Page 98 of Ice
“Everything. You. Need.”
“My toothbrush?”
Okay, I’ll concede that point, but no more.
“Fine, you can bring that, but that’s it.”
“None of my bodywash or shampoo?”
I shook my head, gripping her chin to stare at her nice and close.
“I want you only smelling of me now, babe. That means you use my stuff now, not yours, and I’ll get you a t-shirt to wear if you must, but I’m just as happy for you to stay naked.”
She rolled her eyes but started undressing, so I dug her toiletry bag out of her stuff, and retrieved her toothbrush, and her girly razor, because I couldn’t guarantee mine wouldn’t carve up her skin, but already I was planning to replace mine with something we could share in future.
While she was showering, I dragged the bedding off the bed, and dug out some fresh sheets. It was too hot for anything other than a light sheet over us anyway. I wanted the room to be as pleasant as possible for her though, because it wasn’t nice and elegant like her house. It was a guy’s room, and it needed to feel like home for her too.
Shit, should I be getting flowers and stuff? Maybe I was getting too far ahead of myself, and anyway, what would the guys say next time they visited? Call me a pussy? Tell me I’m whipped? Was I? Was that what was happening now?
The bathroom door opened and she appeared, with a towel wrapped around her head and my t-shirt covering too much of her damn body. Oh, and she smelled like my shampoo. My bodywash. I think it soothed the territorial beast inside of me, because if she smelled so much like me, the others would know she was mine, right?
She glanced around, at the freshly made bed, the open windows, and the way I stood there in just my boxers looking awkward.
“You did all this for me?”
I nodded, rubbing my hand over my buzzcut hair, feeling like a bashful fucking schoolboy.
“I uh… I’ll just use the bathroom. You can get in, if you want, or not… oh, yeah, Jesus… you might want a drink. Want me to get you a drink first?”
Lissa stepped closer and took my hands, squeezing them lightly.
“Relax, Ice, it’s just me, and I’m not company. I’m yours. You don’t need to change anything to please me.”
I swallowed, glancing around me, still seeing the room as too masculine for her to be happy here. Too simple. Too… me.
“I… we can make the place nicer for you, Lissa. I want you living here with me, but it’s a man’s room. It’s… it needs to be better.”
She smiled. “I think this is the right moment to mention something else Reacher said. Something he wanted me to tell you.”
Oh hell. I waited, my heart drumming in my chest as I waited for some new rule or restriction, or something that meant this still wasn’t real yet.
“He said to tell you‘you’re whipped’.”
I stared at her for a moment, struck dumb, while a huge smile bloomed on her face.
“Did I say it right?”
I burst out laughing, as her words finally sank in, and relief followed swiftly. Reacher, thatbastard. I dragged Lissa closer, and kissed the smile off her face, or I tried, but it just kept returning. It turns out I kinda liked it there anyway.
Lissa
Wewokeinthemorning wrapped around each other, and it felt like I’d never known anything else. Waking upwith Ice again was as amazing as falling asleep in his arms. His insistence that I use his bathroom products meant that I fell asleep with his scent firmly filling my senses, and woke up the same way.
“Come here, babe.” He clearly wasn’t ready to get up, dragging me back over his chest, and promptly falling asleep again.
When I next woke up, he was easing out from under me, and when I reached for him, he let out a pained hiss and shook his head. He was holding his arm stiff again, which told me all I needed to know.
“Want me to get your pills?”
