The bathroom door cracks. "I forgot—" her voice is smokey and makes me think of Sunday mornings in bed—with her.
I don’t miss a beat. I lift the phone without looking away from her and hold it out, indicating that I inserted the charger.
"Your phone," I say, while my thumb taps the side of the brick to keep the handshake live. The pajama top hangs open at her throat, exposing a delicate neck that I would love to wrap my hands around. I can almost feel her pulse underneath my fingertips. See her jade green eyes half closed in ecstasy, curtained by those dark lashes. The red thong is looped over her finger like a question mark. If she really forgot her phone, my name is Henry. She's testing me.
She pads closer, bare feet whispering over hospital tile. Her toes are painted a soft pink; the polish is chipped at the edges, like she hasn’t had time for something she usually takes pride in. It makes me wonder what’s been keeping her so busy… and why I want to know.
She takes the phone with her left hand, eyes on my face, not the cable. "I forgot the password to the Wi-Fi," she lies politely. "Nurses guard it like state secrets."
"Use my hotspot." I nod at the bag. There’s a hotspot in there— she knows I know she knows that.
The air between us hums with the same electricity crawling through the download bar. 18%… 27%…
She angles her body, trying to slip out of the light, but I keep my hand on the phone, an anchor that keeps her right here with me. Her brows rise in a quiet, loaded question. The thong hangs from her fingers like a dare.
"You seem to have taken a liking to those," I murmur, letting my gaze drop just long enough to make her breath catch.
Her gaze flicks down to the scrap of red lace still looped over her finger, then back to me. The corner of her mouth tilts, half dare, half diagnosis.
"I have good taste," I say, easily. My thumb presses the brick again, making sure the handshake doesn’t drop. 31% … 36% …
She leans one shoulder against the wall, bare legs half-lit by the window, all warm, creamy softness against cold tile. "Good taste or bad impulse?"
"Sometimes they’re the same thing."
"Hmm." She hums a sound of disbelief that runs down my spine like warm oil. Her fingers trace the lace across her palm like she’s petting a secret. The lazy drag of her fingers shouldn’t get to me, but it does; heat coils low and sharp enough to cut through my focus. I can feel my pulse in stupid places.
She tilts her head, her bare legs catching the light just enough to make it hard to remember the code streaming across my screen. Hard to remember anything.
"You buy these for all your convalescing wives?"
"First one." I let the pause hang long enough that she feels it. "They don’t usually survive the audition."
That earns me a real smile, sharp and amused. It lands harder than it should, right in the center of my chest, distracting in a way I don’t have time for.
"And I passed mine?" she asks, voice low and velvet-soft, like she knows exactly what she’s doing to me.
"Barely," I rasp. "You bleed well."
She laughs—low, rough—and my body reacts before my brain catches up. The monitor jumps one bar like it’s eavesdropping.
43%… 47%…
I force my eyes back to the screen, force my head to clear. I’m Stephano Conti. I can think through anything.
But fuck if she isn’t making it harder than it should be. Speaking of harder. My cock stands to attention at the sight of her.
"Tell me, husband," she says, twisting the thong once around her finger, "did you choose red for passion or camouflage?"
"Depends on what you plan to stain it with." I keep my poker face up while her eyes scrutinize me, and her breath catches—a small, involuntary sound she covers with a slow exhale. The air between us feels electric enough to power the machines.
"You’re dangerous when you flirt," she admits.
"I don’t flirt," I answer, steady. "I test for weak spots."
"Have you found mine?"
I meet her eyes, and for half a second, we’re exactly whatwe’re pretending to be, married, locked in some private language no one else would understand.
