As ready as she could make herself, she concealed her stump among the blankets and waited. Anticipation, not fear, made her hold her breath when the door opened.
“Hello.” Pitching her voice low was easy with the nerves inside her chest threatening to block her ability to speak. She rose on one elbow and made sure her top gaped.
“Are you sure?” He bent toward her, providing a whiff of yeasty residue.
“You smell.” She pressed her hand against his shirt, as much to hold him away as to feel his body heat through the cotton. “Like beer sweat.”
“That I do.” His voice was slower, with a throaty sound, as if the alcohol had pulled him to another era or place where people spoke more slowly. “Shall I wash?”
“That would be nice.” This wasn’t how tonight was supposed to work. And she didn’t have a backup plan.
“Come with me.” Taking the duvet in his hands, he looked to her for permission.
In her imagination, he was supposed to climb into bed beside her in the dark, not smelling like beer, and he wouldn’t need to see any part of her lower torso without clothes. Reality, as usual, was totally different, but she knew this was their chance to find each other again and she had to work with what he offered, so she nodded. “My leg’s next to the bed.” Not as hard to say as she’d expected.
“I’ll carry you.” When he scooped her in his arms, static made the empty pajama leg cling to his elbow. He couldn’t see her stump, not with the long flannel flopping over it.
“But I want—” Before she’d finished her request, he popped the leg and the liner sleeve sitting next to it into her arms, like he knew how much security they gave her. She clung to him as he dipped to reach the doorknob. “Where are we going?”
“Wait and see.”
At the end of the hall a set of stairs continued up to what was probably the roof. Tucking her stump closer to Wulf to avoid bumps as they ascended, she anticipated the cold February night. Instead they entered a warm and earthy-smelling room.
“Ivar’s conservatory.” The exertion of climbing had erased the blurriness of beer from Wulf’s speech, although he wasn’t panting as he carried her past shelves of plants with multi-fingered leaves, some smooth, others with edges like bread knives. Flowers ranging from pale green to purplish-black nodded as they brushed past. “He propagates hellebores.”
She forgot what Wulf had said as soon as they emerged through a heavy plastic curtain. Simultaneously inside and outside, the glass-ceilinged room around her bloomed with azaleas and tightly budded tulips. His breathing remained as even as it had been when he’d first lifted her, until she slipped two fingers between his shirt buttons and touched the hot skin of his chest. That made his breath catch and hold.
“Welcome to my sauna.” He ducked through the door of a wooden building the size of a large closet and settled her on a wide bench.
In the cedar-scented dimness, she saw a shower as well as a stove with rocks piled around it and stacks of fluffy towels, but as soon as Wulf began to strip, she couldn’t look at the sauna. “Um, don’t you have to light a fire or something?”
“Gas power. It heats quickly.” He touched controls by the door. Every move he made highlighted the sculpting of his arms and shoulders. Even the mundane act of bending to shove his shirt in a basket showed the muscles of his abs and torso playing together. “The steam will be ready by the time I finish my shower.”
So will I. She realized she was cradling her leg to her chest unnecessarily since she was secure on the bench. No curtains or walls blocked her view of Wulf as she stowed her prosthetic under the wooden seat. She could happily lounge in this spot all night.
The sound of his zipper was louder than the heartbeat in her ears, but not faster. When his jeans came down, it was obvious he’d noticed her interest too. Heat from the stove stuck her pajamas to her skin, and her underwear felt damp as she watched him slide his boxers down his legs. Knowing she shouldn’t stare so blatantly, she tore her gaze away from his thighs and groin, but not before that part bobbed a wave at her.
“You don’t have to look away. I liked it.” He definitely had.
“I—” Thankfully, he turned on the water and she didn’t have to form an answer. While she watched his buttocks flex, she recalled their firmness under her hands and how she’d clutched those muscles when he pumped over her. Steam saturated the air until she plucked at the flannel clinging to her thighs. Still, she stared.
Eyes closed, he faced her and raised his arms. The motion pushed his chest toward her and delineated his abs, a work of art to admire, while his eucalyptus-scented shampoo mixed with the mist to wrap her in fragrance. When she followed the path of dissolving bubbles down his chest to his abdomen and the solid evidence of his desire, she wanted to be that water. She wanted to flow across his body.
Opening his eyes after a final rinse, he stepped out of the shower stream. “Want to join me?”
“Yes.” The heat had increased. Sweat trickled between her breasts. Remembering the glide of his skin on hers, she wanted to be wet next to him, even though she didn’t know how she’d stand.
He solved her dilemma by kneeling, naked, in front of the bench and raising her shirt hem while she lifted her arms. Bared to him, her nipples beaded as he cupped her breasts, one in each hand. When he bent to suck, the scrape of his stubble was a drug worth craving. Arching to push herself closer to his mouth, she felt as shaky as an addict seeking her fix. His pulls reached through her body and, she would’ve sworn, into her soul.
“I missed you,” he murmured, his face buried between her breasts and his fingers rolling her nipples with the hypnotic rhythm of his words. “Memories were nothing compared to this. You’re beautiful.” He reached for her drawstring.
Beautiful. Maybe she had been, once, but certainly not now. Her thighs squeezed around his torso hard enough that he couldn’t remove the last pieces of her clothing. “Turn off the lights,” she ordered.
Crouched between her knees, he looked up. “I want to see—”
“No!” Humiliation trumped desire, and she jerked back as his fingers undid the knot at her waist. “Turn off the lights. Now.”
“Let me take these off.” His hand slipped beneath the loosened waistband.
In Italy they’d made love in sunlight and among candles, but she wasn’t that woman anymore, so she crossed her arms over her chest.
“All bodies are equal in the sauna. It’s an old Finnish saying.”
“Well, I’m Italian, and I want the lights off!”
He finally complied, turning off the stove as well and plunging the room into darkness so complete she couldn’t see her lifted hand. This time when his fingers brushed from the bare skin of her stomach to her waistband, she knew he couldn’t see her damage.
“Someday you’ll be comfortable with the lights.” His mouth followed his fingers, trailing sensations that encouraged her to drop her knees farther apart. “I promise.”
“Don’t hold your breath.” Her warning ended with a moan, weakening her threat, as he slid the pajama pants and underwear off her hips.
“Don’t hold yours.” His mouth moved lower, following his hands to the places that waited, begging, for him. “Wouldn’t want you to faint.”
“Modest much?” Her head lolled on the wall behind her as she flexed her buttocks and raised herself. Hard to think, harder to speak. But feeling came easier as he opened her legs and a hand slipped under her hips to tilt her off the bench. Flutters began deep inside. They matched the pounding in her blood, the rhythm of his tongue and the satisfaction from his fingers moving harder between her legs. First her stomach muscles, then her chest and arms and shoulders and neck, everything, every part of her body, felt pulled taut and stretched to breaking, until they all snapped into a kaleidoscope of sensation. She couldn’t hold back from yelling his name.