Page 73 of Whispers at Dusk
“All right. He knows where you are and what you’re doing. Of course, I feel like an idiot myself—I didn’t see a thing in his manner when he was Sven the friendly bartender. But now we do know. And he will keep at it.”
They were across the room from one another, but Della could almost feel a lightning heat coming off him, encompassing her in a strange sensation. Maybe not so strange. She’d been a bit wary; she’d chosen to believe in him. And every step of the way...
She’d found herself drawing closer to him in a way she had never known with anyone before.
They seemed locked in silence. She gave herself a severe mental shake.
“If you were an idiot, I was an idiot, too. We walked into a Norwegian bar and met a Norwegian bartender who directed us toward a man who was a killer along with his accomplice. So, here we are. And... Anyway. He will keep at it. Right. Well. Okay, good night.”
She started to turn away.
“Della?”
She turned back.
“I can’t lose you. And I won’t lose you,” he said.
She smiled. He went to his room; she went to hers.
In her room, Della felt desperate for a shower. She hadn’t discovered any corpses that day, but just the conversation with Stephan Dante had made her feel as if she needed a shower. And the shower was good. She loved a spray of hot, hot water—it made it feel as if her mind were cleared of cobwebs as well as her flesh of the dirt and grime of the day.
She stepped out and dried. Then she wasn’t sure of what she was doing herself, or maybe she was.
She walked back out to the parlor section of their suite.
Mason was there, having just showered, wearing a towel as well.
He looked across the room at her and smiled slowly.
“Is this awkward?”
“No, I think it’s beautifully natural,” she told him.
“Should we talk?” he asked her softly.
“Lord, no!” she said, covering the distance between them.
She’d known from the time she’d first seen him that physically, he was extremely fit. That she found the contours of his face striking, his eyes intense, his mouth...
The way it formed over hers seemed sensuous and sensual to the most extreme levels possible, a kiss, just a kiss, but the wet heat of it...
So much more. The way his fingers first seemed to cherish her face, fall to her shoulders, sweep around her, bring them flush together.
The friction of their bodies caused their towels to fall away. And then he whispered to her, even the feel of his breath like an exotic aphrodisiac, asking, “My room or yours?”
She laughed. “No talking, remember.”
“Unless it’s to tell me that I’m magnificent.”
She laughed softly, their lips apart, their eyes meeting.
“Ah, but... Okay, I won’t say you’re so-so or anything like that!” she teased.
He grimaced and swept her up into his arms. “My room.”
“Because you’re the man?”
“Because we’re closer to it!”
