“Wow,” he said.
Awkwardly holding the phone, she quickly sent back a text. Amazing, Frankie. So proud of you. I’ll be happy to take a closer look, but it won’t be today. She sent it, tossed her phone on the night table. With a happy sigh she returned her attention to Richard. “Now that is something that really makes me happy.”
“You’re close to him, aren’t you?”
“Absolutely,” she said. “He’s been a confidant for a couple years now.”
Richard gently kissed her on the cheek and nose. “A lot of people are in your life, aren’t there?”
She slid her hands to his cheekbones, gently stroking the strong bones under his eyes. “That doesn’t mean my life is full,” she said. “There’s plenty of room for one more, right here beside me.”
He smiled down at her, and she was entranced by the insecurities she could see peeking through his gaze. She asked him, “Don’t you ever feel that you aren’t good enough or that you don’t belong.”
“How did you know that’s what I was thinking?” he joked.
She slipped her finger down to his mouth to stop him from talking. “Because I can see it,” she said. “Remember that one thing that I do as I paint? When I paint, I see other people. I see inside people.”
“I need to ask you a few questions,” he admitted.
“I know. There will be lots of questions for all of us for a long time,” she said.
“The luminescence, the light.”
“It took me a long time to perfect that,” she said, “but the answer is so damn simple.” She slid her arm up around his neck. “We can talk about that later too.”
He lowered his head and kissed her deeply, her body completely melting underneath him. She wrapped her arms around him and held him close, feeling tears welling up in her eyes. She was just so grateful to be alive and to have him in her life.
His hand stroked her breast, and he lowered his head to take the nipple into his mouth, suckling, and she cried out, her body arching under his attentions. When he did the same for the second one, she was already shuddering and quaking at his touch. After all, these past several days had seemed like one long foreplay session. Plus it had been a long time for her. And the fact that being with Richard was so special and so new, just made it all that more poignant.
Her skin was supersensitive, her heart already melting, and her belly, well, everything south of her navel was more than ready for his attention.
He slid a hand over her hip, down her thigh, across her knee, to her calf, only to slide up the inside of her calf and thigh. But to completely miss the tiny triangle of curls that she left there.
When he wouldn’t go there, she whispered, “You’re a tease.”
He chuckled. “Maybe,” he said. “But I want to make sure that you’re ready for me.”
“Are you kidding?” she said. “I’ve been ready for days.”
“I know,” he said, “and I’m sorry. I didn’t want to drag it out, but I also didn’t want to cross a line that would compromise the case.”
She reached out, pulling him up to her, and said, “I knew that, and I understood.”
He kissed her again and again. “Not many would,” he whispered.
“I do,” she said.
“You have the parameters of your work, and I have the parameters of my work,” he said. “It is what it is on both counts.”
“Got it,” she said, kissing him on his lips, on his neck, on those incredible cheekbones. “It feels so damn special to be here with you right now,” she said. “I just feel so thankful to be alive.”
He kissed her again. “You have no idea how I felt when Frankie called and said you had disappeared.”
She placed a finger across his lips. “Stop,” she said. “We got through it, and we’ll get through the rest too.”
“Just some questions. There won’t be a trial. The suspect is dead.”
She winced at that, and Richard immediately kissed her, as if that would heal the wound. She had to admit it went a long way toward making it easier. She slid her leg up his calf, up his buttocks, and noted he had no boxers on. She stopped and stared at him. “Did you sleep in the buff?”
He chuckled. “I sure did,” he said, “but then so did you.”
She shrugged. “I did, but I’m not sure that it was deliberate. I was so exhausted.”
“Well, in my case, it was deliberate,” he said. “I’ve been sleeping this way the last couple nights in your bed next to you.”
She stared at him in shock.
He chuckled. “And I’m kind of disappointed you didn’t notice.”
Her laughter rang out. “You know what? I can understand that.” The surety that she was right where she needed to be overwhelmed her. The knowledge that he was hers and that she was his. She couldn’t even begin to plan for all eternity, but she was damn happy to take it one day at a time, just as they had been. She tugged him to her and said, “Now, please. I want you inside me now.”
He settled back ever-so-slightly and whispered, “I don’t think you’re quite ready.” And he lowered his head to kiss her across her cheek and on her earlobe and down her neck, across to her collarbone. Meanwhile his hand slid across her hip, between her thighs, and just his thumb played with the little nub between the soft folds.
Her hips arched up, and she cried out. “No. That’s not true,” she said, her head twisting from side to side. “I was ready days ago.”
“I know,” he said. “I just want to make sure this is all about you.”
Her eyes opened, and she stared at him. “This isn’t about me or you,” she said. “This is about us. This is about us being the best that we can be together.”
He aligned his body with hers, sliding
