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I moved. I kept the pace slow at first, with one hand firm on her hip and the other spread across her stomach, and the water covered the sound of my body against hers but not her voice. “Harder,” she said. “You can. I want you to.” I gave her what she asked for, watching her fingers curl against the tile.

“You feel so good I can’t think,” I said into her wet shoulder.

“Then don’t.” She pushed back to meet me. “Just keep going, and if you’re going to touch me, touch me now.”

I slid my hand from her stomach down to where she was slippery and swollen and circled her clit with two fingers, and she said something that was mostly “yes” and “there.” On my next thrust she tightened around me, her forehead dropped to her forearm, and she came with a hoarse cry that rang off the tile. I wrapped my arm around her waist and held her up while her knees threatened to give out, and I stayed deep and still until she stopped shaking.

Then she pushed back against me.

“Don’t stop,” she said. “I think I can again.”

I started moving again, harder, my fingers working in the same slow circles, and it came faster the second time, a long ragged sound that dragged me over with her. I came with my mouth pressed to her wet shoulder, groaning something that might have been her name, and I held on to her until the last of it had passed.

For a while neither of us moved, and the water ran over us both.

“I think I left my knees on the kitchen floor,” Goldie said eventually, and the laugh that followed shook through me again.

“I’ll look for them later.” I turned her around, pushed the damp hair off her face, and kissed her forehead and then her mouth, unhurried, in a way that had nothing to do with the clock.

I shut off the water, wrapped her in the biggest towel I owned, and used the second to scrub my own hair while she stood on the bath mat tilting her head to wring out a curl. By the time I’d found a clean henley and she’d pulled on her jeans and sweater, her curls had given up on the clip entirely and hung in damp spirals around her face. She looked so thoroughly delighted with herself that I crossed the room and kissed her again. She kissed me back without any hurry at all, and then she set a palm against my chest and pushed me away, laughing.

“If you keep doing that, we’ll be late.”

The clock on my nightstand said seven thirty-six. We still had an opening to make.

***

By the time we came downstairs, Goldie had twisted her damp curls into a loose arrangement that kept them off her face, and we’d both dressed for the cold again.

I found two bottles of water in the refrigerator and handed her one. She drank most of it while I checked the messages on my phone. There were no emergencies from the Factory and no calls from Lori, and everything was where it should be.

Goldie took another drink and studied the schedule on her phone.

“We can make the final checks without rushing if we leave now. I’ll have the crew hold the guest route clear until we’re finished.”

“I’ve got the repaired parts ready. It’ll only take a few minutes to install them.”

She put down her bottle and came around the island. For a moment, she simply stood close to me, smiling.

“What?” I asked.

“Nothing bad. I’m just glad I came over tonight.”

I rested my hands lightly against her waist.

“So am I.”

She leaned into me, and I kissed her.

I liked having her in my house. I liked watching her laugh in my kitchen and knowing she wanted to be here. I also liked that she was already thinking about the people waiting for her at the Factory, because she had a job to finish and I respected her too much to interfere with it.

I gave her one last kiss and went to collect my jacket.

“Come on. Let’s go scare some people.”

Goldie laughed. “That’s the most enthusiastic I’ve heard you sound about the Factory.”

We collected her work bag and my repair cases from the kitchen, then loaded everything into my truck.