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“I’m about packing smart. And I only ever have sex when I travel.” His face must have betrayedsomething—he wasn’t even sure how he felt about what she’d said—because she added, “Less messy that way.” He was tempted to ask her how she was going to square that philosophy with the fact that she supposedly wanted to travel less now that she’d made partner at CZT. But he refrained. If she wanted things not messy, she wasn’t going to welcome that line of questioning from him.
“Have you a key for the back door?” he asked as they approachedthe Owl and Spruce. He gathered that Imogen gave such keys to guests.
“You want to sneak in, do you?”
He wasn’t sure how to respond. He didn’t want her to think he was trying to hide their... relationship. Or whatever it was. But on the other hand, that was exactly what he was trying to do.
Before he could think what to say, she winked, pulled a key from her pocket, and led him around to the back of the building.
They almost encountered Imogen on the way up. They heard her talking as she came from the kitchen, and Cara grabbed his hand and they bolted up the stairs before Imogen emerged. Cara must have been trying to stifle laughter as they ran. Halfway up, a great deal of it burst out of her. It infected him, and by the time they clattered to a halt at her door, they were both breathless with laughter.
It was a strange sensation, both the laughter and this feeling he’d been noting recently of being in league with someone. Of sharing a secret, a jest. It felt in that moment as if he and Cara were allied not just against Noar and the evil Brads of the world... but against everything. That they were a unit of two.
He didn’t have too much time to expand on that thought, though. She pulled him into the room, slammed the door, pressed him back against it, and kissed him. His last thought, before he lost himself in her, was that losing himself in her was an alarmingly easy thing to do.
They kissed for a long time. Eventually, she grew agitated—with the height difference between them, he thought at first, or perhaps it was the fact that they were still clothed. She was cyclingbetween lifting herself up onto her tiptoes and pasting herself against him and pulling away and making progress in removing their clothing. She would grind herself against him and kiss him for a while, then make a frustrated noise, break away from him, and yank his shirt out from his waistband. Then she’d be back, but just as he was adjusting his body against hers, she would pull away and start working on his shirt buttons.
The back and forth was making him mad with desire—and frustration. “Cara,” he muttered, trying to keep her off him. Not that he wanted her off him, not in any elemental way, but he’d be damned if this encounter went as quickly as the last one. “You’ve got to slow down.”
Her eyes narrowed. “I do not.”
“You do.” He put his hands on her shoulders and, keeping several feet of distance between them, steered her to sit on the bed.
“But—”
“I insist.”
She didn’t object anymore, probably because he’d gently pushed her down onto her back and reached for the waistband of her pants. They were a soft, athletic variety, and he easily slid them off when she lifted her hips to assist.
With those off, she was splayed out before him, completely naked. He wanted to say that she was beautiful. That every part of her was: her perfect skin and the tattoo on it that covered a complicated scar. Her hair that could be so tightly coiled around her head, like a snake ready to strike, and the brain inside that head that could strike like a snake, too. There was a reason he’d thought of her as a warrior from day one.
He didn’t say any of those things. Something caught in his throat. Oddly, he, still dressed, felt more vulnerable than she looked.
She wouldn’t want to hear any of his thoughts. They didn’t belong in this context. Like him in general, they were too serious.
It was possible he wasn’t so good at this time-limited affair business.
“The condoms are in the top drawer of the dresser,” she said, her voice a whisper, but one that echoed around the room, and around his chest, like thunder.
Right. He might not be good at this time-limited affair business, but that didn’t mean he was going to stop trying.
He took his time fetching the condom, and removing the rest of his clothing. By the time he’d done all that, his penis had calmed down somewhat.
But then when he turned around to find her grinning at him as she undid her braid, it perked right back up. He groaned. At what, exactly, he wasn’t sure. Perhaps at how much he was trying to be in control and how badly he was failing.
“What kinds of boxes do you move?”
The word that rose in his mind in response to that perplexing question was the dreaded “Huh?”
“You said yesterday that you move a lot of boxes. That that’s how you got your sexy arm muscles.”
Dumbly, he looked down at his arms. She thought they were sexy? He could feel his face heating. He also could not answer her question without giving himself away. “Sometimes at events there are last-minute details that get overlooked.”
“Last-minute details in boxes?”
“Yes.” He tilted his head and regarded her. “Is this really what you want to be talking about right now?”
She dipped her head as if to concede his point. Then she crooked her finger at him, and, powerless against the angel of doom, he went.
