She was still riding those marvelous waves when she heard someone come into the house. The bedroom door was shut and her pulse was still loud in her ears, but some sounds were hard to ignore. Especially when she heard Alan call out, panic in his voice.
“Carl? Carl! Are you all right?”
“I’m fine!” Carl barked from between her legs. “Don’t come in!”
If she weren’t still high from the best orgasms of her life, she probably would have been embarrassed. As it was, she just started chuckling. Though she did manage to drop her arm across her face to muffle the sound.
“Where are you? Tonya’s been calling.”
Carl abruptly left his position to dive at the door, clicking the lock a second before Alan’s footsteps sounded outside the room. “I told you,” Carl said. “Don’t come in.”
“Tonya is on her way over. She got an ID. Where’s Becca?”
Her giggling abruptly stopped the moment she heard the word “ID.” But when she straightened up on her elbows to answer, Carl shot her a desperate look and shook his head. She immediately swallowed her words, but that didn’t stop the slow sink in her gut. Was he ashamed? Embarrassed to be caught blowing off steam in the middle of a crisis?
Meanwhile, Carl gestured to the bathroom, by which she guessed that he wanted her to go in there. “She’s taking a shower. I’ll be out in a second. Who was the ID?”
“Don’t know except that they’re getting warrants and coordinating with ATF.”
ATF? As in the scary governmental agency the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives? The one that took out the wackos in Waco?
“She’ll be here in twenty.” Alan tried the doorknob. “Damn it, Carl, are you hurt?”
“Not in the least,” he said with a grin. But then he quickly sobered as he helped Becca sit up. He leaned in and whispered into her ear. “Can you shower fast? I’m going to have to step in behind you.”
Her eyes widened but she nodded. Then he practically lifted her up to her feet—aka weak noodles—and carried her into the bathroom as if she were the queen of England with broken legs. Then he bent down to her ear again.
“I’ll explain later,” he whispered. Then he paused as if to linger. She would have leaned into him. She was still rosy with afterglow, but he abruptly stepped back. “Quickly,” he said as he gestured to the shower.
Yeah, yeah. She got it. She looked like she’d just been fucked to heaven and back. Which she had. But he didn’t want others to know about it, and the more she thought about it, the more she agreed. She wasn’t exactly sure what craziness had led her to dive into sexuality for the first time in years, but that was stress for you. At some point, it all had to blow somehow. Might as well be fun when it goes.
But there was no time to linger. She flipped on the shower and stepped in before it warmed. The shock of that was enough to chase away any remaining glow. Which meant that all too soon she was thinking about Theo and the ATF and all the horrible scenarios her imagination kept creating.
She showered in record time.
And when she stepped out, Carl was there handing her a towel. “There’s fresh clothes for you on the bed,” he said in a low tone. It was almost enough to distract her from the fact that he was fully naked and hugely erect.
“Uh—” was all she got out before he leaned in and turned the tap to cold. Then he pulled on the shower and stepped right into the icy spray.
Well, if he didn’t shrink up from that, he was one virile man.
Part of her wanted to stay and watch to see how long it would take. It was one of her longtime fantasies to see a fine man lather up. But that was just an indication of how far away from center she was. How could she even imagine doing something like that when Theo might be caught in the middle of an ATF battle?
She hurried out of the bathroom and was dressed a few minutes later in borrowed leggings and an oversize sweatshirt. A single whiff told her it was Carl’s, and she buried her nose in it while she listened to the steady pound of the shower. Tonya wasn’t here yet, so she had a moment to linger in wow! What they’d done—wow. The way he’d done it—wow. The fact that even now, her skin was still tingling from it—double wow.
Then she pulled on her shoes and left the bedroom, her mind already shoving the experience into a tiny little box labeled “What Becca Did to Blow Off Anxiety.” It had no other meaning, which is why she felt excruciatingly calm as she faced Alan, who was just coming out of the kitchen with a sandwich.
“When was the last time you slept?” she blurted. He looked awful, with sallow skin and baggy eyes. And for such a handsome man, that was saying something.
“About the last time you did,” he said, though it was obviously not true. She’d spent hours knocked unconscious. “Did Carl tell you? They got an ID on the guy that Carl killed.” The words rolled out of him, then he abruptly winced. “I mean the guy who attacked…er…”
“I get it. The bastard with the tranquilizer gun.”
“And a sawed-off shotgun. They found his motorcycle stashed in the trees. Matched the license with the dental records and voilà, ID.”
She nodded. “Who was it?”
Alan shrugged as he stuffed a badly done chicken salad sandwich into his mouth. She could smell the cheap mustard from across the room. “Tonya will be here in ten. She has all the details.”
