“Stand up,” she commanded when she regained enough composure to form the words. She thought he might defer, but he did as she asked, slowly rising to his feet until he was looming over her, staring down at her with blazing eyes.
Or at least, that was what it felt like. She was too busy staring at the huge bulge in his jeans.
It was… a lot.
Slowly, with the same care and attention he had given her, she divested him of his clothes, taking the time to learn his body, fascinated by the landscape of ridges and dips.
He held himself still and let her play and explore, but she could tell it cost him in the way his muscles tensed and his veins popped.
Until she leaned forward and licked him on the tip of his hard, straining cock.
Between one thunderous heartbeat and the next, she found herself on her back on the bed, Patrick’s body hovering above hers.
Pausing. Asking another silent question.
In answer, she opened her thighs and lifted her hips.
With an excruciatingly slow glide, he was inside her. Stretching her. Filling her. Completing her in a way nothing else ever had.
Then he started moving…
Morgan woketo a warm bed and an even warmer man. It took her exactly three seconds to remember where she was.
Patrick’s room. Patrick’s house. With Patrick, who was still asleep beside her, one arm curved loosely around her waist with the easy possessiveness of a man who was comfortable in his own skin even unconscious.
She waited for the regret to take hold. For her inner voice to start spouting self-recriminations for allowing last night to happen.
It didn’t.
Instead, she lay still and let herself look at him.
He was, objectively, beautiful. Dark hair against the white pillow. The clean line of his jaw relaxed in sleep, dusted with the shadow of growth. Thick, black lashes forming perfect crescents over eyes that had darkened with hunger. The breadth of his shoulders, the solidness of his chest. The heavy weight of him pressing against the inside of her thigh.
Last night had been amazing.
Patrick had been thorough and focused. Sweet. Tender. Passionate. A very patient and generous lover. She hadn’t been prepared for that, which meant her carefully managed defenses had been absolutely useless. Every touch, every stroke, every kiss had been curious and deliberate, masterfully executed until she could think of nothing but the next one.
It hadn’t just been once.
Each time had been better than the last.
Scarybetter. The kind that could ruin a woman for any other man, because no one else would ever compare.
She closed her eyes and acknowledged the flutter just behind her sternum, willing it to go away while she quietly reveled in the moment, knowing it would probably never happen again.
When the firstrays of light began to peek around the drapes, Morgan forced herself out of bed. She dressed quietly, retrieving her sweater from the chair where it had landed, and found her shoes near the far wall, where she’d kicked them off in haste.
Down the hall, she could hear water running in one of the bathrooms, but otherwise, the house was quiet. She tiptoed down the curved staircase and across the first floor. She was nearly to the front door when she heard it—the soft click of nails on the hardwood. A cold nose nudged her hand.
“Bruno, right?” she whispered, gifting him with a pat.
She looked up and found Wade in the doorway. Watching. His eyes were curious but non-judgmental. She wondered briefly how many times Wade had seen woman leaving at the crack of dawn to be so unaffected, then realized she didn’t want to know.Patrick had made her feel special, and she wanted to hold on to that as long as possible.
Outside, the morning was cold and still, the sky the color of pewter, the trees along the street holding their last leaves with diminishing conviction. She sat in the car for a moment before starting the engine.
They hadn’t talked about the case.
Not once. Not the forum, not Varro, not the saxitoxin, not the investigation. Not Frank, not the campground, not the dead man who’d started all of this. She’d spent an entire night in the company of the man she’d been working alongside through the Thread for years, and the case had simply… not come up.