The Proviso

25: Control Issues

"How the hell should I know when she came in last night and why is it my business?"

"You live with her!"

"So what? She's got a mother and it's not me. She pays me rent. That's how the roommate relationship works."

"What do you mean, you're not her mother? You act like her mother and mine, too, come to think of it."

The low rumble of two men arguing in another room brought Bryce slowly to consciousness, though he never forgot where he was or why he was there or the woman he was with or every single thing he'd done to her. His head dropped back on the pillow and he grinned at the ceiling feeling more victorious than if he'd just won a billion-dollar lawsuit.

He knew what that felt like.

He'd done it before.

Twice.

I'm in love with you.

He was in love with her, too, and being free to acknowledge it made him feel as if he'd broken out of his cage. Finally.

Sunlight seeped through the cracks of drawn blackout drapes. The two of them were uncovered, the duvet long since abandoned on the floor. Giselle was still asleep, her back spooned tight against his ribs, her head on his outstretched arm, her breast filling his palm. Her hair spread across his chest and tickled his skin. He lay spread-eagled and fondled her silky curls with his other hand, brought them to his nose (strawberry), and relieved bits and pieces of the night.

"Look, if you're so worried, go look in her room and see if she's there."

Bryce didn't know exactly what was going on, but it sounded like it could get ugly when determined footsteps on the hard wood got closer and closer. The door swung open and the person he least wanted to see at that moment burst in and stopped cold.

"Gi— Holy shit."

Knox looked like he had been hit in the head with a two-by-four, staring at Bryce, his mouth hanging open. Taight, on the other hand, looked very pleased.

"Get out," Bryce barked, but Taight was already dragging Knox back, then closed the door with a salute.

"Oops," Giselle muttered against his arm, then turned and stretched. "Before we do this again," she sat up and announced, "I need to pee and brush my teeth. That is the first thing I do every single morning, without fail, and in that order."

"Fair warning: I'll follow you and fuck you in the shower."

Her eyes opened wide and she looked down at him, grinning like a child at the possibility that she would get exactly what she wanted on Christmas morning. "That would be sublime, thank you."

"Oh, now you're just making fun of me."

She arose with great care and groaned at every slow step she made toward the bathroom. "You have got to be kidding me," she breathed as she stopped, bent over, and massaged the muscles on the insides of her thighs. He growled, totally satisfied with his night's work. She looked back at him then and smirked. "I would never make fun of a man whose idea of sweet nothings is 'I want to fuck you, Giselle.'"

"I wouldn't be with a woman who didn't find that romantic."

Finally she disappeared into the bathroom. Once he heard the sound of a faucet and then the brushing of teeth, he decided that it would be a good idea to do the same.

With no embarrassment, they went about their business in the bathroom, glancing at each other in the mirror. She broke out a new toothbrush from her dentist-office stash and said, "Now mine won't be lonely anymore."

He turned her toward the mirror and wrapped his arms around her to look at their nude reflection. She smiled, her eyes soft and dreamy as she leaned back into him and watched him inspect her.

Her body was perfect. She was much shorter than his wife had been; in fact, she could fit under his chin. She was muscular yet curvy, unlike Michelle, who had been neither muscular nor curvy. Giselle's breasts were bigger than he'd expect on a weightlifter and her ass was reasonably tight but nicely rounded. She had nice hips, though the right one sported a larger bullet hole than the one in her shoulder.

He caressed it with his thumb, studied it in the mirror, along with others, he saw now. Old scars, slashes here and there. "What's this?" he murmured as he traced a long, thin gash on the outside of her right thigh with a finger.

"A knife wound," she said softly. Shocked, he met her gaze in the mirror. "You don't make black belt without a few injuries. I think that one took sixteen stitches."

"Black belt," he said, impressed. "That explains the bodhisattva, the meditation. Most people pray."

"Meditation is silent, a quest for emptiness. Prayer is a conversation. They each serve their purpose."

He said nothing for a long while as he traced her body, her scars, with his fingertips. "This one?" he asked when he found a very old, very odd-shaped scar under her left breast that he would have missed had he not been looking so closely.

She pursed her lips and remained silent for a few beats and then, "Glass bottle. Sebastian and I were out collecting one night and the debtor had arranged an ambush."

He smirked. "What happened?"

She hesitated again. "Let's just say he paid us what he owed us. Eventually. We didn't know where he got the money and we didn't care."

With a finger, he made a sweeping motion around it, then around again. Visions of his own all-American boyhood flashed through his mind: football, surfing, church, Boy Scouts, upper-middle-class suburban school. He compared it to the vision of her girlhood of guns, ghettos, and back alley collections.

"That's fuckable."

She laughed. "I wouldn't be with a man who didn't find a few war wounds attractive."

No, nothing fragile or breakable about this woman.

"You're perfect."

"Mmmm, so are you."

"No. We're Beauty and the Beast, is what we are."

She scowled. "I don't see you that way. Whatever you think about the way you look? Ditch it. Only my opinion counts and I think you're perfect."

"You didn't see me before the fire and I have no pictures."

"Before the fire, you were married."

"And about a week away from being divorced."

"Because you were in hell."

"And because she wasn't you."

"You didn't know me then."

"I feel like I've known you forever," he murmured, dipping his head to nibble and taste the crook of her neck, licking the mark he had given her. "You are so familiar to me, it's like we met long ago. I've spent two years thinking of you, what it would be like to be in bed with you, what you must have in that warrior's soul of yours."

"You had a six-month head start on me, then."

They watched each other carefully for a long moment, then Bryce pressed his mouth to her ear. "I don't know when I fell in love with you," he whispered, "but I don't remember a time I wasn't."