Page 74 of Duty and Desire

Before she got up, he’d done a walkthrough. Doors locked. Windows closed and locked. Blinds down. Security system functioning. Backyard empty. Cars parked at the front empty or folks getting in them, going about their normal business.

He could let her out of his sight for long enough for her to wash her face.

But after taking a sip of his coffee, he set it aside and walked to the foot of the stairs.

It took maybe five minutes, the last thirty seconds of those he considered jogging up to check on her, before she showed. Face clean and gleaming. Tits jiggling as she danced down the steps.

She stopped four from the bottom.

“If I can rinse my face without you in the next room, why can’t you shower with me somewhere else in the house?”

“I’m vulnerable when I shower. And unarmed. I’m not when you rinse your face.”

Another big, blurred smile and an, “Ah.”

Then more jiggling and dancing down the steps.

He’d lived a good life.

Clean.

Taken care of his mom and sisters.

Put up with them even after the taking care of them part was no longer needed (and they were a lot, every one of them).

Enlisted and was honorably discharged.

He did right by Hawk, never wheedled out of a mission (something that would get his ass canned, but that wasn’t why he didn’t do it), always followed orders, never fucked up.

The two long-term girlfriends he’d had, he’d treated them like gold. Living with five women, you learned a lot of shit. And he’d given it all and then some to the women he’d claimed. It had been them who’d scraped him off for something better.

So no cheating. No excessive gambling or drinking. Absolutely no drugs. No nights out carousing with his boys and not checking in. No getting up in their shit about how expensive their handbags were or why they couldn’t rinse a damned plate and put it in the dishwasher rather than leaving it in the sink.

How he’d earned this punishment with Lottie, he did not know.

Maybe it was beating the shit out of his sonuvabitch dad.

Yeah, that had to be it.

He followed her back into the kitchen and she did her thing, in her nightie, while he watched, and it was while she was sautéing the mushrooms, and he was taking a sip of coffee, when she asked, “What do you think about my tits?”

He nearly did a spit take.

To avoid that, he swallowed hard, not like he was swallowing coffee, like he was swallowing a boulder, and he stared at her.

She was at the stove, wooden spoon in her hand, but twisted to look at him. “I’m going natural. Next month.”

He tried not to look at her tits.

Swear to God he did.

He couldn’t not look at her tits.

He then forced his eyes to her face.

He knew her tits had to be fake.

Still, they were fuckingawesome.