“Yes,” I whispered. “Yes.”
I cupped his face in my hands. Owen snaked his arms around my waist. Our lips met somewhere in the middle.
It was a slow, languid, lingering kiss, a perfect meeting of lips and tongues and mouths and breaths. That familiar spark of desire flared to life low in my stomach, then spread through the rest of my body, but this wasn’t about giving in to that want. At least, not yet. No, this was about the silent, heartfelt promise that we were both making to each other, never to take this, us, for granted again.
Finally, the kiss ended, although I kept staring into Owen’s eyes, wondering at all the love that I saw there.
I drew away from him, got to my feet, and held out my hand. He took it.
I led Owen to a bathroom on the other side of the house, where we would have some privacy. This was the largest bathroom in the house, with two sinks and an oversize, walk-in shower that took up most of one wall.
I shut and locked the door behind us, then turned the water on in the shower. Not too cold, not too hot.
We’d both be that, soon enough.
The steady hiss of the water was the only sound as we slowly undressed each other. I helped him shrug out of his shirt. He unzipped my vest. I unbuttoned his jeans. He did the same to mine. Our clothes quickly disappeared, until we stood there naked in front of each other. I smoothed my hands over his broad, muscled shoulders and then down his chest. He traced his fingers down my neck, before leaning forward and pressing a soft kiss to the hollow of my throat, making me shiver.
I held my hand out again. He took it, and I drew him into the shower.
Steam rose all around us as I grabbed the soap, lathered up my hands, and ran my fingers over his body, from his slightly crooked nose to his flat stomach and strong legs and all the way down to his toes. I went slowly and carefully, gently washing off all the blood and dirt of his battle with Grimes and Hazel. Owen had done the same thing for me once upon a time, and it seemed fitting to return the gesture. A fresh start, a clean slate, a new beginning, in more ways than one.
I kissed every spot that I cleaned, lightly nipping at some of the more sensitive areas with my teeth. By the time I’d worked my way down to his cock, he was more than ready for me. I kissed that too, running my lips and tongue all over him.
Owen groaned. “If you keep doing that, this shower is going to be shorter than either one of us wants it to be.”
I grinned and kept up with my ministrations a minute longer before kissing my way back up his body.
“Tease,” he muttered in a hoarse voice, his violet eyes as bright as amethysts.
“And don’t you love it.”
He grinned and reached for the shampoo.
Owen turned me around so that my back was to him,
then started washing my hair. I moaned at the feel of his fingers digging into my scalp. Soap suds cascaded down my body, and Owen’s fingers quickly followed. Still behind me, he cupped my breasts in his hands, his fingers circling and massaging my nipples before moving lower.
His fingers tangled in the curls at the junction of my thighs before sliding lower still. He dipped his fingers inside me, rubbing slow, lazy circles that made every part of me thrum with desire.
I arched back against him. “Tease.”
“And don’t you love it,” he whispered, mocking me with my own words.
He stroked me until I was just as ready for him as he was for me. I turned around to face him, and we moved together with one thought. Our lips met and opened, our tongues stroking together, slow and soft at first, then quicker and more demanding as our hunger built. The water trailed down our bodies, and our hands followed suit, gliding, stroking, caressing, even as our kisses grew harder and greedier.
Owen left the shower long enough to grab a condom from his wallet. I took my little white pills, but we always used extra protection.
He stepped back into the warm spray of water. I reached for him, but he was quicker. He picked me up, put my back against the wall, and slid into me with one smooth thrust. I groaned and wrapped my legs around his waist, my hands digging into his shoulders.
“Now, this would be teasing,” Owen rasped against my lips.He withdrew, then surged into me again, making me groan once more.
“I think I’ve had enough teasing,” I said, nipping at his lower teeth with my lip. “Haven’t you?”
He responded by thrusting into me again, even deeper than before. My nails dug into his skin. Oh, yeah. We were definitely done teasing.
What started out slow, soft, and sweet quickly boiled up into something quick, hard, and wickedly good.
Owen thrust into me over and over again, and I matched him, rocking my hips against his. Our movements were so quick, so hard, so frantic, that my wet back slid down the shower wall. Owen growled and lowered me to the ground, the water pounding into his back even as he kept moving inside me, going deeper and deeper.
We rolled together, and then I was on top. I drew back, then rocked my hips forward in a long, slow glide that finally sent us both over the edge. Owen growled again, even lower and fiercer than before, and pulled me down on top of him. His lips met mine, both of us sucking the air out of each other’s mouth, even as we moved together in that perfect rhythm.
And then . . . bliss—pure, white-hot bliss that blotted out everything else.
I collapsed on top of him. Owen pressed his lips to my temple and pulled me even closer, cradling me in the strong circle of his arms. I rested my face in the curve of his neck. No words were necessary. Not now.
And we stayed like that for a long, long time, the water cascading down all around us.
Chapter Thirty-one
Three days later, the news broke about the grisly discovery of dozens of bodies at what looked like a small encamp— ment in the mountains above Ashland. A couple of retired folks who were hiking part of the Appalachian Trail apparently noticed legions of flies in the clearing at Grimes’s camp and went to investigate. They probably wished that they had just kept on walking.
But the hikers made a frantic call to the forest service, which in turn called in the po-po. Bria and Xavier were lucky—or unlucky—enough to be assigned to the case.
The po-po set up a staging area at the picnic tables in the park at the bottom of Bone Mountain, which was where I was right now. Bria had been practically living on the mountain for two days straight, and I’d brought her some food from the Pork Pit, along with enough for her to share with Xavier and her fellow boys in blue. I figured
that it was only fair, since I’d created a good portion of the mess that they were dealing with now.
Bria, Xavier, and I were sitting at one of the blue fiberglass picnic tables, several feet away from everyone else.
The two of them were scarfing down cheeseburgers with all the fixings, along with crispy steak-cut fries, coleslaw, potato salad, and some double-chocolate-chip cookies that I’d baked fresh that morning.
“We’ve got more than three dozen bodies in the pit alone,” Bria said, washing down a bite of burger with some raspberry lemonade that I’d also made. “All in various states of decay. Not to mention all of the men that you killed.”
Xavier nudged Bria with his elbow. “Tell her about the coroner.”
She snorted. “Oh, he’s having an absolute field day with all of this. You’d think that he was a kid, and it was christmas morning, given how giddy he is. It’s like he actually enjoys working on dead people.”
Speaking of the coroner, he was taking a break too and standing in the food line with some of the other cops and crime-scene techs. He held out his plate, and Sophia dished him up some baked beans and fries, and a thick, hearty, barbecued-beef sandwich. He noticed me watching him. He smiled and gave me a cheery wave
