"Dex," she murmured as the water sluiced over them both. "Would it be too forward of me to ask you do something really crazy?"
"Depends." He rested his head on hers and didn't seem to be in any hurry to separate. "Does it involve my brain? Because that's nonoperational."
"No brain required." She smiled. "I just have this fantasy involving your mouth that I never seem to get around to. Indulge me?"
He growled. "Sweetheart, you gotta give a guy a few minutes."
"Relax." She poked him in the ribs with a laugh. "I'm asking you to eat dinner with me. I'm starving."
Somehow Dex managed to keep his hands off Emma long enough to eat the … whatever it was she'd ordered from room service. Honestly, he lost track of the taste because all he could think about was tasting her again. They sat on the bed cross-legged and laughed about nothing until she set her plate on the bedside table.
"My turn with the fantasy," he announced, and she raised her eyebrows in silent question. "It's a little unorthodox. Maybe too far out. Sure you can handle it?"
She scowled and whacked him on the arm. "I think we're a little past that, don't you?"
Laughing, he grabbed her fist from his bicep and kissed it. "I was just thinking I'd like to try sex in an actual bed. For once."
The image of her draped over this bed, naked and open to him, crawled into his brain and caught him up in a vivid haze of lust. No sand. No closed-in shower stall. Lots of room to get really inventive with how he could please her …
"Oh." The glance she shot him did not say take me now, you big hot stud. "You're okay with that?"
"Uh, yeah." He wouldn't have mentioned it otherwise. Could they be having any less sexy of a conversation about sex?
Her fist dropped out of his hand, and for the first time since he'd met her on the beach, when Banana Hammock had done Dex a huge favor by acting like a douchebag, Emma hesitated. "Well, you know. There's no water. That's kind of turned into a thing. Between us."
And the fact that she was uncomfortable about it made him uncomfortable. "Because you're scared that something bad will happen if we're not in the water?"
Exhibit A for why he didn't do this type of B.S. Screwing a onetime Anonymous Jane in the back of a dark club didn't lead to questions and regrets and conversations about the crap packed into baggage and slung onto their backs.
"Not if you're not. That was for you, Dex." She reached out then, lacing her slim fingers with his and holding on tight. "I trust you anywhere, but you didn't like it when I said that. So I invented an out."
"You and I both know there's nothing special about water." Or him. Which meant there was still a potential for everything to go south, especially when they starting talking about it instead of ignoring the elephant in the room-Dexter.
"Yeah. I um, didn't realize it was going to lead to smoking-hot shower sex, but that was a total plus, so I won't apologize for it."
Since no one was asking her to, he took the opportunity to change the subject by yanking her into his arms and kissing the subject to the back burner. Turned out sex in an actual bed was just as mind-blowing as everywhere else, and soon she shattered into a spectacular orgasm that triggered his.
He rolled, pulling her against him, and lay with her spooned tightly as their breathing evened out. Absently, he stroked her hair and tried not to think about Rachel's parting comment as she'd sent him off to room 2319-namely that she wasn't coming back tonight.
He could easily envision falling asleep just like this. Emma in his arms, sated and smiling as she drifted off. It was far too intimate. He didn't do overnights. But then he'd broken just about every other rule for Emma's sake. Why not that one? It wasn't like he wanted to move anytime in the next million years anyway.
But then she cleared her throat. "Why don't you think I can trust you, Dex?"
His pulse picked up instantly, and he scouted for a comeback that would have exactly the right degree of nonchalance, yet fail to actually answer the question. "Told you, I'm bad news."
She glanced back at him over her shoulder. "Because you had a job that required you to shoot people? I've tried, but I don't see the logic, Dex. They made a whole movie about a guy who did that. And some other movies about the Bin Laden guys. A lot of Americans respect and revere SEALs. How come I can't be one of them?"
"Because." He huffed out a breath and tensed his arms with every intent of ripping it out from under her body so he could get dressed and leave. Her scent wound through his senses, and then the strangest thing happened. He didn't.
"I'm not going anywhere. Explain it to me."
"It's one thing to say you respect veterans. It's another entirely to sleep with one. To let a guy with bloodstains on his hands put them on you."
Of course, it was way too late to prevent that. He'd selfishly made excuses for why it was okay to do it with Emma, but it really, really wasn't.
That was when he found the will to move. He pulled his arm free and sat up, but she just went with him, unashamedly naked and completely unconcerned about it.
"Don't, Dex," she commanded. "You're not allowed to shut me out."
He chuckled darkly. "Yeah, I've figured that out. You just pry me open with your crowbar no matter how many ways I say back off."
She didn't smile back. "Not because I'm nosy. Because I care about you."
"Oh, sure, we've known each other a grand total of what, five days? That's a recipe for emotional commitment."
"Don't be dismissive of my feelings, and don't you dare use that as an excuse to deny your own."
"I'm not-" He couldn't even get the protest out through his suddenly tight throat. Is that what she thought was happening here? They were falling into some kind of relationship?
They were just having some fun. But as he stared at her, even he couldn't convince himself of that.
"You said it yourself. Every moment I'm with you, my preconceptions about what's happening between us are blown into bits. You suck me deeper into it, and I'm not fighting it." She picked up his hand and held it to her breast, right over her heart, trapping his palm against her skin. "Whatever blood you seem to think you have on your hands washes off. But the decency and honor and all your amazing parts? Those are there. Every time you touch me."
Her words whispered over him, and he so badly wanted to latch onto them, greedily store them away inside where they couldn't escape. Where he could take them out and hear them again anytime the memories overwhelmed him. Like now.
"It doesn't feel like any of those good parts are still in me," he whispered and God, was that his voice? He sounded like a pansy.
Tenderness sprang up in her gaze. "It was a war, Dex."
Too much tenderness. He looked away.
"You don't think I know that? That I haven't told myself that same thing? The navy shrinks, they have all the fancy words, more than you could ever come up with." He laughed, and it should have come out bitter. But the break at the end ruined that. "There's so much evil in the world. I thought I was fighting it, and instead I became like them. Willing to kill because that guy in my sights is on the other side, so it's okay to blow his head off."
He'd never said stuff like this out loud, and it sounded just as horrific when voiced as it did whispering through his soul. He was exactly like the worst people in the world-terrorists.
"Dex," she murmured when he trailed off. "Keep going. You need to purge this stuff. It's poisoning you."
There was that crowbar again. Except it wasn't really. She was so noninvasive, so easy to talk to. No one had ever just listened to him like this, without judgment, without an agenda. That was the only reason he kept going.
"I get that it's kill or be killed." His chest hurt like an elephant had sat on it. "If I hadn't done my job, other people, guys I care about who were fighting alongside me, die. Maybe other people die because I let a guy go whose next move is to blow up a daycare in Des Moines."
"Oh, Dex."
She gathered him up, holding him tight, and even though she was half his size, she surrounded him. He let her. Here in the circle of her embrace was where the magic was, because when he was with her, it flat wasn't so bad.
"Who did this number on you?" she murmured, her hands in his hair, then soft on his back as she stroked him. "Tell me where to find her."
He choked out a laugh. "As much as I appreciate the sentiment, it's really not like that. Yeah, there was a woman. Malika. But she only verbalized things about me I already knew to be true."
He'd started hating himself long before he'd crossed the ocean toward home that final time. Malika's pious condemnation had only solidified it. Though it had been a lot more painful coming from someone he'd thought was on his side.