Page 138 of Seek Me Darling

Hope she doesn’t come looking.

“You okay?” Matteo murmurs from behind me, voice low.

I stiffen. “Yeah.”

He doesn’t call me on it. Just rinses the shampoo from my hair, his fingers massaging the base of my skull until the tension in my shoulders starts to loosen. Until my muscles remember how to unclench.

“I could get used to this,” I mutter, the words slipping out before I can catch them.

He goes still. Then lets out a breath.

“I hope you do.”

The silence after that is thick. Not uncomfortable. Just full. Brimming with all the things we haven’t said.

He turns off the water. Reaches for a towel. Wraps it around me before I can even move.

Then he dries me. Carefully. Like I might break if he rubs too hard. Like my skin is glass and he’s learned how to handle it without cracking it.

I let him help me into a tank and a pair of my soft lounge pants—the kind I used to wear when I still had a normal life. When I still had mornings with vending machine coffee and busted surveillance gear and office banter with Matteo that wasn’t soaked in obsession.

He towels off my hair next, messy and uncoordinated. I pull a face before taking the towel and doing it myself.

“That’s not drying,” I mutter. “That’s abuse.”

He snorts. “You want a salon experience?”

“I want to not look like I got electrocuted.”

He leans in and presses a kiss to my temple. “You always look dangerous.”

I roll my eyes and shove him lightly toward the door.

When we step into the living room, Bodhi’s already there—showered, barefoot, shirtless, a smear of sauce on his chest and a wooden spoon hanging from his mouth as he adjusts a burner.

“You good?” he asks without turning.

“She’s vertical,” Matteo answers from behind me, voice dry.

“Barely,” I mutter, eyeing the tattoos on Bodhi’s back again..

Bodhi turns with a grin, waving the spoon like a weapon. “Then sit your wrecked ass down and eat.”

I narrow my eyes again but obey, flopping onto the couch. Matteo follows, his thigh pressed to mine. I don't lean into him—not yet—but I don't pull away either. He’s close but not crowding me. Just steady.

Goddamn fortress of a man.

Bodhi brings me a plate a minute later. Pasta. Creamy. Garlicky. The kind of comfort food I didn't ask for but definitely want. He hands me a mug next. Coffee.

Exactly the way I like it.

“You’re ridiculous,” I tell him as I take it.

“You’ll get used to it,” he says, dropping onto the other side of me, taking up too much space and not caring in the slightest.

He leans over to grab the remote and flicks through menus.

“Pick your poison,” he says.

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