Stones of Fire

56

Edie yanked the black turtleneck over her head and threw it onto the wooden toilet lid. Reaching her hand into the claw-footed bathtub, 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 spout was a whole heck of a lot better than duelling taps. But as she was quickly learning, the Brits were a curious lot.

She unhooked her bra and let it drop onto the linoleum floor. Seeing the small mark next to her nipple, she smiled. Cædmon had surprised her with his passion, morphing into a lusty alpha male the moment he removed his woollens and tweeds. A lot of things about Cædmon surprised her. The way he would dunk a cookie in his coffee 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 steps. His sweetness. His tenderness. His unrelenting resolve when it came to the Ark.

God, but 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. When he was ready, when he felt more comfortable with the relationship, he would open up.

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

‘Perfect,’ she crooned, her tense muscles finally relaxing. She stared at the pitched ceiling, the light from the adjoining room turning the surface a pretty shade of candy-floss pink.

She reached for the flannel 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.’

Realizing it was one of those songs that sounded better after a couple of drinks, she switched tunes, instead humming ‘The Little Drummer Boy’ as she soaped up the flannel.

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

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

‘Getting all cleaned up to do the dirty, huh?’

Hearing the deep-throated voice, Edie swung her head towards the open bathroom door.

O, God. It was him.