Page 97 of In Safe Hands

After he disposed of the condom, they lay tangled together, sweaty and breathing harder than after their toughest cross-fit workout, and a breeze from the window swept over them. It would’ve been too cold if she’d been alone. Since Chris’s lax body covered most of her, Daisy felt the air touch only her cheeks and one arm. It was perfect, a sign that she was moving forward—with Chris, with letting go of her fears, with her life. Suddenly filled with such euphoria that she could almost feel her body floating off the bed, she tightened her arms around Chris, her rock.

He stirred in response, pushing himself up so he could look at her face.

“Okay, Dais?” He brushed a damp strand of hair off her cheek, and she remembered him telling her how much he loved that hair and that cheek. She smiled.

“I don’t know if I mentioned it tonight.” She mirrored his motion on his much-shorter hair. It wasn’t long enough to hang in his face, but she brushed it with her fingers anyway. “Since you were talking so much, I couldn’t really get a word in edgewise.”

With a mock insulted look, he began to tickle her. He seemed to instinctively identify all of her most sensitive spots, and he ruthlessly took advantage of that knowledge. When he’d reduced her to laughing, pleading exhaustion, he finally showed mercy.

“You were saying?”

Wiping the mirth-induced tears from her eyes, she tried to glare at him. It was difficult to do while she was still giving the occasional hiccup of laughter. “What I was saying, before that unprovoked attack, was that I love you—as in love-love you.”

“You love-love me?” He appeared to be holding back a smirk—not very successfully. “Is the double love different from the single love?”

When she shoved his shoulder, he didn’t budge. “I mean that I love you, and not in a just-friends way.”

“I know.” He rolled off her and stood next to the bed.

She frowned at his smug tone. “That’s not the right response.”

“Fine. I love you, too, in not a just-friends way. Is that better?” His grin was too contagious, and she fought returning it.

“Not really,” she grumbled. “Maybe in about twenty years, when we’re an old married couple, and this is old hat, but it’s pretty new hat right now, so I was hoping for a little more passion—eep!”

He picked her up and swung her off the bed, ending her monologue. “Shower?”

A shower sounded wonderful. Everything with him sounded wonderful. “Okay. Race you.”

* * *

“Okay. What is up with you?” Lou demanded.

“Me?” Although she tried, Daisy couldn’t stop smiling. “Nothing.”

“Uh-huh. Liar. Who else here thinks Daisy’s lying?” She raised her hand, and Rory and Ellie joined her.

Laughing, Daisy caved. “Fine. Chris and I are kind of…well, we’re dating now.”

While Lou whooped with excitement and Ellie called out her congratulations, Rory looked confused.

“I don’t get it. Weren’t you dating before?” she asked.

“We were just friends,” Daisy explained. Lou coughed and raised her hand again. “We were!”

Once the laughter died down, they asked her a million and one questions. When she was blushing hot enough to spontaneously combust, she called a halt to the interrogation.

“Aren’t we going to talk about the murder? Isn’t that why we’re meeting tonight? Please?”

“Fine.” Lou conceded, flipping to a blank sheet on the oversized notepad. “Who wants to talk about dead people?”

“First,” Ellie said, her expression changing from amusement to concern, “I want to talk about Daisy’s gas leak yesterday. What happened?”

Her stomach twisting in remembered fear, she gave the other women a condensed summary of the incident. “Is Ian in a lot of trouble?”

Rory shrugged. “Not as much as after he went into his dad’s burning house against orders. He’ll have to do some of the nastier tasks around the station for a week or two, and then he’ll be off the hook. Chief Early knows he’s not going to change.”

“I’m sorry,” Daisy said for what felt like the hundredth time.