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“What’s that?”
“Beer and a ball game,” she repeated. “That’s how cops wind down from the hard. Not with pool-sized jet tubs and wine.”
“It’s terrible how I make you indulge me.”
“Tell me,” she murmured, watching him.
God, his body was so beautiful. Long, lean, carved with muscle. Disciplined, athletic, primal under the exquisitely tailored business suits.
All hers now. Only hers.
The wince and muffled oath he gave when he stepped into the water got a laugh out of her.
“It’s not that hot.”
“If I had a lobster, we’d boil it and eat it.”
“You set the temp.”
“So I did, and now, with no lobster in sight, we’re boiling my balls.”
He’d set it for her, she thought, so she could soak in the heat and the scent, turn off her mind with some relaxation program. She thought of what she’d overheard him saying to Mira, how he’d looked.
He needed this as much as she did.
“You’ve probably got more than Hong Kong to deal with.”
Eyes closed, he sipped wine. “The advantage of holding the reins is you can choose when to put them down for a bit.”
“Maybe you should try the VR.”
He opened his eyes. “Actual reality suits me fine here and now.”
As they faced each other across the bubbling water, she rubbed her foot along his leg. “One way or another, we’ll be going home within a couple days.”
“Couldn’t be soon enough.”
“Oh, so right there with you. I guess we have to go find cowboy boots for Peabody. She’d get a charge, and Feeney said she was doing good.”
“I’m sorry, perhaps the wine’s going to my head. Are you saying I’m going shopping with my wife?”
“Don’t get used to it, pal.”
“How about a ten-gallon hat for Feeney?”
The image of Feeney in a cowboy hat released a laugh that nearly had her choking on her wine. “You did that on purpose.”
“Spurs and chaps for McNab. Glow-in-the-dark.”
She laughed again, sank to her chin. “And I don’t even know what chaps are.”
But the laugh, he noted with pleasure, put a sparkle in her eyes.
“We’ll take bolo ties back for the bullpen,” he continued.
“Oh, Jesus, the horror.”
“One of those little skirts with the fringe for Mavis.”
