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“I’m sorry a vandal spoiled the mood.”
Seated at her vanity, Norma smiled sheepishly at Alex as she warmed lotion between her palms. After the clean-up, silent but for the occasional question from Alex about where to put odds and ends strewn about the living room, Norma had led Alex upstairs, and he had no idea what to do.
While the last couple of visits to Norma’s bedroom had been nothing but pleasant, Alex had never been in this room without a purpose, whether it be chivalrous, amorous, or, God forbid, professional. Unwilling to think about yet another way the crime in this town had scarred Norma, he shoved all thoughts of Zack Shelby aside.
So when Norma disappeared into the ensuite to shed the clothes she’d chosen carefully for Alex’s benefit, he was relieved. This bought him time to get his act together, remember how to be in a relationship. But when she returned to the bedroom, wearing the silky blue robe that he’d often imagined her wearing, Alex had only peeled his shirts off and pace to the window to peer into the night.
Now Alex stood on the side bed of the bed closes to the door, his shirts balled up in his hand because he had no idea where to put them. "Why are you apologizing? This wasn’t your fault.”
For all the times Norma had lied to his face, Alex hated lying to hers.
“It’s not that I feel responsible.” Norma studied her legs as she rubbed the lotion into her calves, and Alex’s gaze followed her fingers as they trapsed up and down her leg. “I’m just expressing my disappointment.” As she straightened to pool more lotion in her palm, she smirked at him. “We were having a good time.”
Her flirtatious tone gave Alex hope that they could pick up where they left off in the doorway downstairs, delightfully distracted by kissing and searching blindly for more skin. Until now, he’d thought it impossible to reclaim their evening, given her fright and his frustration. But now she seemed calm, and the movements of her hands, snaking up her legs toward her thighs, hiding beneath the halves of her robe, captivated him and struck him dumb.
Unbothered by his silence, Norma grinned at him before sliding her hands beneath her robe to rub the rest of the lotion on the inside of her thighs. “We were having a good time, weren’t we?” Despite the hint of insecurity in her tone, not a trace of it appeared in her eyes when she smiled at him.
Alex rounded the bed, relishing in the way the flush in her cheeks spread to her chest the closer he got. “We were,” he murmured as he stopped in front of her. He offered his hand, palm up, and watched as she took it with a frown. “But you know we don’t have to pick back up where we left off right now. Today has been…a lot for you.”
At first, Alex worried he’d said the wrong thing, for Norma’s smile disappeared and she considered him with an unreadable expression. Before he could ask what was wrong, however, she rose slowly and placed one hand, then the other, on his cheeks and rested her forehead against his.
“I know exactly where I want to pick up,” she murmured against his lips. “But thank you for checking.” She pecked his lips but didn’t step away, leaving him to make the next move.
Alex brushed their noses together and smiled when she giggled. “You’re welcome,” he murmured against her lips. As her lips parted with his, Alex walked them backward up until Norma’s back pressed against the door of the ensuite. “We were somewhere around here,” he said, brow furrowed in faux concentration. “If I remember correctly.”
Norma hummed, reaching for his hand, which rested on her hip. “I think,” she whispered conspiratorially, “we were more like—” She slid his hand beneath the folds her robe and guided it to rest on her ass. “Right here.”
“Yeah.” His voice, low and rumbling, sent a shiver through her that had nothing to do with his hands roaming her naked ass. “You wanted to see me.” He nipped at her bottom lip. “Can you see me, Norma?”
“Mmhmm. And you know what?”
Alex hummed against her lips.
Norma snaked her hand between them and pressed against the bulge in his pants. “I can feel you too.” His head dropped to her shoulder as she worked him, and she grinned into his jaw when he groaned. But she only had a moment to enjoy the upper hand before their kisses matched those of over an hour before, somehow frantic and languid at once. With bare skin readily available, however, their mouths and hands migrated more freely than they had downstairs, when only lips and necks could satisfy their immediate needs. Alex kissed his way down her chest until he could take her nipple in his mouth, and Norma sighed and raked her nails through his hair. At her slight tug, Alex kissed and licked his way back up to her mouth. He pulled back enough to ask, “You ready for bed, Mrs. Romero?”
Norma ground her hips against his and tried to catch her breath. “I’m ready for you to take me right here, like you would have downstairs if we hadn’t been interrupted.”
Fuck. “Are you sure?”
“I love that you’re so gentle and patient with me, but right now, I promise I’m asking you for exactly what I want.” She smirked as she watched Alex’s eyes darken and the last of his self-control slip, but before she could tease him further, his mouth was on hers and his skin was hot through the silk and his hands were everywhere except on the belt of her robe, which she untied herself.
When she tried to shrug the garment off, Alex stopped her. “No, no,” he panted against her lips. “Leave the robe on.”
“What? Why?”
“Your bare skin, against the door—I don’t want you to get hurt.” The surprised delight on Norma’s face made Alex want to deck every man she’d been with, but he chose to divert his energy in more pleasing ways.
Without another word, he dropped to his knees and kissed his way across her stomach.
