have to go find cowboy boots for Peabody. She’d get a charge, and Feeney said she was doing good.”
“I’m sorry, perhaps the wine’s going to my head. Are you saying I’m going shopping with my wife?”
“Don’t get used to it, pal.”
“How about a ten-gallon hat for Feeney?”
The image of Feeney in a cowboy hat released a laugh that nearly had her choking on her wine. “You did that on purpose.”
“Spurs and chaps for McNab. Glow-in-the-dark.”
She laughed again, sank to her chin. “And I don’t even know what chaps are.”
But the laugh, he noted with pleasure, put a sparkle in her eyes.
“We’ll take bolo ties back for the bullpen,” he continued.
“Oh, Jesus, the horror.”
“One of those little skirts with the fringe for Mavis.”
“She probably already has a dozen.”
Virtual reality, her ass, she decided as he tossed out more foolish suggestions—some of which he probably intended to follow up on. Soaking here in quietly churning water, candle stars sparking overhead, talking about nothing important, nothing tragic.
When she’d finished the wine, when the water began to cool, they stepped out. Before she could reach for a towel he wrapped one, warm and soft, around her.
“Why don’t we watch some screen for a while?”
She turned, opening the towel, wrapping him in with her. “We could do that. Is that the next step of spaghetti and meatballs?”
“That was the plan.”
She looked up at him; everything inside him yearned. “But apparently I missed a step,” he murmured, then laid his lips on hers.
“You never miss a step.”
So he deepened the kiss, let himself fall into the moment with her damp body pressed so eagerly to his, with the dreamy scent of the water clinging to her skin.
When he lifted her, the towel fell away.
No words now; they’d both had enough of them. Enough of storms and soothing. She stayed wrapped around him on the bed, holding on, holding on while her lips roamed his face. Already stirred, already lost, he took his hands over her.
Quick, quick, no time for thinking, he took her up, felt her body arch and shudder. Accept.
Strong mind, strong needs, he thought. He’d fill them, fill her and himself. For a little while the ugly stains of the day would be cleansed.
For a little while, pleasure and passion would smother pain.
His heart drummed against hers. It brought her a thrill, that hard, frantic beat. But more, it restored. His life, beating there against hers. Their lives.
Nothing could change that, no nightmare, no shame, no poison in the blood. She’d brought herself out of the dark, but she’d come to crave the light he’d flooded into her world.
That light shot through her like a thousand arrows when he pushed her to climax.
