Page 108 of Looking for Love in All the Haunted Places
She faux-gasped. “I knew it.”
“It’s yet another first-day memory that’s been haunting me. You painted such a vivid picture of your bath ritual I instantly imagined it—bubbles, lavender, music, steam, you.” He chuckled, low and dreamy. “I just know you set the temperature to molten lava.”
“It’s the only way to get a decent amount of steam. I could send you pictures. Of me. Right now.” She grinned her way through feeling bashful. “If you want. I trust you with them.”
Maverick groaned, voice straining as he asked, “How much longer?”
“I don’t know,” she said, sinking lower into the water. “I’m making progress, but no definitive answers yet.”
Rarely did they talk about Hennessee and Lucky’s mission during their only hour together. The fact that he brought it up meant he’d been thinking about it, and now they were losing precious seconds to dead air. She usually tried to be bright and bubbly, hiding how terribly she missed him. This was her choice. She caused their separation. She had to live with that burden.
And then he said, “When I dreamed about you last night, you said, ‘I see the threads in the fabric of you. They’re stronger when you thread them through my needle eye. We burn the dull ones like trash.’ ”
“Are you asking for a translation? Because I have no idea what I meant by that.”
After Maverick explained his lucid dreaming process, Lucky began to suspect there might be more to it. But he’d already told her he was happy with what he’d learned about himself so far. His control over it made him feel safe. She had no right to disrupt that.
“You kissed me while you said it then yelled at me to wake up.” He sighed. “Not even Hennessee can hide from you. I’ll be here when you get out.”
“It’s not jail.” She laughed. Although, she had begun tracking her days with tick marks in her journal to keep herself grounded and those did kind of resemble scratches on a cell wall. “So about the pictures.”
“Lucky—”
“I’m just saying we could swap.”
“You want me to send you nudes? Why?”
She couldn’t stop herself from giggling at how skeptical he sounded. When she explained how seeing little-Maverick-until-proven-otherwise wouldn’t do anything for her, he took the news as well as could be expected.
“Maybe not nudes, but you, shirtless, in a tight-fitting apron, baking or cooking something fancy. Or you, wearing that one blue sweater I like and holding a book. Ooh, with glasses—do you have glasses? You could pretend to be a librarian.” She sighed so hard she nearly swooned. “Librarian romances are in my top five.”
“Stop, I can’t take it.” He started laughing more than she’d heard in weeks. She’d missed that sound so much. “It’s too early.”
“Don’t laugh.” She pretended to whine.
“I thought you weren’t wholesome. That’s like the definition of wholesome.”
“Hey, it’s not my fault you’re so handsome and I want to see you dressed up in clothes for different professions. That’s what I want,” she said firmly. “I’ll make my pictures artistic, the suggestion of nudity, so it seems fair.”
“I’ll send you pictures of me. You don’t have to send me anything.”
“You don’t want my tasteful nudes?”
“I want a whole lot more than that,” he said, and started laughing again. “Have you ever tried roleplaying? I think you might like it.”
“Don’t think so,” she said. “I’ll have to look it up.”
“Nudes aside—”
“But—”
“No, we’re moving on,” he said. “I have a question for you.”
“Okay?”
“If I sent you something I’ve been working on, would you be interested in reading it?”
She gasped. “Is it your book?”
