“How mad are you?”
“Depends.” She stared out into the garden. “What did you do?”
“I went to a seedy strip club and sat in the parking lot telling myself that was what I deserved. Not a home, not with you. Just a dirty place I couldn’t ruin with my ugliness, with people who couldn’t give two fucks about me.”
His words made her hurt for him, but she was braced for a blow herself, waiting for him to tell her the rest. Because she’d hit her limit. She’d told him her line in the sand. If he’d crossed it, she wouldn’t be able to forgive him. Not this time.
“I opened the car door to get out,” Noah said, breaking her heart, “and then it hit me what a fucking idiot I was being. I was about to let what that bastard did destroy the best thing in my life. I was about to permanently damage my relationship with a woman who loves me even when I’m a surly, bad-tempered and moody son of a bitch. So I pulled the door shut and hauled ass home.”
He put his hand on the back of her neck, and the touch was oddly tentative for Noah. “So, how long are you going to be mad?”
Relief was a roar of blood through her veins. Not pulling away from his touch because, even with anger lingering inside her, she knew he’d take that as a rejection, she said, “I’ll let you know when I’m not mad anymore.”
He groaned. “Open-ended? That’s cold, Katie.”
Dropping the fork onto her plate, she turned to face him, and then she did what she’d wanted to do since the instant he’d told her he’d shut the car door and come home. She wrapped her arms tight around him. “That’s for coming home,” she said as his own arms wrapped around her so hard she could barely breathe. “The mad is for making me worry and for thinking you couldn’t come back to me just because the demons were awake.”
He shuddered out a breath and then, without prompting, told her what had set him off. “Dumb, huh?”
“No. It just caught you by surprise.” She glared at him. “What’re you going to do the next time something hits you sideways?”
The answer was immediate and so sure she believed it. “Find you.”
“Good.” Pulling back, she looked up into his face. “We need a pool.” She didn’t want to wait six months, wanted Noah to know his place was right here. With her.
His eyes filled with that luminous, astonishing light, his smile delighted as he held her face in his hands and pressed his forehead to hers. “Infinity?”
Melted by that smile no one else in the world ever saw, she fisted her hand in his T-shirt. “I saw one with waterfalls that I like.”
“We can get waterfalls.” A tender kiss followed by a wicked one. “As long as you promise to wear string bikinis and stand under the water.”
“It could be arranged.”
Still smiling, he said, “I need to shower.” He ran his hands down her arms. “I’ve made you sticky too.”
“Want to shower together?”
His eyes widened, and she realized this too would be a brand-new experience for her debauched rock star.
“Yeah,” he said with a slow smile. “Will you soap my back?”
“If you ask nicely.”
Noah hadn’t ever showered with a woman before. Watching Kit pin up her barely dry hair, her sleek body naked, he started to think he might just like this. Then she turned on the water and stepped in, shooting him a playful look over her shoulder, and he knew he liked this.
Stripping off his own clothes, he got in behind her and bent to kiss her neck, his hands on her hips. He knew she was still technically mad at him, and he deserved it, but she loved him too. Even when he fucked up, she still loved him.
He could always come home.
She wouldn’t kick him out just because he was imperfect. The only thing he had to do was take care of her heart, a heart she’d entrusted to him. He could do that—crossing her line in the sand held absolutely no appeal when on this side stood his Kit who wanted to build a home with him.
“Hey,” she said in mock reproof when he ran his hands up to cup her breasts. “I thought you wanted to shower?”
“I am showering,” he said, feeling young for the first time in an eternity. “With a gorgeous woman I intend to lather up.” He took her fluffy loofah from her, on which she’d squeezed some girly-smelling body wash, and began to run it over her body.
Leaning back into him, Kit let him do what he wanted, and what he wanted was to worship her. She smiled up at him, and for the first time in his life, a sexual situation was playful. He held the eye contact, kept returning to it, and he had fun. When she stole the loofah from him and tried to cover him in her perfumed body wash, he threatened her with all kinds of revenge.