beforehand she wanted to take a long shower, if he didn’t mind.
He thought the idea was perfect. A shower would refresh her; then they’d have a quiet dinner…and the atmosphere would make serious talk much easier.
For the first time in days, he found himself whistling. Stupid. Nothing was solved. Everything was still wrong. But as he scooped stuff out of the grocery bag, seeing peppermint ice cream and fresh basil and the whole assortment of foods he’d never have thought to buy…it just felt good. Being alone in a house with her. His house. Just her.
That rare high mood lasted all of three or four minutes.
She’d been in the bathroom long enough, so he figured he’d bring her a mug of something. Mulled cider. It was one of the things in the bag-a half gallon of cider, and then this container of what she called mulling herbs. He got it. It was a drink she liked, hot, on a chipper fall afternoon. So he heated it all, stuck a cinnamon stick in the mug, then carted it to the closed bathroom door.
He could hear the water running full-on. His intention was to open the door, leave the mug on the counter, leave before he let in any chilled air.
The first part worked out as planned. He barely cracked open the door before fragrant steam billowed out. He reached in and silently set the mug on the counter. Unfortunately, he glanced up. Even through the thick steam, even through the distorted glass of the shower doors, he could see her.
Instead of standing up, she seemed to be sitting on the shower floor with her knees drawn up.
Smells scented the air. Something like oranges and vanilla-definitely not scents he used for soaps or shampoo. He thought…well, maybe she was sitting because she was plain old tired. God knew, she’d been through enough in the last two weeks.
But the water was beating down on her head like rain. The steam kept getting thicker, harder to see, more pervasive. If he hadn’t been spying, hadn’t been right there at that moment, he’d never have heard the choked cry escape from her throat. She so obviously didn’t want to cry.
Didn’t want him to know she was crying, either.
She didn’t hear him, didn’t see him, when he pushed off his shoes, closed the door. If he’d had a brain, he’d have peeled off his clothes. But right then, he didn’t have a brain. He felt like two hundred pounds of dumb male instinct.
Her head jerked up when the shower door opened.
“I’m okay,” she said immediately. Sophie’s favorite mantra.
He wasn’t about to argue with her. He wasn’t about to talk at all. He bent down, sat down, pulled her onto him.
“Cord…” Her voice was strangled, trying to laugh. “You’re getting soaked.”
He kissed her. Hard. Just the top of her head. Then wrapped her up so tight that it hurt his ribs. Damn shower blinded him. He didn’t care. And she tried to say something else, something funny, but then out it came. Tears like a river. Fears like a storm.
“I just keep trying to understand. I never did anything to anyone. At least nothing I know of-”
“You never did anything. Stop thinking that, right now.”
“But I keep trying to figure this out. Why anyone would hate me. Why anyone would think I’d do something to hurt them, or was a risk to them-”
“No one hates you. No one could possibly hate you. And no one’s going to hurt you again.”
“But what did I
“Nothing, baby.” Hell. He’d have given anything to erase that exhausted, haunted look in her eyes. Roses. Rubies. Rivers. Anything she asked for. All that laughter and chatter with her sister had fooled him completely. He had no idea what it had cost her to bury what was really going on in her heart.
“I keep thinking about the day Jon was murdered.” When she lifted tear-soaked eyes, he brushed the wet hair from her brow. “Something must have happened, Cord. I mean, something that specific day. There had to be a catalyst, some event, something that provoked the person to kill your brother. If we knew what that was, maybe we could figure out the rest. Look. How about if we find all those people on the CDs, those women, and just give them back the darn things? We could have kind of a mass mailing. From Blackmails ’R Us. Or Ex-Blackmailers Anonymous. Or-”
Okay. He couldn’t take any more. She was trying to laugh at the same time her eyes were running with tears. She was scared when she should have been angry. Trying to make sense of something that made no sense. And all Cord could think was that she’d been through it before-her life turned upside down by circumstances she had absolutely no power or control over-so the whole mess was extra traumatic for Sophie.
Only this time, the cause wasn’t a fire.
This time, the cause was linked to him, and he hated it.
Kissing her didn’t exactly make him feel better. But it sure as hell diverted her. And if they were both going to sit there in the steaming shower, it struck Cord that this made more sense than he thought. Kissing her. Forever. With the warm water sluicing down, cleansing, soft. Her lips were slippery wet, jewels of water beading on her eyelashes, down her cheeks. Steam cloaked them in privacy.
She murmured something. A winsome cry, a song of longing.
His one arm had her nested against him, but the other traced the length of her, from collarbone to breast to abdomen to hip. He wanted to soothe, to reassure. He wanted to take, to own. He wanted to tease, to arouse.
Hell, he wanted everything. All she was, every way she was. Till kingdom come and then some.
“Cord…”
“Nothing’s going to hurt you again. Nothing. Whatever it takes, whatever I have-”
“Cord…”
“Hell. Did I hurt you? The bruises on your back?”
“Cord. The water’s turning cold. You didn’t notice?”
Of course he noticed. Or he would have. Eventually. Maybe…
He flicked off the faucets, grabbed a towel, then two, to wrap around her. Peeling off his sodden clothes took an annoying minute beyond that, and the chill of air should have cooled his jets…but didn’t.
He carried her into the bedroom, hooked around his waist, taking utmost care not to press against the sore spots on her back, but forgetting a small detail-which was to uncover her head. When he yanked off the towel, her hair was an incredibly silly tangle, but she had a siren’s smile. A Sophie smile. The wrong kind of smile, if she’d been trying to quell his mood.
His landline rang in the other room.
Then his cell rang from some coat pocket somewhere. The way things had been, both calls were likely connected to murder and mayhem.
In other words, nothing important. At least nothing important compared to Sophie.
“Don’t do it again, okay?” he murmured, as he lowered her onto the mattress, heaping the covers over them both so he could warm her.
“Do what?”
“You don’t have to hide things from me, Sophie. Not fear. Not sadness. Everybody hides stuff from the world. It’s how we protect ourselves. But you don’t have to with me, okay? No more crying in showers.”
“No more crying in showers,” she agreed.
And then she took him under. He’d thought she was tired. And low. And anxious and depressed and more or less beside herself. But in trying to carefully ease her to the mattress in a way that didn’t aggravate the welts on her back, he somehow miscalculated, because she ended up on top.
He briefly suspected she’d maneuvered it that way, but of course she hadn’t. His Sophie was buttoned up, tucked up, and especially all closed up when she was traumatized-which she certainly had been. So it had to be accidental that she ended up straddling his hips, spread so far by his width that her posture was beyond provocative. It stole a man’s breath altogether. And then she dipped down, damp hair spraying every which way, and nested kisses on his cheeks, his closed eyes, his whiskery neck, his mouth. Oh, yeah-his mouth.
She took his tongue faster than a thief, sipped and sucked, then did a wiggle thing with her hips and sank down lower.
She never learned
