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He dropped his dirty clothes on top of the pile, then slid his arms around her and pulled her flush with his body. “I forgot something.”
She looked up at him, questioning. “What?”
“Good morning,” he said softly, kissing her forehead. Then his lips found hers and they stood there for several seconds, everything else forgotten. “Oh hell yeah,” he said when their lips finally separated. “It’s definitely a good morning.”
Her cheeks were flushed, but all she said was, “Yes, it is.”
When Liam finally let her go, Cate pulled the edges of the bottom sheet together and tied them firmly around the whole bundle. While she was doing that, he pulled on an olive green short-sleeved golf shirt and strapped on his shoulder holster. He grimaced, then added his blazer. “Can’t go out strapped without covering up, even if it is summer,” he explained, though she hadn’t asked. “Here, I’ll take that.” He hefted the bundle over one shoulder.
* * *
Liam used the GPS and had no problem finding Black Rock, although it took longer than he expected because of the speed limit in the mountains. As he’d told Cate, Black Rock was small, but they did locate a Laundromat two blocks off Main Street. And wonder of wonders, it was already open for business—the sign said it opened at seven and it was just past eight when they arrived. Cate filled two empty washing machines while Liam wandered over to the change machine and tried to insert a twenty. The machine kept spitting the bill back at him, so he tried another without any luck.
“Machine’s empty,” said a woman sitting in the next row over, reading a magazine and glancing up from time to time to check her laundry in the dryers. “The drugstore next door will give you change...if you buy something. The pharmacy counter doesn’t open until nine, but the store itself opened at eight.”
“Thanks,” Liam told her. To Cate he said quietly, “I don’t want you out of my sight, so come with me. I think it’s safe to leave the laundry here—we’ll be right back.”
Startled, she said, “You really think someone will find me here?”
“One in a million chance, but I’m not risking it.”
She gave him a somber look, as if he’d reminded her of the constant threat of danger she lived under. “Okay.”
Liam made a beeline for the back of the drugstore, Cate in tow. He knew exactly what he was going to buy. He’d used his emergency condom last night, and based on Cate’s positive reaction to making love they would need more. No way would he make love to her without protecting her. But no way would he turn Cate down if she wanted to make love again, either, just because he was unprepared. And despite the fact he had a reputation within the DSS for having a way with the ladies—just as his brother had before he’d gotten married—he didn’t carry a stash of condoms with him as a general rule. He’d been lucky he had one in the emergency overnight case he kept in his SUV—the case he’d transferred when he’d switched SUVs with the special agent from the agency. But now...
When he found the aisle he wanted he automatically reached for his favorite brand, then hesitated. He hadn’t really given it a lot of thought before, but there was quite a variety of condoms to choose from, some of which were designed more to heighten a woman’s pleasure rather than a man’s. He turned to Cate. Her cheeks were bright pink and she was looking everywhere except at him.
Her shyness over something as prosaic as this charmed him, and he said, “You probably don’t have a preference. Right?”
Her gaze flickered toward him, then away again. “Last night...” she managed before her voice trickled away.
Okay, so he wasn’t dense. She meant what he normally used was perfectly acceptable to her. He grabbed a box of twenty-four off the shelf.
At the checkout Liam added a couple of packaged honey buns since they’d skipped breakfast, then told the cashier with his most winsome smile, “I need change for the Laundromat, too. Could I get a roll of quarters, please?”
* * *
Cate and Liam headed back to the cabin near Granite Peak almost two hours later, with the clean and folded laundry sitting neatly stacked on the backseat. The drugstore bag—with its box of condoms—lay wedged in the space between their seats, and Cate’s gaze continually drifted in its direction as she thought about what that meant.
Vishenko had never worn a condom. Why would he? He didn’t give a damn about protecting her or any of the women he’d raped and abused in his life. She was profoundly grateful she’d never gotten pregnant, had never ended up with a sexually transmitted disease, either, but neither fact was a virtue in Vishenko—he hadn’t cared. If she’d gotten pregnant he would probably have forced her to have an abortion, a dilemma that had torn her apart at the time. Not that she wanted his child—the idea made her sick—but that in aborting his child she would also be aborting her own, something she couldn’t fathom.
