Page 128 of Dial L for Lawyer
"They’ll get their comeuppance. I promise we won’t be letting this go."
"Good. I just..." She trails off, then covers her face with both hands. “I can’t stop thinking about Maya. I mentored her. I vouched for her.”
“You did your job,” I say. “She did hers—without the integrity you have.”
She's quiet for a long moment. Then she lets out a sigh. "I need to wash this day off me."
"Can I run you a bath?"
"Please."
Dropping a kiss on her head, I extract myself from the couch and head to the main bathroom, turning on the taps and adjusting the temperature. I grab the bottle of the bath oil she loves and pour a generous amount under the stream. Lavender and something else—bergamot maybe—fills the room.
When I return to the living room, she hasn't moved.
"Your bath awaits, pancake."
"Carry me?"
I scoop her up bridal style, which is only slightly awkward because she's taller than most women and the suit jacket refuses to hang like anything but an accidental straitjacket. She laughs all the way to the bathroom.
"You're really strong," she says when I lower her gently to the fluffy bathmat. "Is that from carrying your entire law firm on your back?"
"That, and the weight of my own ego. Excellent resistance training."
She lets me peel off her jacket, then unbuttons the blouse herself. The effect is less striptease, more autopsy. She undoes her skirt, then freezes halfway.
"Do you have any idea how much shapewear hurts after a day like this?" she asks, the edge in her voice half joke, half leftover pain.
"Show me," I say. It comes out hungry and soft.
She holds my gaze, then wiggles the black compression monstrosity down her hips and legs, nearly falling over in the process. She makes a face that splits the difference between indignation and relief. "I swear, the person who invented this must've been a torture expert. Or a man."
I step closer, unable to help myself, and run my thumbs along the raw indentations left behind on her waist. "You're beautiful."
"This should be a controlled substance," she grumbles, straightening, and lets the rest of her clothes fall away. She stands there, just her and the bruised marks of a long day, and she's never looked more like herself. "If Maya could see me now, she'd just die laughing."
I shake my head, biting back a grin, and kneel down to press a soft kiss to one of the angry red lines along her hip. She shivers. "You're the bravest person I know." I pull her gently until she's standing naked in front of me. "You don't have to be anything but exactly this, with me."
Her hands slide through my hair, until she's guiding my face up so I'm looking at her. "Get up here and kiss me, Kingsley."
I stand and she barely lets me get upright before she's kissing me hard, desperate, her hands still tangled in my hair. I let her lead, let her press all the exhausted gratitude and leftover fear and I-am-still-alive into my mouth. When she pulls back, her eyes are rimmed red but sharp. Not the watery blur of panic, but the clarity of someone who's finally stopped running from her own ghosts.
"Are you getting in with me or just staring?" she asks, running her fingers along my jaw, her thumb brushing the soft spot under my cheekbone.
I smile, playing along. "I was going to let you have it to yourself, but?—"
She laughs. "Like hell you were."
Her confidence is new and a little raw, but it's real, and it moves me more than any romantic confession ever could. She steps into the steaming bath, sinking down so fast that the lavender clouds rise instantly around her and fog up the mirror. I strip quickly, tossing my shirt and slacks into a heap, then slide in behind her, my knees bracketing her body. She leans back so her shoulder blades fit perfectly to my chest, the curve of her ass a bright, tempting presence.
For a while there's only the sound of water and heartbeats. Beneath the surface, her calves rest heavy against mine, like even her legs trust me to hold them up. She drifts, chin tipped back to the ceiling, and I just keep my arms around her, my hands splayed over her belly as the traumas of the day steep out of her bones, one lavender-scented minute at a time.
"In a way, I think being put on leave was good for me," she murmurs, voice echoing off the tile.
"How so?"
"Well, this is the longest I've ever gone without picking up my phone." She turns slightly and lifts her hands out of the water. "I think the muscles in my thumbs are dying."
