Page 68 of The Witness

“Stress?” His question was rhetorical.

“A metric fuck ton of it. No one wants to work this week. Christmas paralysis came early this year. And I’m calling bullshit. Do you know how many holidays I’ve worked in my life?” I barely paused for him to answer. I’d been ranting about this all day. And Michael, like some kind of saint, had listened. “All of them. Christmas, I’m in the kitchen. At Easter, I’m manning the brunch omelet station. Fourth of July, I’m grilling wings and dogs for a beach party.”

“How did that work with your daughter?” He draped an arm over the back of the couch. His fingertips found the nape of my neck, stroking the sensitive skin there.

“We moved holidays around my schedule. Celebrating early or late. The only holiday I never worked was Hailey’s birthday.” A smile spread over my face despite the bone-deep exhaustion and the layer of plaster dust coating my skin.

“You’re opening the restaurant in her honor, right?”

“I don’t think she’d want me to say it that way. The closer to the end of her life she got, the more accepting of death she became. It was unreal. My willful, hormonal, stubborn teenager turned into the Dalai Lama. Her goal was to give all of us a purpose for after. Her friends from school she asked to fundraisefor a scholarship in her name. Minerva, she asked her to rejoin the Silver Palms social scene that she’d given up for hospital vigils. I was harder.”

I leaned my head back and let my eyes close as he cradled my skull in his hand. Talking about Hailey was the recharge for my willpower battery I didn’t know I needed. More restorative than the fresh air in my face riding home on his motorcycle or a belly full of sweet and sour chicken.

“You give up a lot for your kids. More when you are raising them alone, I think. And while I never said it to Hailey, she knew. Saw that I took jobs that put her life and schedule before my ambitions. So at the end, she made me promise to go for it.”

I sat up and twisted to look Michael in the eyes. I took his hand in mine and squeezed it. “She actually said ‘take it from me; you only live once.’ Then we had a good cry and started planning my culinary domination of Miami. The food truck was her idea. She would have loved the TV show.” I dashed away a bothersome tear.

He said nothing, just folded me into his arms and hugged me. He’d reminded me how pure and wonderful a hug could be. Another person’s arms folding around you. The shelter from the storm. A welcome home. A safe place to relax. Ever since the first night when I fell apart in front of the Smiths, I’d instinctively sought his embrace.

“You are very good at hugs,” I whispered into his chest.

“Glad I’m at least good at that. I should have done more today to help.” He rubbed my back and kissed my cheek before letting go. The parts of my back he’d stroked tingled in a deliciously distracting way.

“You did plenty. But if you’re looking for more manual labor, I have plaster dust everywhere and need a good scrub.” I mushed my lips into a pout and batted my eyelashes. It was fun to flirt with him. Last night I’d missed Michael. My bed had been coldand lonely. There was no reason to end up staring at the ceiling fan for another night when he was right here, waiting to be enticed into staying.

He chuckled.

I winked and stood, pulling him up behind me. “We both need to get clean. We’ll be conserving water this way.”

“Well, let no one say I didn’t do my part for the environment.” He yanked his shirt off and dropped it in the middle of my living room.

“Exactly.” I walked my fingertips up his chest, loving the hot skin and the sprinkle of chest hair. I tugged his head down to mine for a kiss. Our lips touched and the same heat we’d shared in Cuba flared to life. It was intoxicating to be utterly physically compatible with another person.

On the walk to my bathroom, our clothes fell away, dropped in a trail of naughty breadcrumbs punctuated with hungry kisses across my house. Being naked in my 1960s era bathroom with a man hadn’t happened in years. I turned the shower on and soon steam filled the room. The small space seemed to amplify the sounds of us kissing and gasping each other’s names.

His hands were everywhere, making my pulse pound beneath the skin. Between my thighs. Cupping my breasts. Kneading my ass. I arched into every touch like it had been months since my last orgasm, not a couple of days. I glanced at the lightly fogged mirror. In the reflection, I looked small and pale against his broad, colorfully tattooed chest.

My shower was average sized. Michael wasn’t. I was about to ask how we both would fit when he took matters into his own hands—literally. He scooped me up, hands under my ass. On instinct, I twined my legs around his hips, my aching center pressed to his flat stomach.

We were both under the spray a moment later. I tossed my head back, letting the water cascade over me. The hot sprayburned pleasantly against my painfully hard nipples. Michael stepped forward to dunk his head, and I found my back up against the cold tile wall. I gasped in shock at the icy contact.

“I’m not waiting any longer. It’s been forever.” In a show of strength and agility, he positioned me and, in a single relentless stroke, shoved deep, bottoming out on a groan of incandescent pleasure.

Words, air, common sense all fled my body as he filled me to the edge of madness. My head pressed against the cold tile. I twined my arms around his neck, seeking leverage in our slippery situation. My nails dug into his muscles. He pressed me flat to the wall, his hips working between my slick thighs.

“So fucking good,” I told him as he rocked into me.

“You are what I dream about,” he growled in my ear before his teeth nipped the arched column of my neck.

The moans and gasped pleas to every deity I knew that tumbled from my lips were pure nonsense. Michael had driven reality so far into the background all I could do was feel. It was him and me clasped together, hurtling toward pleasure. The edge of bliss was just over the horizon.

The harder he thrusted the more I begged. We were spiraling over the edge too fast; surely, we’d crash. I clutched his shoulders tightly and wrapped my legs around his waist, locking my ankles.

“No worries, Siren, I won’t let you fall.” He squeezed my ass to punctuate his vow.

He was right; I didn’t fall. I exploded in a flash of white-hot release. My screams echoed off the tiled walls and washed back over us, mixing with his primal grunts as he came deep inside me.

Slowly, sanity returned, and my feet touched the floor. He held me close, water pounding over us. If not for another of his lifeaffirming hugs, I’d have melted to the floor and slipped down the drain.

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