I unlocked the rear of the salon and stepped inside the kitchenette. From inside the salon came the happy sounds of music playing through the speakers and a lot of chatter going on. It was precisely what I needed right then, so I did something I rarely did. I entered Josh’s space and just watched him work. Seeing him talking and smiling with his client as he straightened her hair lifted my spirits.
“Big Daddy’s home!” Savage announced loud enough for everyone to hear.
Everyone turned their heads and looked at me, but I only had eyes for one person. Josh’s smile from seeing me slid from his face because I probably wore the strain of the day on mine. Worry clouded his pretty hazel eyes, and I just couldn’t handle being the reason he lost the sparkle in his eyes. I went to him, realizing that every eye in the salon was on the two of us. I hooked my finger in his apron strings that he had to wrap around his slender frame twice before tying and tugged him to me.
“I’m happy to see you, Sunshine.” I dropped a sweet kiss on his forehead that lingered for a few seconds. “I feel so much better now.”
“Well, I don’t,” Josh said sassily, but the sparkle I adored so much had returned. “Now I’ll be thinking about you being upstairs while I’m trying to work.”
“Not sorry,” I fired right back.
“Lucky for you, it’s an early night for me,” Josh said. I knew I was dismissed when he turned back to his client.
I waved at Chaz and dropped a quick kiss on Meredith’s cheek before I grabbed Savage’s cage and headed upstairs. Buddy met me exuberantly while Diva worked really hard to pretend like she was ignoring me. I had heard how much she loved Kyle and I felt the irrational desire to win her over until she liked me more, which was why I gave her a few extra kitty treats before I grabbed a cold beer and headed toward the bathroom.
My skin had begun to itch from my need to get clean. I knew that the stench of death and decay clung to my clothes, skin, and hair. I shouldn’t have touched Josh until I washed the misery away, but I couldn’t resist his goodness and light. I turned the temperature hotter than I normally liked, but not as hot as Josh preferred, to scald the day off my mind, body, and soul. I sipped the cold beer while I let the hot water beat down on my tense shoulders and neck for several long minutes.
Once the beer was gone, I set the empty bottle on the shelf and began scrubbing my body hard. I didn’t think that one pass with the washcloth was enough and kept scrubbing until my skin was red and felt like thousands of little needles poked me from head to toe. It was then that I realized the tingling sensation was from the water turning cold. Josh’s hot water tank was a fairly big one, which meant I was in the shower longer than I had realized.
I shut off the water and ran a towel over my body before I stepped over the edge of the tub and onto the fluffy rug there. Josh was sitting on the vanity waiting for me with a cold bottle of beer and a welcoming smile. There was only one thing that was going to make me feel better, and it wasn’t the beer. I took the bottle from his hand and set it on the vanity beside him then stepped between Josh’s parted legs and lifted him so that he wrapped them around my waist.
“You could’ve gotten in the shower with me instead of waiting out here,” I told him.
“I thought you might need some alone time after the day you’ve had,” Josh replied.
“What I need is you.” I captured his mouth in a kiss that was hot enough to heat my chilled flesh.
Josh pulled back from our kiss after long minutes. “You have me, Gabe. You’ll always have me.”
I carried Josh to our room and placed him on the center of the bed before I stripped his clothes off. His touch and his kiss restored my peace and reminded me of everything good I had in the world. When I slid inside him, it was the purest love I had ever felt. Every kiss, every sigh, and every whispered word of love from his mouth patched the holes that the cruelty of life tore out of my soul that morning.
I loved him with my hands, my body, and my mouth. I didn’t stop until our trembling bodies clung together as our orgasms powered through us. I rolled to my side and pulled him with me so I could hold him tight to me instead of squishing him into the mattress. I ran my fingers through his hair while he placed little kisses on my neck.
“What do you feel like eating for dinner?” he asked.
“Let’s just have pizza delivered,” I replied. I didn’t feel like cooking nor did I feel like turning loose of Josh long enough for him to whip up magic in the kitchen. After the day I had, the only person I wanted to see was him, and the only sounds I wanted to hear was his voice or the television. I needed to embrace the beautiful moments with Josh because I was reminded in the ugliest way that morning of how fragile life truly was.
GABE’S WORDS AND TOUCHeradicated the uneasy feelings I had onceEmoryshowed up at my salon. It was so easy to forget that the real world even existed when I was in his arms, but reality often found a way to make her presence known and knocked me back down to earth.Not this night,I vowed. I didn’t know what Gabe found at Mr. Robertson’s house, but I knew it had to be awful.
Gabe held me tight to him for so long that he drifted off to sleep. I didn’t want to move and wake him, but I was starving, and his after-sex snoozes could last a while. I pressed a final kiss to his neck and slowly maneuvered out of his arms until I stood next to the bed looking down at him. The deeply grooved worry lines in his forehead from earlier were gone, and his mouth looked relaxed instead of tight with tension. I just hoped they stayed gone when he woke from his little nap.
I quietly pulled on a pair of sweats and a T-shirt before I tiptoed out of the room. “Don’t you dare leave off your mushrooms,” Gabe said drowsily just as I was about to pull the bedroom door closed.
“Triple mushrooms it is,” I said saucily before shutting the door. Mushrooms were still a hotly contested issue between us. The truth was that I didn’t always want mushrooms on my pizza, but Gabe thought I left them off because of him anytime that I didn’t order them.
I retrieved my cellphone from where I left it and called Marty’s Pizzeria to place my order. “Hello, Josh,” Marty said when he answered. “You want your usual?”
“Not tonight, Marty,” I answered. “I’d like a large sausage and green pepper with extra cheese.”
“No mushrooms, huh kid?” he asked.
Damn, was he on Gabe’s payroll?“I’ll take an order of fried mushrooms and mozzarella sticks instead.”
“Be there in about thirty minutes,” Marty said then hung up the phone.
I let Jazzy out of his cage to play and run through his tunnels while I watched from the couch with Buddy. Diva—never one to be left out—jumped on the back of the couch and proceeded to bathe her paws loudly. I looked at her over my shoulder, and her pale blue eyes dared me to complain. That ornery cat wouldn’t hesitate to swat my ears with her paw.
“Come give me some tongue!” Savage squawked from his cage.
