Rox had her laptop propped on her folded legs. Midnight and Speedbump sprawled on the rug, oblivious to the storm. Pirate was curled up tightly on the couch, his head tucked under Rox’s knee. Every time thunder rumbled through the house, Pirate growled at it, his warm fur vibrating under her leg.
“Cash, I’m going into the office today to dump more contracts in our cloud. You wanna come with?”
He looked up from the piles of paper stacked on the coffee table. His knees were spread wide as he leaned over, reading and etching notes in the contract’s margins in green ink. Leaning over like that, his broad shoulders looked bigger, and his narrow waist, smaller, and he was even more of an inverted triangle. In the light grayed by the storm, the golden highlights in his hair faded, but his green eyes darkened. The bruising on his face and arms had begun to fade, and the swelling diminished a little every day. “It would be more efficient for me to stay here and look over Valerie’s contracts.”
“You remember that meeting with Watson’s people is in three days, right?”
He went back to working on the contract. “What of it?”
“You’re going to have to go into the office.”
Cash didn’t look up again, but he paused, his pen touching the paper like he had frozen. He didn’t look frozen, though. He looked like he was restraining himself from leaping up. “I’m aware of the appointment.”
“Are you going to postpone it?” she asked.
“We can’t. Principal photography is due to begin in less than a month. This contract is already overdue, thanks to the producer’s dithering and my accident.” Anger laced his voice at the end.
“Just making sure you knew.”
Lightning cracked across the sky. Under Rox’s leg, Pirate growled.
“I know.” Cash went back to writing on the contract.
BANDAGE
The next evening after dinner, after they had split another bottle of sweet, white wine, Cash laid down flat on his bed again for Rox to change the bandage on the surgical incision on his side, which she had done with trembling hands twice a day, every day.
She should have gotten used to stroking the paper tape and gauze onto his bare skin, feeling the subtle velvet of him on her palms, and brushing her fingertips over his muscles and flesh, but twice a day for almost three weeks now, she had been left shaking after she touched him.
He had begun exercising, gently, in his small gym in a back bedroom of the house. His body sure hadn’t atrophied in the couple of weeks since the accident. Muscles wound around more muscles on his chest and arms, all decorated by the black fire of his tattoo that ran along his left side and disappeared into the jeans that he still wore.
And she could see all those muscles and most of his tattoos.
She could see them because he was wearing jeans and the two white gauze bandages, one on his ribs and one on his cheek, and nothing else.
Not even socks.
Even his feet—clean, blunt toenails and smooth skin—were sexy.
The way that the snug denim clung to his long legs, muscular thighs, and slim hips mesmerized her. She wanted to run her hands down his legs.
Almost a month of constant temptation was making her crazy.
All sorts of thoughts crowded in Rox’s head: reaching down to unbutton the bolt on his jeans, leaning over to kiss the healed scar just under his ribs, or just climbing on top of him and hanging on for dear life.
In all of Rox’s ruminations, after she made a move, Cash would wind his fingers through her hair and hold her to his chest. Those brilliant green eyes of his would light for her.
But he would never do that. In three years, he hadn’t made any sort of move, excepting one recent, wine-related, tickling transgression of their very firm boundaries.
And she didn’t want him to.
Right?
Her wedding rings sparkled as she folded the gauze.
Maybe she should buy some new ones.
Bigger ones.
As always, Cash was watching her as she prepared the gauze and the tape. His dark green eyes seemed a little amused, and he watched her so closely, like he might be wondering what she was thinking, too.
But she was being silly.
She peeled off the old dressing, pressing her hand to his bare skin and the thick muscles of his abdomen to keep the tape from pulling and maybe yanking off a chunk of skin. Ouch.
Underneath, a pink scar creased his skin right below the lower line of his rib cage. The scar was melting into the flesh around it as it healed.
She was still resting her palm on his skin, and he breathed deeply, pushing his rib cage against her hand.
If she moved her fingers, she would be stroking his chest.
She didn’t.
Yet, she left her hand resting on his warm skin, feeling the hard ripples of his abs, and she said, “This looks pretty healed up. I’m not sure it needs a dressing on it much longer.”