Page 181 of Girl Between
3 months later
“Hey,that’s not fair! Your legs are longer than mine!” Dana shouted after Jake as he bounded up the last set of stairs, taking two at a time.
He grinned down at her from the tenth-floor landing. “Face it, I’m just better than you.”
Dana reached the landing and put her hands on her hips as she tried to catch her breath. “That’s something we’ll never agree on.”
Secretly, she loved that Jake never let her win. Well, except in the bedroom, and from the seductive grin on his face, that’s where they were heading next.
Dana let him haul her over his shoulder and carry her the rest of the way into their new apartment. She pretended to struggle as she always did.
Things between them had always been hard won, and she wouldn’t have it any other way. Not when it made each victory that much sweeter.
Trading salty kisses, they stripped each other bare. Jake pulledher toward their bed. But Dana shook her head. She had other ideas, angling them toward the bathroom. In minutes, they were under the hot water, surrounded by luxurious steam in their massive shower. The stainless-steel tower system with dual rainfall, massage, and steam functions was the sole reason Dana had agreed to move into the apartment.
Well, not the sole reason.
She grinned at Jake, taking in his gloriously lathered form. Sometimes she still needed to pinch herself. The past three months had felt like a dream. One she hoped she’d never wake from.
Jake pulled her into his arms, beginning to lather her in all the right places. He paused, like he always did, to press a gentle kiss to the large X that scarred her stomach, just below her left ribs. A reminder of what they’d survived.
“What’s next?” he asked after he’d kissed a path back to her lips.
“Bedroom,” she said breathlessly.
He chuckled, warmly against her neck. “I was thinking beyond that.”
“Hmm?” She murmured, still a bit dazed by his touch.
“Our 90 days are up. We have to make a decision about the lease.”
“Oh.” Dana looked longingly at the state-of-the-art shower system.
“I like it here,” Jake admitted. “But I was thinking of maybe finding a place I can run the business out of.”
It’d been three months since he’d left the FBI. Dana was on extended medical leave from the Smithsonian. They’d hit the proverbial pause button when it came to their careers, but things were good. Better than good, which made what Dana had to say even harder. She didn’t want to rock the boat, but the Smithsonian needed an answer.
“I was thinking maybe we should take a trip,” she suggested.
Jake’s lips quirked up. “Yeah? Where to?”
“Well, I was thinking it might be time for me to meet your brother.”
“You want to go to Paris?” That caught him off guard, but hecontinued to grin. “Asking to meet the family … Dana Gray, are you planning to make an honest man out of me?”
“I wouldn’t be opposed to it,” she replied.
Jake stilled, his gaze going deadly calm. His mixture of fear and joy was almost comical, but she quickly put him out of his misery. “Calm down, big guy. I’m not proposing. Besides, my motives aren’t purely personal.”
“What do you mean?”
“The Smithsonian won a bid to host the Paris Catacombs exhibit next year. They need to send a curator to meet with the Musée Carnavalet. It’ll involve some research, but mostly it’s just to supervise the transportation of the exhibit back to D.C.”
“And you volunteered?”
“No, they approached me. Multiple times. I’ve held them off as long as I can, but they need an answer.”
“Are you going?”
