Page 38 of Detective for the Debutante (SAFE Haven Security #3)

MURPHY

“ S o I’ve been thinking…” Leigh says from the cocoon of my arms.

Candlelight flickers off the floral- and vanilla-scented bubbles surrounding us. Some of the tension that had ebbed after spending the rest of the charity event watching Leigh smile next to Charlie comes back as Leigh’s shoulders tighten.

I can deal with another hellacious week of two other cases being questioned and a report of police brutality, but her tension hits me differently.

Yeah, because you’re in love with her, dumbass .

“About what?” I ask cautiously, lifting my hands to run my fingers along her shoulders.

I find a particularly large knot at the base of her neck and spend several heartbeats kneading it loose.

She moans, leaning her head back against me.

“That feels amazing,” she whispers.

“I thought we agreed we weren’t going to think any more tonight,” I tell her, pressing my lips to her shoulder.

That was my plan. Shedding our black-tie clothes to enjoy a hot bath with the gorgeous woman in my arms. The only thing I wish I had thought of was to bring a couple of beers up when I suggested the idea.

“And we’re not. This was a thought from earlier.”

“What kind of thought from earlier?” I ask, still working my way from her neck to her outer shoulders.

She turns her head, meeting my gaze over her shoulder, and my hands still. Her ocean-like eyes are filled with a variety of emotions that tug at the heart strings in my chest I never realized existed before her.

Love.

We may not have said the words, but the overwhelming feeling that had been building since that first night is impossible to deny any longer.

Longing.

I may not be able to get enough of her—case in point, it was my idea for the bath together tonight—but I recognize the same need in her that constantly hums through my blood.

Hope.

The emotion that makes my heart pound harder against my chest. A future that exists when I let myself imagine.

“Is it crazy that I googled law schools near the DC area today?” she asks.

Holy shit, yes. I would love to have her there with me. Then I get the job I want and the woman I can admit I’ve caught feelings for.

Her brow furrows, like she’s ready for me to call her seven types of crazy. Meanwhile, I’m glad she did. Because it means I’m not crazy either. Or maybe we are, but together.

“Not any crazier than me looking at apartments a commutable distance from law schools.” Because I had. I figured I could always bring the idea up with her when I found one.

She beat me to the punch.

Her face brightens, the candlelight in the room reflecting in her eyes.

“You did?”

I nod, lifting a finger to drag it in an X over my heart.

“Swear to God.”

Water swirls as she shifts to face me, her legs landing on either side of my thighs. Her warm pussy beckons, and my cock stands at attention at the sight of her breasts peeking above the water.

I grit my teeth against the sharp stab of need and keep my hands gentle on her shoulders, despite the urge to yank her to me.

“So this…thing between us?—”

“We’re more than a ‘thing,’ Stóirín,” I tell her.

I lock my eyes with hers, letting her in. Letting her see everything she makes me feel. Her intake of breath, the way her nipples now kiss the water, tells me she sees what I want her to.

“W-what are we?” she whispers then holds her breath.

Waiting.

“You are my chompánach anam,” I say, using the phrase I’ve heard Mom use all my life when she referred to Dad.

It’s like a vow, weaving the last bit of thread between her heart and mine. Creating one whole from two halves. It calms the nerves jangling in my gut, silencing the last moment of hesitation preventing me from spilling all my secrets.

“Your what?” Her pulse flutters visibly in her throat, and I place my fingers there, feeling the trill beneath their tips.

“Soulmate. You are my soulmate, Leigh, and I…I’ve fallen in love with you. There’s no denying it. There’s no running from it. You are the woman who owns me—body, heart, and soul.”

The words are both foreign in my mouth and the truest ones I’ve ever spoken. Her entire face lights up, her hands coming up to cradle my face as she brings hers closer.

“I love you, Murphy,” she murmurs, just before she captures my lips with hers.

Each word is another shape to my universe. Another breath, another heartbeat that now entirely belongs to her.

This glide of her flesh on my flesh, her lips on mine, is different than it’s ever been.

More powerful than Superman, more potent than any drug.

She is my addiction. With one hand, I find the back of her neck, tilting her head to deepen the kiss while my other hand splays on her ass, aligning our lower halves.

Her hips squirm against mine and a whimper escapes her mouth, staying trapped in the fusion where we connect.

I could kiss her forever.

And the thought doesn’t scare me the way it used to. Instead, a warm contentment filters along my extremities, basking me in a light unlike any I have ever known before.

