As soon as she hit send, she gave in to the heaviness in her body and let her head sink back against the pillow. A few heartbeats later, the doorbell and knocking stopped, and the penthouse fell silent.
Sleep started to pull at her again, but a combination of head-butting in the face from Rusty and the knowledge that she had told Master Dex she would be right there to let him in made her force herself into a sitting position.
She was completely wiped out, and it wasn’t hard to understand why. Her body had been through a lot yesterday. She’d experienced a huge flood of pleasure, bigger and better than she’d ever had before.
As Master Dex had pointed out, the flogging had left her with what her body saw as wounds to be healed. And healing took energy, and required rest.
She swung her legs over the side of the bed and grabbed her robe where she had tossed it on the floor last night. With a large breath for strength, she pushed to standing and forced herself to shuffle down the hall barefoot toward the front door.
She stopped to key in the alarm code before she went to the door and peered through the peephole.
Even the distorted vision of Master Dex made her mouth water. His profile showcased his clean-shaven strong jaw and his sexy, muscular arms.
Damn, she loved nice arms on a man. And Master Dex had great ones.
She flipped both deadbolts and opened the door.
Dex filled the doorway, his presence both overwhelming and somehow soothing at the same time.
He pulled her against him with one strong arm, his hard body pressing against hers, reminding her that she still wanted him inside her. But she wasn’t so sure her body was up for much of anything at the moment.
“Are you all right, Kate? I was worried when you didn’t respond.”
She vaguely noticed that he set something just inside the door before he wrapped his other arm around her too.
She mumbled an answer she hoped was intelligible, and he scooped her into his arms, kicking the door closed and carrying her into the living room.
She shamelessly snuggled into his warmth, burying her face against his chest and letting out a little sigh of contentment. She wondered if they could stay like this for the rest of the day. Logically, she knew she couldn’t allow herself to ignore her clients for that long, but right now she didn’t care one bit about logic.
Dex set her gently on the sectional and lowered himself beside her, taking her chin between his strong fingers and turning her face to look at him.
“Kate, did you just wake up?”
She tried to nod, but her head just lolled forward.
He cupped her cheek in his large palm, his heat seeping into her like a healing balm. “If you just woke up that means you haven’t eaten. We can work with that. Do you mind if I use your kitchen?”
She knew there wasn’t anything in there for him to make, and tried to explain that, but he silenced her with a slow but thorough kiss.
She waited for the sexual heat to rise between them, but instead, a sense of serenity slid through her. When he slowly ended the kiss and pulled away, she wanted to grab his shirt and pull him back, but her body wouldn’t cooperate.
Her eyes slid closed and she relaxed against the sectional, dangerously close to falling back to sleep.
Dex watched as Kate’s heavy eyelids slid closed. He pushed and held the button to extend the foot of the power recliner. When it was fully extended and Kate was reclining comfortably, he tucked some of her decorative pillows around her and pulled away.
As he stood, Rusty streaked past him and curled up on his mistress’s lap.
It was a good thing Kate had sent him that text when she did. He’d been about to go downstairs and talk to the building manager about checking on her. He didn’t want to invade her privacy, but the drive to make sure she was all right was strong. Not to mention that if she was embroiled in this plot with terrorists, even if only as an unwitting participant, the possibility of danger was very real.
He shoved those thoughts aside. He needed to stay alert for something like that but hoped it wasn’t needed.
He retrieved the bag he had set just inside the front door and took it into the elaborate kitchen, setting it on the gleaming granite countertop.
Caffeine first, he decided. She’d had a vanilla latte yesterday, so he knew she at least liked coffee. He took the tin of ground beans, a small bottle of vanilla syrup, and a container of cream out of the bag, and set to work brewing a fresh pot.
Next, he took out the breakfast sandwiches he’d bought at the bagel shop down the street. He’d also picked up some egg bagels and cream cheese, but after the day Kate had yesterday, she needed protein as well as carbs.
He wasn’t surprised she was as out of it as she was, even after all that sleep. Having endorphin levels spike and then drop several times in a short time frame was very taxing on the body.