Page 69 of Bedroom Therapy

Chapter Thirteen

Amanda lay beside Zach waiting for him to say something. He didn’t answer her question, only reached over the side of the bed and found the sheet she’d carefully folded. Sitting up, he flipped it open, then draped it over both of them.

It covered his nakedness—and hers. But it did little to hide the erection still sticking out from the front of his body. Instead, his rigid penis made a little tent pole for a section of the fabric.

He lay against the pillows with his eyes closed, his head turned slightly away from her.

Under the covers, she laid her hand softly over his, feeling him quiver. For a moment she stroked her fingers along his still heated skin, then said. “Zach, that was fantastic . . . for me.”

“I’m glad,” he answered, his voice barely above a whisper.

“What about you?”

He pulled his hand away. “In case you can’t figure it out, I don’t want to talk about me,” he snapped.

“I think we should.”

“Why?”

She hesitated for a moment. There were a lot of things she could say now. And she wasn’t sure which was best. She decided on, “Because I think the two of us have gotten very close in a very short period of time. And I want to get closer. Emotionally closer.”

He made a small sound that she hoped signaled his agreement.

Turning toward him, she added, “Making love with you was wonderful for me. I see it wasn’t as good for you—and I want to do something about it.”

The words hung in the air between them, and she wished she hadn’t spoken them.

He sat up and gave her a look that could have frozen water to ice. Punching out the words, he said, “I don’t need any help from Dr. O’Neal.”

Feeling at a disadvantage, she sat up, too, and pressed her palms against the comforter to keep herself from reaching for him again. A few minutes ago, they’d been as close as a man and a woman could be. Now . . .

“I wasn’t offering help from Dr. O’Neal,” she said softly.

He tipped his head to one side, studying her, and she was glad he’d found the sheet. Otherwise, she would have felt very naked.

“What were you offering?” he asked, his voice challenging her.

She gave a small shrug because she was pretty sure that if she tried to speak now, she’d start to cry.

Fighting her natural inclination to try and reach out to him with words, she pressed her lips together. Her own emotions were raw as she climbed out of bed. She had just had one of the best experiences of her life, and now she was on the edge of tears.

“Maybe it will be easier to talk when we’re both dressed,” she whispered, ducking into the closet to pick up the clothing she’d discarded earlier. Wadding them into a ball, she clutched them against her chest and hurried out of the room.

To give herself something to do, she turned on the shower and waited for the water to heat, then stepped under the spray and just stood there for several minutes. The hot water felt good. But not as good as Zach’s hands and lips on her. Not as good as his penis inside her.

And hot water was certainly no substitute for a conversation with the man who had just sent her flying off to the moon, then crashing back to earth.

While she stood under the shower spray, she fell into the habit that had built up over the past few days.

“Dear, Esther,” she murmured, letting the sound of the pounding water mask her words.

“I’ve met a fantastic guy. I was attracted to him from the moment we met. I think it was the same for him. But we started off on the wrong foot. It’s complicated to explain it all. It’s got to do with a murder investigation. But that’s not the important part. I can’t speak for him, but what it seems like to me is that neither one of us wanted to walk away from the relationship.”

She stopped and squeezed shampoo into her hand, washing her hair as she continued.

“Each of us reached out to the other. I think we both did things we wouldn’t have considered with someone else. I mean sexual things that I might have thought of as kinky before I met him. But we did them. And it was mind-blowing. Fantastic. Then I wanted to just have plain old sexual intercourse. I seduced him. And it worked. It was just as good as I knew it would be—right up to the end.”

She turned in the spray, carefully rinsing her hair before she went on.

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