“He’s like the grandfather I never had,” I say.
He burrows his face into my neck. “You’re braver than you realize.” He traces lazy patterns on my hip, and I feel the moment something changes. “I used to say that to you.”
His voice is strange. Distant. “When you were scared. I’d tell you that you were braver than you knew. There was a…closet. Small. Dark. You hated it, but sometimes it was the only safe place, and I’d sit outside the door and talk to you until—” He breaks off and moves back, putting more space between us. “Fuck. I hate this.”
“We should probably get up,” I say to avoid talking about that dark room. “We have a post office to investigate.”
“Five more minutes,” he grumbles.
It would be so easy to stay here forever. “Valen?”
“Hmm?” His hand slides down my sternum to rest against my stomach while this thumb draws lazy circles that make my brain short-circuit.
“Your—um. You’re—” My face is on fire. “You’re very…awake this morning.”
His low chuckle sends tingles down my spine. He rolls me onto my back, settling between my thighs with the kind of precision that makes me think he’s mapped my body in his sleep. His blue eyes are dark with heat, but it’s his hair, mussed from my fingers, and the shadowed stubble at his jaw that undoes me.
He’s never looked more perfect. He’s never looked more like mine.
His hand glides down my thigh, to my knee, then he hitches my leg up. “Your foot was on the floor again last night.”
“H-habit,” I say when he grinds his cock against my clit.
“I put it back on the bed three times,” he growls. “It’s time to stop running, Clover.”
How do I explain that a habit built from necessity is not one so easily disregarded?
“We have to—” A slow roll of his hips steals the words from my mouth.
“What were you saying, sweetheart?” His blue eyes dance with mirth and heat as he rocks against me, the friction delicious, but not nearly enough.
“Investigate. The, ah, post office. I…I think. Remember?”
“I remember.” He drops a kiss to my nose, then my cheek, then the corner of my mouth. “But I also remember that I have you naked in my bed, and I’ve got at least fourteen years of lost orgasms to make up for.”
“We already—last night we—” I’m skipping like a broken record.
“Once.” His fingers trace patterns on my inner thighs that make me squirm. “That was once. I’m thinking we should aim for at least…seven hundred should do it.”
“Hundred?”
“At least once a week for fourteen years.” He hums against my skin. “You do the math. That’s the prudish conservative estimate, by the way.”
“Are you trying to kill me?”
“Death by orgasm.” He grins, lowering his mouth to the sensitive dip on my neck. “If we have to die, that’s the way I’d choose.”
His lips trail down my throat, across my collarbone, and I’m about three seconds away from saying to hell with the investigation when a loud knock raps on the door.
I jackknife up in bed, my trauma responses deeply ingrained, and I headbutt Valen in the face.
“Fuck, Honeybee. I like you responsive, but that’s going to leave a mark.” He rubs the red spot already blooming on his forehead.
I’m not even surprised, since my own vision is slightly blurry. But I can’t tell if it’s because I just headbutted my lover or because his fingers keep up a lazy trail across my damp flesh as I flop back onto the bed.
“You should have put a sock on the doorknob,” Chief calls through the door, sounding entirely too pleased with himself. “Then maybe you wouldn’t be the talk of the inn. Breakfast is ready, by the way, and I’ve got an investigation to lead, so get movin’.”
Valen drops his forehead to my chest with a groan. “I’m going to kill that old man. He realizes he’s retired, correct? He’s not leading anything.”
