Abby threw down her purse and eyed the inside of her house. It was still a mess. She needed to finish repotting the plants, but a quick look at her aquarium told her the fish were adjusting well to the unscheduled changes in the tank.
Victor stood beside her, an arm loosely around her waist. “I’ll help you finish cleaning up and we can repot the plants. Together.”
She liked the way he said “together.”
Abby turned to him, catching the look in his eyes. With her own, she signaled yes. In case he missed her answer, Abby pulled him to her. She kissed him, tentatively at first, but with increasing fervor as his hands stroked her back, and then dropped lower.
One of her hands inched to his chest, and her fingers found their way inside the exposed triangle at the top of his shirt. She traced a path across his skin before she pulled her hand free and started unbuttoning his shirt. As she began to undress him, his hands cupped her buttocks and his thumb rubbed up and down across the fabric of her pants.
Abby wanted to rip her shirt and pants off. But she made herself slow down. Pulling her lips away from his, she pressed her mouth to his bare chest, making a slow, deliberate path downward and then up again. His chest was covered with sandy blond hair that felt silky under her lips and tongue.
Though she was not usually so brazen, she also wasn’t usually so hungry for touch.
His touch.
Her fingers slipped down to the zipper on his jeans and lingered for a moment. His hand pressed down on top of hers and she felt him rise, hard and long, beneath her fingers.
With his other hand, Victor began to unbutton her blouse. In a moment, they broke apart so that she could slip it off entirely. His shirt hung unbuttoned off his shoulders. As soon as she threw her blouse toward the couch, she pulled his shirt off him. For a moment, she just stood there, appreciating the ripple of his muscles, the flatness of his stomach, and the brush of the sandy chest hair.
She looked into his eyes and saw that he was giving her much the same appreciative gaze.
“May I?” he asked as he reached for her bra.
She nodded. He unsnapped it and flung it toward her blouse. “Perfect,” he said, and ran his hands over the soft mounds, with his thumbs flicking the nipples ever so lightly. Abby arched her back, pushing herself closer to him and increasing their skin-to-skin friction.
His hands traced patterns up and down her bare back, sending ripples of sensation everywhere he touched, as his teeth nibbled gently on her bottom lip. She opened her mouth and his tongue slipped in.
Abby once more reached for the front of his pants. But even as she struggled to undress him further, his fingers tugged down her zipper with exquisite slowness. Once he had her pants unfastened, she stepped back and kicked them off, glad as she did that something had told her earlier to wear a lovely peach-colored matching set of bra and panties.
Before she could work his pants free, Victor had his fingers under the lace edge of her panties, trailing along their bikini lines. Her breath was coming fast as she yanked harder at his pants while he bent his head to her breasts and began to suck on first one nipple, then the other.
Later, Abby stood in front of her dresser with her back to Victor, who sat on the edge of her bed. Her whole body still tingled from their lovemaking and she wore only a loose cotton shirt. Her robe would have felt too heavy against her bare skin with her body’s newly heightened sense of touch. Earlier, they had barely made it to her bedroom, leaving a trail of her panties and his pants and boxers along the hallway. She could feel Victor’s eyes on her and it made her skin flush.
As Abby swept her hair into a loose ponytail, Victor rose off the bed. He moved behind Abby, wrapping his arms around her and the thin shirt she wore. He wore nothing and the strength in his bare arms as he held her tempted her to toss her shirt on the floor.
Victor nibbled at her ear as he put one of his hands over the front of her shirt and rubbed the soft fabric against the skin on her stomach.
She pressed back against him, arching her body, as delightful shivers shot through her. Throwing that damn blouse to the floor was feeling like a better idea all the time. Their love making—and the nap afterwards—had refreshed her, but not nearly as much as her acceptance that this was the man she loved. Her body had never before responded to another’s in quite the way she had just a couple of hours before. A small smile flirted about her lips as she realized her body had known she was in love, even if her emotions had still held out some doubt.
But that doubt was gone now.
Her shirt began to slip a bit under Victor’s hands. Abby felt the warmth of his breath on her neck. His fingers continued to rub the fabric against her bare skin, creating a pleasurable sensation of heat and tension.
Trouble, who had had the common decency to make himself scarce the last two hours, ran into the room. After a decisive jump to the top of the dresser, he looked at her with piercing eyes. Trouble meowed in a distinct pattern of sounds, like he was explaining a matter of some importance to them.
Abby sighed. Trouble was right, she needed to check on Layla. The romantic moment was over. For now.
“I’ll call Lucas and see if they’ve found Layla.” Abby expected Victor to protest, but he agreed.
She hurried to the living room and dug her cell phone out of her purse. Victor followed. Expecting to hear only good news, she called Lucas—she had his number memorized by now. Without bothering to say hello or identify herself, she asked breathlessly, “Have you found Layla?”
“No.” Lucas paused. “We’re tracking Emmett’s whereabouts and his haunts, and we have a team at his apartment and going over his car. But he keeps denying he took her.”
Abby said goodbye and ended the call. As she gave Victor a worried look, Trouble knocked her purse over, spilling its contents about the couch and floor.
“Somebody’s jealous,” Victor said.
“No, he’s trying to tell me something.” Abby looked at the mess scattered about. “What, Trouble? What do I need to see?”
With his nose, Trouble butted a black flash drive out of the pile of items on the couch.
Abby picked it up. “I found this in the umbrella stand by the elevator. I really don’t think it’s Layla’s because she always used pink flash drives. I was going to check anyway. But,” she paused, looking embarrassed, “I just forgot about it, with…you know.” Her face burned with a blush.
“Even if it is Layla’s, it’s probably just more drafts of her law review.”
“Probably. But, you know, it doesn’t all make sense.” Abby held the flash drive up to the sunlight streaming through the sheer curtains on the front window as if some how she could see what it contained. As she did, Trouble reached up and touched the flash drive with his paw.
“Even Trouble knows something is missing.” Abby dropped her hand with the flash drive. “I brought a law firm laptop home to use while those detectives have mine. Let’s see what’s on this.”
Victor nodded.
“Oh, and maybe you better get dressed.” She gave him an admiring look. “I like the view just fine, but I wouldn’t want to give my neighbors a shock.”