Ark of Fire

CHAPTER 56

Edie yanked the black turtleneck over her head, tossing it onto the wood toilet lid. Placing her hand into the claw-footed tub, she swirled the sudsy water, testing to make sure she had the right mix of hot and cold. Evidently, it had yet to occur to the Brits that a single faucet was a whole heck of a lot better than dueling hot and cold water taps. But as she was quickly learning, the Brits were a strange and curious lot.

Unhooking her bra, she let it drop onto the linoleum floor. At seeing the small hickey next to her nipple, she smiled, remembering. Caedmon had surprised her with his passion, morphing into a lusty alpha male the moment he removed his wools and tweeds. A lot of things about Caedmon surprised her. The way he would dunk a cookie into his coffee cup then immediately apologize, as though he’d committed the gravest of sins. His almost boyish exuberance when it came to anything even remotely esoteric. His insistence on opening doors and preceding her down the steps. His sweetness. His tenderness. His unrelenting resolve when it came to the Ark.

God, he could be a hard-ass. She suspected that he took after his father more than he realized.

Yeah, she’d pushed him. But he’d pushed back even harder. Short of killing a man in cold blood, she’d understand whatever deep, dark secret he kept under lock and key. She was certainly no saint.

What she needed to do was back off. Enforce a Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy. When he was ready, when he felt more comfortable with the relationship, he would open up.

Clothes removed, she walked over and shut off the taps. Tentatively, she stuck a big toe into the tub. Then, a hand braced on either side of the claw-footed tub, she slowly sank into the frothy water, having found a half-used bottle of lemon-scented bubble bath.

“Perfect,” she crooned, her tensed muscles finally relaxing. She stared at the pitched ceiling, the light from the adjoining room turning the surface a pretty shade of cotton-candy pink.

She reached for the washcloth she’d earlier draped over the curved lip of the tub.

“‘Deck the halls with boughs of holly, fa-la-la-la-la, la-la-la-la. ’”

Belatedly realizing that it was one of those songs that wore better after a couple of glasses of eggnog, she switched gears, instead humming “The Little Drummer Boy” as she soaped up the washcloth.

Raising her right leg out of the water, she washed it from toe to knee.

Again, her thoughts turned to Caedmon. Christmas had to be a difficult time of year for him given that his father—

“Getting all cleaned up to do the dirty, huh?”

At hearing that deep-throated voice, Edie swung her head toward the open bathroom door.

Oh, God. It was him.