Page 54 of Honeyfires

She went down without hesitation, the water still warm around us, and looked up at me with dark eyes and wet lashes, and that image alone nearly finished me before she'd started.

"Hands behind your back," I said.

She put them there.

"Good girl."

Her exhale was audible.

I fisted one hand in her wet hair—not rough, just present, just mine—and she leaned into it, and then her mouth found me, and I stopped thinking about anything at all.

She was learning. Had been learning. Five weeks of cataloging exactly what worked, and she applied it now with the focused precision of someone who'd done their research and was presenting her findings. Within minutes, I had one hand braced on the shower wall and was actively reconsidering my ability to remain standing.

"Vera."

She hummed against me, which was not a word but communicated yes? effectively.

"Don't stop."

She didn't stop.

When I came, it was with her name and my hand tight in her hair and the hot water still running, and she worked me through every second of it until I had to pull her up by the shoulders before my legs made any regrettable decisions.

She stood, smiling, swollen-lipped, deeply pleased with herself.

"How was that?" she asked.

"You have to ask?"

"I like hearing you say it."

I cupped her face in both hands and kissed her, and she made a sound against my mouth like something satisfied.

We finished the shower properly after that, actually rinsing off, restoring order, and then collapsed into bed, still damp and tangled, the desert dark outside the window and the whole quiet evening ahead of us.

"Petra?" Vera murmured against my shoulder.

"Mm."

"Thank you. For letting me into your world today. The crew. The helicopter. All of it. For trusting me with you."

I pulled her closer. Pressed a kiss to her hair. "Thank you for wanting in. For not flinching." I thought about the crew chief's seat and her white knuckles releasing the doorframe. "For learning it instead."

"Yours?" she said softly.

The word settled into the room like it belonged there.

"Yeah," I said. "Mine."

She smiled against my collarbone, and the desert extended enormous and dark and full of stars outside, the way it always did, and I lay there with my hand in her hair and thought: I am in so, so deep.

And it didn't even scare me.

And Then I Got Distracted

Chapter Nine

The restaurant was everything the reviews had promised. Low lighting, candles on every table, the kind of place where the menu had no prices and the waitstaff moved like they'd been choreographed by Gordon Ramsay.