“For what?”
“For making me feel normal again. I’m trying to get my life back.” He heard her swallow some emotion before continuing. “That helped.”
Her confession hit him smack in the chest. He knew all about wanting one’s life back and fearing it would never happen. He should be thanking her, too. Being with her made him feel normal. His stump didn’t ache, not even a twinge.
The absence of all pain was so rare he nearly checked to be sure it was still there. Instead, he felt the need for her tightening in his groin. She had brought him roaring back to life. Made him feel lighter. Loosening, if only for these moments, the fist of anger and ache in his belly that had been part of him since he’d woken in the field hospital in unspeakable agony.
He felt the room shimmer, as if possessed of a second reality. The sensation, while familiar, clenched his gut. No. He wasn’t about to go there. Dear God. Not now. Not in front of her.
He heard Sam whimper softly on the other side of the closed bedroom door.
“Should I let her in?”
Jori half rolled toward the edge of the bed but Law stopped her with a hand on her shoulder. “No.”
There were some things he couldn’t hide from a trained canine. But he was a master at deflecting his real emotions from the prying eyes of people. He only needed to distract her, and himself.
He pressed her gently back onto the bed. “I changed my mind. You don’t get rid of me that easy. In fact, I’m about to close the deal a second time. You good with that?”
She smiled despite her annoyance with his attitude, because he had begun rubbing a thumb around one of her nipples. That hand moved lower, then lower still.
She smiled and closed her eyes.
An hour later, as Jori was getting dressed, the sound of a cell phone playing “Bad to the Bone” drew her attention to Law’s pants. They were still in a pile on the floor where he’d stepped out of them.
She could hear him in the shower. It was probably best to let it ring and tell him when he came out. It rang several more times before rolling over to his mailbox.
Just as she relaxed and went back to zipping up her jeans, the musical ringtone began again. This time she ignored it. But when it began to ring a third time, she couldn’t. Maybe it was something serious, an emergency.
Jori snagged his pants from the floor and found his phone. “Hello.”
“Well, hi there.” The woman’s voice was as sultry as a southern summer night. “I’m looking for Law.”
“If you mean Mister Battise, he’s unavailable.”
“I’ll bet he is.” The woman’s chuckle made Jori blush despite the fact that the stranger on the other end didn’t know a thing about her, or what she had been doing. Unfortunately, that chuckle said she knew Law all too well, and could guess what they’d been up to.
“Can I take a message?”
“Just tell Law I’ve got what he wants.”
Jori stared at the phone for a second after the woman clicked off. I’ve got what he wants. Was that a real message, or a dig at the strange woman who had possession of Law’s cell phone?
“Why did you answer my phone?”
Jori looked up to see Battise standing in the bathroom doorway, gloriously naked and shameless about that fact. Her gaze went briefly to his stump as he balanced quite easily on one foot while drying it. Then she couldn’t help but notice that he was already semi-hard. Was that a permanent condition with him? Her gaze slid away but not soon enough to keep her body from reacting to his impressive provocation.
“The caller kept ringing back. I thought it might be important.”
She held out his phone but he ignored the gesture, moving on to towel dry his hair. “Was it important?”
“I don’t know. The caller said to tell you she has what you want.”
She noticed that his expression never shifted from detached interest as he held out a hand for the phone. When he had checked the call number he tossed it on top of his jeans on the floor.
Jori knew she had no right to be curious, let alone ask any questions about the woman who’d sounded so smugly confident when confronted with another woman. No, she wouldn’t ask about her.
He hopped over to the bed and sat before beginning the ritual of putting on his artificial leg. She had laid the sock and sleeve and leg out on the mattress for easier access but he didn’t say a word of thanks. Not that she’d expected any. Not really.
Now is really not the time to find excuses to have hurt feelings, Jori.
She frowned as she dragged a comb through her damp hair. He’d given her what they’d agreed to. He’d told her not to expect anything else. It was stupid for her to be standing here like a sulky teenager unable to hold a civil conversation. “The caller called you Law. Is Law a nickname?”