She hummed again, and the vibration took me over the edge.
When the waterstarted to cool, I turned it off and reached behind me for a towel. When Katarina tried to take it from my hand, I shook my head. “My turn again.”
I dried her off slowly, the same way I’d undressed her. Every part of her. When I finished, I wrapped the towel around her, lifted her out of the shower, and carried her to the bed.
She curled into my side, and her fingers traced a pattern on my arm. The fire had burned lower. Outside, a loon called across the lake.
I drifted in and out of sleep until I felt her hand on me. That was all it took for me to be steel-hard and ready for whatever round this was.
“Again,” she said.
“Yeah?”
“Don’t make me ask twice.”
Both of herhands were in my hair when her spine came off the mattress. I rolled the condom on and entered her, needing to feel her come on me this time. I thrust in hard, she buried her face in my shoulder, and bit down hard enough to make me growl against her skin. Our rhythm slowed, but I stayed deep. Katarina wrapped her leg around me and held me to her. When she clenched me, we came together.
While I took care of the second condom, she rolled to her side. I settled behind her with my arm around her waist.
We slept, and when I opened my eyes the next morning, she was still beside me.
13
BEACON
Outside, the sun was up, and I was still in Bishop’s bed. I hadn’t even thought about waking myself up to leave before dawn.
Bishop.Not Blackjack. At some point last night, the code name had stopped fitting.
His hand was where it had been most of the night, flat over the bruise on my left side that had been fading for a week.
A loon called somewhere on the lake, and I turned to face him.
“Morning,” he said when our eyes met.
“Morning.”
“You hungry?” he asked.
“Starving.”
We both got up, found our clothes from the night before, and dressed. I picked up the brace that lay witheverything else he’d removed from my body last night before the hours he spent ravishing me. I carried it into the other room and left it on the side table. My knee held without it. It was sore, but it held.
Bishop had bacon cooking before I made it to the kitchen, where he stood. I stood behind him, watching and trying to remember the last time anyone other than Anna, my grandmother, or Mrs. Eggers had made me breakfast. I couldn’t.
“Sit down,” he said without turning around. “I can hear you thinking.”
“I’m not thinking.”
“Katarina.”
When I sat, he walked over and crouched in front of me. “No brace?” he asked, running both hands on either side of it.
“It feels better without it.”
He nodded, pressed two fingers into the soft tissue on the inside, and watched my reaction. I didn’t wince.
“Less swelling. Good range?” He moved the joint through its arc.
