She lifted her forearm just enough that she could turn her head and glance at Sullivan. He was not lying on his back. He was on his side, propped up on an elbow and watching her. She immediately lowered her forearm.
“Are you hiding?” he asked. “Seems out of character, but then maybe it isn’t.”
“I amnothiding.” She peeked at him again. “Well, maybe a little. Just for a while. You about destroyed me.”
“Is that good?”
“I think so. I’m still collecting parts and pieces of myself.”
“Huh.” He threw back the covers and rolled out of bed, then padded naked to the adjoining bathroom and closed the door.
Ramsey heard water running. She hoped he wasn’t long. She needed to use the facilities. Sitting up, she looked around for her clothes and recalled with no little embarrassment that they were scattered from front door to bedroom door. She wriggled out from under the covers and went to the closet. It was a walk-in, a little less than half the size of the master bedroom, with a washer, dryer, ironing board, hanging rack, and fitted with customized rods, shelves, drawers, and cubbies for clothes and shoes. She pulled a crisp, barely pink, Oxford cloth button down shirt, off a no-slip hanger and put it on. She was still buttoning it when Sullivan came out of the bathroom.
He stopped a few feet into the bedroom and looked her over. “No question about it,” he said. “You wear it better.”
“And that towel looks good on you.” She rolled up the sleeves to three-quarter length. “Slate gray. Matches your eyes. Was that intentional?” When he gave her a look that said she had clearly lost her mind, she shrugged. “Guess not.”
Sullivan started to give way as Ramsey headed for the bathroom, but then he changed his mind, caught her around the waist and pulled her in. Not only didn’t she resist, she angled her body so she fit perfectly against him. “Hey,” he said quietly.
She smiled in return, looked up at him. “Hey.”
He chuckled. “I think we can safely say we’ve overcome post-coital awkwardness.”
“Not if you don’t let me go. I have to pee.”
He kissed her, and in deference to the urgency she noted, the kiss was neither too long, too slow, or too deep. She didn’t move when he lifted his head. She might have even leaned into him. He cupped her elbows and gave her a nudge in the direction of the bathroom.
“Yeah,” she said vaguely. “Right. I remember.” She slipped into the bathroom, closed the door, and leaned against it. “Breathe.” She remained there for a good long minute until the taste and pressure and warmth of that last kiss faded to memory. “You’re rolling in the deep,” she said under her breath, then she pushed away from the door and attended to her needs.
Sullivan traded his towel for a pair of jeans from his closet and then retraced the path he and Ramsey had blazed from the bedroom to the front door, following the discarded clothing as if the items were bread crumbs. She was still in the bathroom when he returned, so he set her things down on a wicker chair and tossed his on the ironing board in the closet.
“Are you all right?” he called.
“No,” she called back. “I can’t find a toothbrush. Don’t you have a spare?”
“I have replacements, not spares. They’re in the bottom drawer of the cabinet to the right of the sink.” There was quiet on her part and he imagined she was rummaging around, then he heard water running and figured she found one. He wondered if she squeezed the toothpaste tube in the middle or from the bottom, and then wondered if this might be one of those daily living details that would trip them up.
“Whoa,” he said, dropping to the edge of the bed. “Slow down. Slow the hell way down.” The door to the bathroom opened. He looked up just as Ramsey flicked off the light. She’d taken down her hair, probably ran her fingers through it or maybe used his brush because it fell forward over her shoulders in two curling cascades. He’d never seen her without her hair pulled up or back, and even as he was thinking it, thinking that she transcended lovely to stunning, she was raising her arms and sweeping up that glorious fall of hair into a tail that she secured with an elastic band she was wearing around one wrist.
Ramsey patted the back of her head. “Better,” she said, stepping into the bedroom. “Did you say something?”
He shook his head, still thinking about her hair. “Why’d you do that?” he asked.
“Do what?”
“Your hair. Why’d you pull it back?”
Frowning slightly, Ramsey didn’t answer immediately. “Habit, I suppose. It’s practical for work or exercise or, really, anything.”
“Huh.” His eyes followed her as she walked to the chair where he’d placed her clothing. “It looks good down, like you had it.”
She didn’t glance his way. “Thank you, I guess.”
Sullivan’s eyebrows puckered. “Have I embarrassed you?”
“No…maybe…it’s mostly that I don’t know what to do with compliments like that.”
“Like what?”
