“You have superior everything.”
He said that with visual attention to her too thin, too lanky body.
She shook her head. “You’re deranged.”
“Only with you.” Luther opened his jeans and stepped out of them. He folded them and placed them on top of her clothes. “I’ll join you in the tub, if that’s okay.”
They’d both be naked in there? Together? Gaby made up her mind. “A bath it is.”
Chapter 7
Luther swallowed all his demands for details until after he’d gotten Gaby settled in the steaming water in front of him. He positioned her with her back to his chest, her injured arm resting on the side of the tub, out of the water.
Though she hadn’t elaborated, just knowing that a bullet had caused the blood-crusted, burned furrow filled him with rage. That bullet had no doubt been meant to hit something more vital. Only Gaby’s quick reflexes had saved her from more serious injury—or even death.
And Gaby treated it as a trivial nuisance.
Any other woman, and most of the men he knew, would be popping pain pills and pampering that gruesome injury.
But not Gaby. Hell, she barely acknowledged it.
Lifting her wrist so he could examine the wound more closely brought a wave of guilt over Luther. His throat tightened. “Did I hurt you?”
“No.” She snorted as if he lacked the ability to do so, then thought to ask, “When?”
All around the area where the bullet had abraded her, the swollen flesh felt hot to the touch. “When we were”—he started to say making love, but to keep from alarming her anew, he changed it to—“having sex.”
“God, no.” She tilted the back of her head to his chest and looked at him upside down. “That was great.”
Even in the face of his staggering worry, Luther gave a small smile. Knowing he had satisfied Gaby went a long way toward keeping him on course with his plans.
He kissed her wrist. “That was what we call a quickie.” He fetched a washcloth and the soap. “Sit up a minute.”
“Why?”
Gaby never gave over easily. Life with her—which he was aiming for—would be one struggle after another. “I want to take care of you.”
Half turning to face him, she gave him a speculative glance. “Like . . . sexually again, you mean?”
She looked so hopeful that he almost relented. “No, I meant that I want to wash you. Then I want to bandage your arm again.”
Her scowl showed what she thought of that plan. “I’m able to wash myself.”
“Trust me, Gaby.” He smoothed aside her wet hair and, using the sudsy washcloth, started on her nape. It took a few minutes, and he was working the cloth halfway down her spine before she relaxed and let her head drop forward.
“That is . . . nice.”
He wanted to care for her always. And somehow, he would. After using the cloth to massage her back and shoulders, he put it aside and used both hands to rinse her. “Get on your knees and turn to face me.”
His heart hammered as she complied without a word. The steam in the room left her lashes spiky, her cheeks flushed and rosy. He knew well that Gaby considered herself a less than pretty woman. Sometimes she barely acknowledged her own humanity. Her life as a tool to combat gross iniquity had left her with a far from complimentary view of herself.
To him, she was by far the most striking, admirable, and appealing female he’d ever met.
Staring at her breasts, he soaped up the cloth again and started on her slender throat. Just beneath her pale skin, her pulse beat frantically. When he shifted, bathwater lapped at her narrow waist.
Gaby was all straight bones, sleek muscles, and female pride.
Slowly, Luther massaged over her shoulders, her collarbone, down over her nipples. She tipped her head back a little and held her breath.
Dropping the cloth, Luther covered her soapy breasts with his hands.
“Luther?”
“Hmm?” The soap made her nipples slippery, adding a new sensation to his touch.
“You’re not going to get me all excited and then stop again, are you?”
“No.” He teased her nipples with his thumbs, gliding around them, under them, not quite touching her as he knew she wanted. “How did you get shot, Gaby?”
She stiffened, but he’d anticipated that reaction from her, and lightly caught her nipples, tugging, rolling.
Her tension coiled tighter. “Drug dealers,” she managed to say.
Luther held the burgeoning anger at bay, anger at Gaby for putting herself in peril—again—and a hotter rage at whoever had dared to try to hurt her. “What about drug dealers?”
“They were hanging out . . . at a playground.” She covered his hands with her own, but she was too new to this to know what to do, and her hands fell away again.
“You ran them off?”
“No. I disabled them. As a warning.” She breathed faster. “The cops found them where I left them, there near the playground.”
Luther released her and while he gently cupped water over her chest to rinse the soap away, he asked as judiciously as he could manage, “Disabled them how?”
To his surprise, she started to shake.
“Gaby?” Alarm mushroomed. Never had he seen Gaby tremble. “What is it?”
In a sudden rush, she crawled up over his lap, putting her legs around him, with those puckered nipples at eye level. “I had to do something terrible, Luther. I can’t talk about it now. Please.”
Please? From Gaby! Fearing for the worst, Luther caught her hair and pulled her head back so he could see her face. “What happened? What did you do?”
Her quivering lips compressed, and grave sadness filled her beautiful eyes. She looked away. “I had to kill two dogs.”
Jesus. He felt like the wind had been knocked out of him. Tragic, yes, but nowhere near the possibilities summoned by his imagination.
She hugged herself around him. “Help me forget, Luther. Just for a little while.”
Two dogs. His eyes closed in profound relief. But, of course, it made sense. Gaby would always consider children, animals, victims of any kind, to be innocent. If she’d had to exterminate the dogs to protect others, it would be an atrocious burden for her, an albatross of guilt that she’d never lose.
And she had actually asked for him to help her.
Strides, Luther told himself. Great strides.
“It’s all right, Gaby. Let me help you.” He adjusted her just enough that he could lick her left nipple, circle it with his tongue, and then suckle her softly.
Her thighs tightened and she squirmed. He wedged a hand between their bodies and, given her wide-open position around him, easily pressed his fingers to her. Touching her would never be a hardship. He loved touching her.
He loved . . . No, he couldn’t let himself get sidetracked that way. Concentrating on their physical relationship would be enough.
For now.
Within minutes, Gaby was breathing hard and fast, and she moved against him, showing him what she liked, what she needed. Learning her preferences, her body, proved a distinct pleasure.
When she came, Luther held her close, glad that he could share this with her even as his heart broke for the high level of accountability she placed on herself.
Afterward, she lay sprawled over him in the tub, her legs still around him but her spine relaxed, her head fitting perfectly beneath his chin. Her warm breath teased his shoulder, and her injured arm remained out of the water only because he ensured it.
Hating to disturb her, Luther trailed his fingertips along her back, raising gooseflesh, bringing forth a sigh or two.
Several minutes passed, and he thought she might have fallen asleep.
“Sorry, but I need to hear the rest of it, Gaby.” He moderated his tone, treating the obdurate phenomenon of her routine existence as mundane, hoping she would follow suit. “You know that.”
“Yeah, I know.” She shifted a little, maybe tightened her hold on him. “I don’t care that I hurt the men. They were drug dealers preying on kids. One of the guys had so much money on him and so many drugs that I know he had a lot of exchanges planned for the day.”