I got up and held out my hand to him. I only had a few hours before I had to go. I wanted to sleep with him in his bed, even if he wasn’t going to fix sex for me. I shouldn’t have asked for something that selfish, but I was a villain. “I’m going to record you and use it as blackmail.”
“The way I recorded you? I suppose that’s me getting my just desserts, but I doubt my snoring will go viral. To bed.”
We walked to the master suite with our arms around each other, hip to hip, clumsy because we were too close, but close seemed to be the theme for the night. You’d think that if he didn’t mind being so close to me, he wouldn’t mind sex, but how was I supposed to understand him? If he’d been partiallyresponsible for Toni’s death, I’d never be able to forgive him, except maybe I would, because he felt so right, so absolutely perfect.
He handed me a pair of pink and white striped pajamas before he took his own pair into a bathroom. I got dressed and then followed him, taking the toothbrush he offered me then watching him brush his teeth. I’d never seen a man do that before. I’d had very separate bathrooms from Clint, and the whole thing was fascinating, the tooth brushing, and the shaving, and then him handing me the floss like it was the most natural thing in the world while I stood there in overlarge pajamas feeling utterly out of place, but at the same time, home.
I leaned against him from the back, wrapping my arms around his waist while he flossed. “I’m pretty sure you’re supposed to floss before you brush,” I mumbled against him.
He put a hand over mine, squeezing slightly. “What have I done without a wife to keep me on the straight and narrow?”
“If you sleep with anyone else, just sleeping or sex, while we’re still legally married, I’ll kill her,” I said, sounding like a sleepy koala instead of a villain.
“That’s reasonable.”
I shook my head, rubbing my forehead on his soft pajamas. “No, it’s not. Toni’s my conscience, and she knows perfectly well that the punishment should fit the crime.”
“Ah, so what would be the appropriate punishment for sleeping with someone else, just sleeping, naturally?”
“I’d have to ask Toni.”
“Never mind. No sense bothering her when the odds of me sleeping with someone else are so abysmally small, probably in the negatives. Are you going to stay like this, or are you going to let me go?”
“Stay.”
“You want to spoon me? But I’m a much bigger spoon.”
“I want to see you naked, but you refuse me. This is the appropriate punishment for that.”
“Ah. Good thing you discussed those consequences with Toni so thoroughly beforehand.” He turned around in my arms and brushed my hair away from my face, gazing down at me. “You’ve seen me mostly naked in the ring.”
I leaned against him, our buttons clashing. “And you’ve seen me mostly naked in the snow. Am I not to your taste?” I shouldn’t say that, not like I was trying for seduction while I was wearing those pajamas.
He raised a brow and then pulled up my collar so it covered my neck. “Prepare to be tasted.” He swept me up in his arms and carried me into his room. He threw me on the bed, but came with me, covering my body with his. He kissed me, holding me while he kissed me and tasted me as sweetly and thoroughly as possible. For hours we kissed while he held me and I felt adored. It’s true. Fixing sex didn’t matter when he could kiss me like this. I would never forget the way he kissed me and touched me, like I was the most delicate, precious, perfect person in the world. He kissed me like there wasn’t anything else in the world, and I drank in every drop, like it was music I was trying to capture in my soul. A song rose out of that kiss, that embrace, and it was a song like I’d never played before, simple, sweet, but with an undercurrent of happiness that would sweep me away if I let it.
And I did.
37
HERO
She left shortly after two to catch her flight. She wore those pajamas all the way to the airport on my bike, the smallest one I had, the quietest, the one that I had a sudden urgent need to customize so that it worked better for her.
Yes, I planted bugs in Jezebel’s house before she stuck me in the closet, and also afterwards, so I wasn’t unaware of her plan, and it aligned perfectly with my own, at least the defeating Philippe in business part of it. The rest, the part where she gave me up after this adventure was over, was not happening. She didn’t trust me because she’d been raised by pathological liars, but she would eventually. I’d prove over and over again that she was lovable, and that I loved her more than anyone else, and therefore deserved her trust and love in return. Being with her was better than anything, but first, there were things we needed to take care of.
“Horse. How are things?” I asked into my mic, standing on the deck of my monstrous mansion, hefting the weighty jet pack before pulling it on over my shoulders.
His response growled into my ear. “Jezebel found the bugs and burned them. That was unpleasant for my audio equipment.”
I pulled a helmet on over my barely-there receiver and then spoke into the better comms inside the helmet. “Ghost her in your chopper. You’ve got your stealth?”
“Are you seriously flying that jetpack to the club? Too bad you can’t put it in the Three-Hundred. That would get some views.”
“You sound like Nix, but we all know that you don’t care about views, other than a certain car you don’t mind keeping framed in your windshield. Keep Dani personally in your sights until she gets to the airport where Jones can take over.”
“Look at you, getting comfortable giving orders.”
“You have a problem with authority? She’s mine. My responsibility, my wife, my happiness. If I think for a second you’re putting her in danger…”
