He began playing “Why Don’t You Do Right,” and to his delight, she started right in. Entranced, he watched her expressions as he played, took in the vibrations of her beautiful voice. While she sang, she kept her eyes shut, seeming to feel every note.
The song ended, and her eyes fluttered open. “You play very well, Professor.” She gave him a smile that lit her eyes. “What do you think? We’re not too bad, huh?”
He swallowed, trying to coat his dry throat. It was all he could do to keep from throwing the guitar aside and pulling her against him. “Not bad,” he rasped. “You have such a pretty voice.”
An hour later, they were still making music together. Lily stood in front of the fireplace, her voice sending chills dancing up and down his spine as she belted out a final chorus. Hobbes lounged on an armchair, her tail flicking in time to the song that poured from Lily’s soul.
When it ended, Gage clapped and whistled with all he had. Lily took bows in all directions and even gave him a goofy curtsy, erupting in laughter. She looked as though she belonged there. Maybe because she did.
Without doubt, she was the most perfect woman he’d ever known.
When he’d first spotted her at the wedding, he’d been struck by her music. That had morphed into like at first sight. Lust at first sight. But love at first sight? He hadn’t believed the phenomenon existed, but now he was reconsidering. How else could he explain feeling so much so intensely so fast?
The notion threw him, and he masked his discomfort by strumming a random tune. She closed her eyes and waved her arms gracefully above her head like sea grass swaying in a current. Her top crept up, and a stripe of creamy skin flashed him. He pictured what was concealed beneath the sweater, and his cock stirred. Again.
He was resigned to the fact that he’d be in a permanent state of semi or full wood around her. She opened her eyes again and glided her hands down her sides with a sultry smile.
Fuck yeah! Semi became steel in a nanosecond. He put the guitar aside. “I like.”
She cocked an eyebrow. “Maybe we should clean up the kitchen? I’ll help.”
“Kitchen. Right.” Cockblocked by dirty dishes.
When he finished loading the dishwasher, she came up behind him and wrapped her arms around his waist. “Almost done, Professor?”
He turned in her hold. She raised up on tiptoe and gave him a kiss that zapped all conscious thought.
“Hey,” he breathed when they uncoupled their lips. “I’m feeling a little dirty. Bath?”
She smirked. “Dirty as in dirty, or dirty as in filthy?”
“Yes.” He waggled his eyebrows.
The look she gave him could’ve scorched his pants off. He picked her up in his arms, and she began giggling and kicking her legs.
“Settle down now,” he laughed. “Don’t make me play harem fireman and throw you over my shoulder.”
She stopped kicking, dropped her arms around his shoulders, and he wasted no time carrying her upstairs.
Chapter 22
Phantom Shadows
Lily lay between Gage’s legs, her back to his front, steamy water lapping around her torso. Singing with him had been … magical. Like nothing she’d felt since Jack’s death. And like Jack had always done, Gage complimented her singing, though she picked up an awe in Gage’s tone she’d never heard in Jack’s.
The comparison caused a tear inside her where guilt rushed in. Suddenly, Jack’s presence clouded her mind, and she once again questioned her loyalty. She shouldn’t be here with Gage. But she was. And being here, with him, was where she wanted to be. At least for tonight. Was that so wrong?
“Where’d you go, Goldilocks?”
Gage’s voice stirred her back to his tub. How had he sensed her mind floating off to a distant time and place? “I guess I just drifted for a moment. How did you know?”
“You seemed to tense up.”
Willing her muscles to relax against Gage, she pushed Jack’s ghost from her mind and focused on her surroundings: the luxurious stone-and-tile bathroom, the pines swaying outside the window, Gage’s bent knees that she used like armrests.
Armrestsof a throne. Queen Lily. Queen Lily and her sex stud.
Oh yeah.
His chin resting on her head, her sex stud scooped water over her bare shoulders and breasts. She closed her eyes and let her senses fill with the smell of burning vanilla-scented candles, the sound of blues playing softly in the background, and the feel of Gage’s hard planes against her. One especially hard plane—well, rod, to be more precise—had been lodged along the channel of her spine since they’d climbed into his tub-for-two. He seemed to be in no hurry to do anything with it.
“How do you like the tub so far?” he asked.
“Your tub is awesome.”
His fingertips feathered across a spot on her shoulder. “Looks like I got a little carried away earlier and left a mark. Does this hurt?”
She craned her neck but couldn’t see. “No, I don’t feel anything. What kind of mark?”
“A big hickey.”
She let out a laugh. “I don’t think I’ve had a hickey since high school.”
“I don’t think I’ve given one since high school.” He drizzled water over the spot he’d been inspecting. “Lean forward.”
When she did, he turned on a hand-held sprayer and worked it over her head and neck. Then he dispensed shampoo into his palm and began rubbing it into her hair, building up a thick lather.
She dropped her head back. “That feels soooooo good,” she moaned.
Wordlessly, he kneaded her scalp. She pushed into his touch like a lazy cat. He rinsed her hair and pulled her back against him. As she drifted in bliss, she was vaguely aware he was soaping his big hands. Those hands began massaging her shoulders, her arms, her fingers, and glided to her breasts where
