Owen grinned. “Yep,” he told Harlan. “I think we’ve got it.”
Jennifer didn’t say the thing again about Dyma’s curfew or wherever it was. Whether she trusted Owen by now or was just too tired, he didn’t know. Or, rather, he thought he did. He suspected that looking out for Dyma would be the thing that faded last in her, the way they said the voices of your loved ones were the last thing that remained, after all your other senses had gone dark. Which meant that she was finally relaxing about Dyma with Owen. And there were only so many things a person could worry about, multitasker or not. Especially, he hoped, when she was being carried down the hallway, her arm around his neck and her warm breath on his cheek, feeling warm and curvy and relaxed in his arms.
Now, she was sitting beside him on his bed, her injured foot on a pillow, wearing another hotel bathrobe. His, which he’d gone to get for her to change into before he’d brought her here. “Because,” he’d told her, “you deserve to be clean.” While he’d been gone, she’d managed to get the blood off her arms and legs, hopefully with Dyma’s help. He’d used his last ten minutes before the food had arrived to take his own shower and wash off the considerable accumulation of blood—no wonder, he’d thought as he’d watched the water in the drain go from red to pink, that the cops had been so alarmed—and then change into his last clean clothes, which happened to be a pair of black sleep shorts and a faded Devils T-shirt. Now, he and Jennifer each had a tray in their lap, he had a bottle of beer on his, and she was sipping another glass of wine.
He said, “Is this the longest day of our lives, or what?”
She smiled. It was slow. It was impossible to look away from, too. Pale skin and freckles and a curvy little body in a too-big bathrobe that he wanted to take off. The gas fireplace on the opposite wall was sending out warmth, but it couldn’t possibly compare with Jennifer on your bed.
“It’s been long,” she said. “It’s been nuts. Yellowstone to North Dakota to here. A private jet. Your speech. All that bratwurst. All that cold. The police.”
“Hearing about your past,” he said.
“Hearing about yours.” Still a little tease in those eyes, but compassion, too. “I think we shared.”
“I think you’re right.” She was making only languid progress on her enchiladas, and now, she set her fork down, turned that sweet body toward him, and said, “Thanks for helping to keep me covered tonight, when my robe kept slipping. I saw what you did. You were … pretty special. All day.” She heaved in a breath. “And I’m thinking I was crazy to back out.”
He tried to think of what to say, and couldn’t. He knew what he wanted to say. He finally said, “Could be the drugs talking. Could be the wine.”
She said, “Could you take this tray away? And then, since you’re so good at taking care of people … could you come take care of me?”
That was his pulse rate taking a jump. He said, “You sure?” He took her tray away, though. He left her wine. Sometimes, you needed to live dangerously. Sometimes, you needed to be bad.
He was more than ready for that. Was she?
“I think the drugs are just letting me say what I want to say,” she said, “and it’s this. I’ve been careful all my life. Ever since I was fifteen. I’m tired of being careful. I want to take a chance. I want to find out what I’ve been missing. I want to fly.”
She thought he wasn’t going to do it. He was just sitting there, looking strong and beautiful and … she couldn’t tell what. Excited? Worried? Both? She was about to say something, although she couldn’t think what, or how to backtrack this time, when he put a hand on her cheek, stroked his thumb down her face, leaned in, and brushed his lips over hers.
Maybe it was the wine. Maybe it was the painkiller. Or maybe it was Harlan, because that kiss, that gentle contact, sent tingles through her lips and sparks all the way down her body.
He didn’t smell like cedar and sage anymore. He smelled like himself. Like clean cotton, and something earthier, deeper under that.
He smelled like power.
His mouth tasted like dark caramel, which was the beer, she thought confusedly, and his hand was still on her face. Still gentle. Still strong.
He pulled back a little, rested his forehead against hers, smiled slowly, and said, “Hey.”
“Hey,” she said back.
“If we’re going to do this,” he said, “we’re going to do it differently.”
“Uh … we are?” She wanted his mouth back.
“Yeah.” He reached over and turned off the light on his side of the bed, so only the tiny spot over her side lit them. That, and the flickering orange and blue of the fire, casting shadows in the dark.
She tried to swallow. Now that she was doing this, or rather, now that she’d decided to do it, and couldn’t tell herself she’d been carried away in the moment, she was nervous. The muscles of his arms were so defined, it was like he’d been fashioned by a diamond cutter, and his chest was impossibly broad under the faded T-shirt. His beauty was a dark thing now, all angles and shade.
He said, “I get to look at you exactly as much as I want to. That’s my first rule. And, Jennifer—I am going to look.”
“Oh … kay.” She was having some trouble breathing.
“Second rule is …” He leaned down and kissed her again, nothing but gently, then trailed a string of kisses, light as a whisper, over to her ear, and told her, his voice a murmur, “You don’t get to try to please me.”
“Wh-what?” His lips were moving down now, below her ear. His mouth was on her neck, there where she was most sensitive, as if he’d been drawn to the spot. His hand was in her hair, holding her head, and it was getting a little hard to concentrate. “Harlan …”
“Also …” he said, between kisses at her neck. He was using his teeth the tiniest bit, and the liquid was flooding her veins. Those silver streaks again, going straight to the spot. “I love hearing you call me by my name. I think I’m going to have to insist on that, too.”
“Go back to the … second thing,” she said. “About me.”
He moved to her mouth again, and this time, he kissed her deeper. Kissed her harder, his fingers twining through her hair, tugging at it. So she’d know he was there, she thought, and that was exciting her more. “That’s my birthday present,” he said. “You don’t have to worry about pleasing me, because I’m going to be pleasing myself. You’re going to let me do whatever I want. And you’re going to do whatever I say.”
That was another jolt. A harder one. Alarm. Desire. She tried to say something. It came out as more of a gasp.
He was pulling the tie of her robe now, almost in slow motion, and then he was pulling the two sides apart, spreading them wide with so much deliberation. He looked her over for a long, long moment and didn’t touch her at all, but she could feel the excitement ratcheting up in him like she was in his body. He said, “You’re injured, and it’s going to be too easy for you to forget that once this starts. So if you’re moving tonight, it’s because I’m moving you. Safely. Are we all clear on that?”