I break our kiss, dragging my lips to her neck and sucking on the slick, heated skin before I nip at the tendon between her neck and shoulder.

She jolts, more water swirling around us, and her nipples rub against my chest in a delicious torture of friction, making my mouth water for a taste.

Boosting her, I find one with my tongue, sparring with the hard bud until I pull it into my mouth.

She tastes like roses, jasmine, and vanilla—the bubble bath—and something unique to her.

Something that makes me come back again and again until she mewls, pushing herself upright until her breast pops free.

My dick slides through her folds, pausing at the entrance before I shift my hips away from the temptation sliding into her with nothing between us brings. Her hips follow mine, creating a figure eight until I have to hold her still in my lap.

Closing my eyes, I grip her hips more firmly when they try to move.

Her breath rushes across my chest, a cool counterpart to the warm water at my back.

I glance up, and the vision she makes above me bathed in candlelight burns itself into my brain in an instant.

Her blonde hair has come partially loose from the bun she put it in as we climbed into the tub, and tendrils tease her lips, swollen and dark from my kisses.

Shadows and light play peekaboo with her breasts, highlighting the swell of one breast and the plump tip of the other. I groan, wanting to touch her but not trusting myself to let go of the grasp I have on her hips where they push against me.

“We should get out. I need to get?—”

She shakes her head.

“I’m good right here,” she teases.

I’m not one to argue. But my control unravels with every small shift of her hips against mine.

It’s maddening.

“Stóirín.”

She leans forward, her breasts dragging across my chest. Her lips tease my earlobe and gooseflesh dots my skin, and I press my feet against the porcelain edge of the tub, trying to maintain my grip on her slick flesh.

“I want you inside me, Murphy. Right now. Nothing between us. I’m on birth control and I got checked ou-oooohhhhh.”

Her words turn into a moan of pleasure as I shift, pistoning my hips up at the same time I drag her down. Water teases the edge of the tub as I fill her in one thrust, but all I can focus on is the overwhelming pleasure at the way her pussy grips my cock like a damn vise.

“Holy shit,” I grit out, managing to pull her mouth to mine to plunder her lips with my tongue while my body mimics the movement with my hips.

I hold on to the kiss as long as I can, breaking it only when my lungs burn for new oxygen and I suck in a breath against her jaw, breathing in the remnants of the bubble bath as her hips continue to meet mine thrust for thrust.

Water laps at our chests, smoothing the slide of skin against skin, and my hands lose purchase on her hips. I slide them back, gripping her ass as she continues to lift up and down. Her head is thrown back, her hair a curtain and the ends teasing my legs along the bath’s surface.

I struggle for control, desperately grasping for it as it tries to break free.

Planting one hand on her back, I bring her breasts back to mouth level, sucking a nipple into my mouth and teasing the hard point with my tongue and teeth.

Her pussy ripples around me and I repeat the caress, harder this time.

“Oh, fuck,” she pants, pressing her breast more fully into my mouth.

I repeat the nip a third time before shifting to her other breast and repeating the touches.

“I’m going to come,” she moans, the words spilling out on one long breath.

Mouth occupied, I slide my hand beneath the water, finding the hard nub of her clit with my thumb.

“Murphy.”

I’m right there with her, ready to explode as soon as she does. I run my thumb across her clit, nipping her breast at the same time, and her entire body locks against mine, yanking my orgasm from my control to slingshot us both into the universe together.

The stars couldn’t be any brighter as they flicker behind my eyelids, pleasure coming in white-hot waves as we continue to move until we’re both spent.

She collapses against my chest, and her labored breaths create goose bumps in the cooling water.

Her fingers trace the texture, resting against my heart.

“Well, that was an experience,” she murmurs.

I bark out a laugh, squeezing her to me and groaning when her laughter tightens her around my cock once again.

“A first for me too,” I admit.

“You’ve never had sex in a tub before?” she asks.

“I’ve never made love in a bath before,” I correct and she nestles against my chest.

Because it may have been hotter than the hinges of Hades, but that’s what it was.

Sex stopped existing for us. What we had was better.

“I love you, Stóirín.” The second time I’ve said those words tonight and they still hit me in the solar plexus, stealing my breath for a heartbeat.

“I love you,” she whispers and presses a soft kiss against my heart.

Fuck.

I’m never going to get tired of hearing her say those words.

Because every time she does, I fall a little more under her spell, and forever is no longer long enough.