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“I checked every toiletry I brought with me and there isn’t a single citrus top note in any of them.”
“You smell of oranges.”
I rolled my eyes.
“I’m glad. I like oranges,” she grumbled. “But I know what you mean. You could have smelled of oud and then I’d have had to go puke.”
“Oud isn’t that bad,” I retorted, thinking about an aftershave I really loved that used oud in its composition.
“It is. It’s horrible. It makes me sneeze.”
There went the two-thousand-dollar-an-ounce bottle into the trash.
I huffed on my way over to her, but I was careful not to block her in place or to trap her between myself and the table. She grew tense at my proximity yet allowed me to gently collect her hair into a soft ponytail.
As I moved closer to her, she turned more and more rigid, but when I pressed my nose to her nape, a soft sigh drifted from her lips.
“What are you doing?“
“Finding out what you smell of,” I whispered.
“You slept with me.”
“Technically,youslept withme, and my nose was too far away.”
She snorted, which I took as silent assent for my ministrations to continue, then shivered when I ran the tip of my nose along the line of her neck. I pressed a kiss to the top vertebra of her spine, enjoying the soft, surprised breath she released, then let my forehead rest against the back of her head.
“What do I smell of?” she whispered as my free hand moved to her stomach where I spread my fingers wide to hold her in place.
I closed my eyes.
Mine.
But I didn’t have a death wish.
“Cinnamon.”
It wasn’t a total lie.
The spicy notes were there, making my senses burn in response.
I breathed her in, trying to make myself register that she was actually here. That I could—
Translating thought and desire into action, I reached for her with my other hand and let my finger run down the side of her throat. At first, her tension amped up again, but then she released a shuddery breath that I felt in my bones.
“If you taste of it too, I’m fucked.”
“I doubt I taste like a cinnamon roll, unless I eat one first,” she rasped.
“I could ask Edgar to make us some. The guy seems to enjoy doing stuff for us.”
I felt her soft chuckle as if it came from my own chest. “I’m not sure if he ‘enjoys’ it. It’s his job, Conor.”
“Hmm. Better than killing people for a living. It can’t all be bad. Want a cinnamon roll?”
She paused. Gave it far more thought than junk food—aka Mother Nature’s treasure—required, then she whispered, “Yeah.”
This time, I let my tongue trace down the central line of her nape. “I’ll tell him when he brings coffee.”
