The world came back in soft, hazy pieces, the feel of cool cotton sheets, the heavy warmth of Duke’s arm across my waist, the tender, throbbing ache of his mark on my shoulder. I shifted, and he stirred, his lips brushing the very mark he’d made.
“You’re sticky,” he murmured, his voice sleep roughened and intimate.
A laugh bubbled out of me, light and free. “So are you.”
He propped himself up, looking down at our tangled, sweat sheened bodies. His dark eyes glinted. “Come on.”
Before I could ask, he’d swung his legs off the bed and scooped me up again, that effortless strength making my stomach flutter. He carried me, naked and sated, through a doorway into an en suite bathroom. He set me on my feet on the cool tile, and reached into the glass-walled shower, turning the taps. Steam beg
