“No, it’s not,” he agreed, his hands squeezing her shoulders.“You should go upstairs, take a hot shower.”
Relief weakened her knees, visions of shower-wand-induced orgasms had her nearly salivating.“God, yes.No, wait.Can I use your bathroom?”
“Why?”
“The shower wand in there has a pulse setting,” she explained, nearly dizzy at the thought.
Understanding dawned in his eyes.“You can’t masturbate, Bailey.”
“What?”She sagged in his grip, shock and dismay mixing with desperate, aching need.“Nash, I—”
“I’ll take care of you, Bailey,” he soothed, but his voice was firm, eyes steely.“I promise I will.But only if you don’t make yourself come.Deal?”
She stared at him for a moment, torn.She could get herself off so fast, and with the hot water and the steam of the shower he’d never know.But oh, it would be so much better if she waited, and he knew she knew it.
She tightened her grip on his shirt.“Do you swear on your mother’s collection of Princess Diana commemorative plates?”
Humor warmed his eyes and his grin flashed, the dimple popping in his cheek.“Going for the big guns, huh?”
“Do you swear?”she demanded.
“I swear.”He grabbed her hands and peeled them gently away from his shirt, then lifted them to his lips.“I swear on the plates, on my bike, on the Cleveland Guardians’ hopes for the pennant and my immortal soul, you will get to come.”
Mollified, she nodded.“Okay.”
He pressed another kiss to her knuckles, then walked with her to the door.“Go, take a shower.Wash your hair, shave anything you need to shave, do the enema.Then put on a robe and come back down.”
She walked down the hall to the stairs, watching him over her shoulder.
“I swear,” he repeated, his eyes sober, his expression serious, and she nodded and went up the stairs, taking them two at a time, eager to do what she needed to do and get back to the promise in his eyes.
Nash waited until he heard the water turn on, then went back into his room and picked up the phone.He dialed quickly, sweeping the bed clear of his laundry while he waited for the call to connect.When it did, he took a deep breath and mentally crossed his fingers.
“Sawyer, it’s Nash.There’s been a change of plans.”
* * * *
When Bailey came downstairs half an hour later, Nash had the unfolded laundry shoved in the closet, the sheets changed and the shades drawn, cutting out the late afternoon sun and casting the room in shadow.He’d found half a dozen tealights in the stash of emergency candles in the laundry room, and lined up on the dresser they added a faint, romantic glow.
He’d managed a quick scrub-down in the shower—possibly the fastest one he’d ever taken—and had redressed in clean boxers and shorts, leaving his torso bare.When she walked into the room with damp hair and bare feet, wrapped in a short terry-cloth robe, he was waiting for her beside the bed.
She was all dewy skin and wide eyes—eyes that still held the colored contacts she’d worn to work.And that just would not do.
He crossed the room, lifting one hand to brush a lock of damp hair off her forehead.“You’re still wearing your contacts.”
“I…forgot.”
Her voice was thin, her breathing already rough.He could see the pulse fluttering like a mad thing in her throat.
He shifted his hand there, wanting to feel it.“I want them gone.Do you have to go back upstairs?”
She hesitated a moment, then shook her head.“They’re disposable.I can just throw them away.”
He held out his hand, palm up, and after a moment’s pause, she plucked them out and dropped them into his hand.
He crossed to the waste basket next to the bed and dropped them in, then turned back.She hadn’t moved from the doorway, and seemed impossibly small there in the short robe, her eyes wide and vulnerable, the gold flecks in the hazel bright in the candlelight.
He held out a hand, his heart leaping when she moved immediately to take it.