“Alex.” Norma gasped as Alex’s kisses turned to licks when he began to descend. “I want you.”
Alex’s chuckle rumbled through her as he hitched her leg over his shoulder. “You told me to take you just like I would have before? This is exactly—” He licked a slow stripe through her folds, delighting in her quivering moan. “—what I would have done.”
“You—oh—might be down there a while,” Norma gasped, throwing her head back.
Alex, lips glistening, grinned up at her. “Good.” And then he buried his face in her, and she couldn’t say much after that.
He loved learning what she liked, what made her fingers tighten in his hair, what made her whine, what sent her brain into a loop of his name, until it finally spilled out of her mouth in gasps and sighs and pants. Tonight, he discovered that when he snaked his hand up to her breast and squeezed while he sucked and sucked and sucked on her clit, she’d scream his name.
Before Alex was sure she’d stopped coming, Norma mewled, “Get up here before I collapse.”
Alex squeezed the thigh slung over his shoulder. “I’ve got you. Just feel it.”
Chest heaving, Norma moaned again, and Alex kissed the inside of her quivering thigh until he felt her taut muscles relax. Before he could tease her about the short time it took him to get her there, Norma tugged on his hair hard enough to send a shiver down Alex’s spine.
When he looked up at her, he bit back a groan.
Norma panted down at him, the flush in her cheeks having spread to her chest, and bit her lip. God, you’re sexy, teetered on the end of his tongue, but she spoke first. “Get. Up. here.” She let go of his head to offer both hands to help him up, and right then, he knew he’d fallen in love with her. He’d known nearly since he met her that he’d do anything for her, and he had—covered for her, killed for her, married her, for God’s sake—without any expectations.
This was different. He knew her, he saw her—all her faults and mistakes—and while he’d barely brushed the surface of Norma’s trauma, nothing she could possibly do or confess would change the way he felt about her. If he couldn’t solve her problems, he ached to make her forget them for little moments at a time. He yearned to make her happy, to give her everything she wanted, everything she didn’t even know she wanted. Improving her life, fraught with pain and misery and neglect, filled his every waking thought.
But first things first.
Face to face with Norma again, Alex barely had the chance to smile at her before she swooped in to kiss him, unbothered by the taste of herself on his lips.
“What would you have done next?” Norma whispered against his lips.
“You want me to tell you?” Alex rolled his hips against hers and grinned when she gasped. “Or show you?”
“Take your pants off,” Norma whined, fumbling with his belt. “Right now.”
Cursing himself for not having taken more initiative, Alex’s hands joined Norma’s at his belt. Stepping away from Norma may have been the more prudent option, but she was so goddamn kissable. No sooner had his pants hit the floor did Norma have her hands down his boxers, and then Alex was gasping against her neck.
“You’re already so hard.” Norma sounded confused, like going down on her shouldn’t have been enough to get him ready.
“Being between your thighs had somewhat of an effect on me, yeah,” Alex teased, smiling when her cheeks somehow turned a deeper shade of red. His hands snaked down to the back of her thigh. “You ready?”
Norma leaned her head back against the doorframe and arched an eyebrow. “I’ve been ready.”
For all her bravado, Alex remembered how she had tensed in his arms last night, even after she’d told him more than once that she was ready. While he hoped that Norma would never lie to him just because she knew what he wanted to hear, she’d used that as protection before. He imagined it was a hard habit to break.
“You sure you wouldn’t be more comfortable in bed?”
Norma smirked. “I’m comfortable right here.” She teased the edges of her robe open so that they barely covered her nipples. “You asked me to keep my clothes on and everything, just to keep me comfortable.”
Alex’s gaze flickered from her breasts to her face and had to take another steadying breath. “It’s important to me that you’re comfortable, Norma.”
For the first time since he promised to fix her favorite window, Norma’s face softened and she reached up to cradle his face in her palm, impossibly soft from her moisturizer. When she looked at him like this, Alex could almost believe she loved him back.
“You’re so good to me.”
Alex couldn’t stand how surprised she sounded.
With her other hand, Norma moved his right hand from her hip to the inside of her thighs. “Go on,” she murmured. “See for yourself how ready I am.”
Biting back a groan, Alex slid a finger inside her and relished in watching her melt. With his free hand, he hitched her leg up around his hip.
“Please—” She broke off with a whimper when he removed his finger.
“I think you’re right, Norma. I think you’re plenty comfortable.” He held her gaze, a privilege he didn’t have in the dim light of her bedroom last night, as he finally slid inside her, and she rewarded him with a shaky, fractured groan of something that resembled his name. “Norma,” he gasped. “I’ve been thinking about this all night.”
“And if you don’t start moving, I’m going to take care of this myself. Then you’ll have to think about it a whole lot longer.”
Tightening his grip on her ass, Alex rolled his hips, remembering that she liked to start slow. They had time to explore what felt good together, but this encounter against the door so starkly contrasted from what they’d done last night that he couldn’t risk overwhelming her. “Have I told you,” he gasped into her mouth, “that your ass is spectacular?”
Norma’s tinkling laugh made him smile, despite the intensity of their situation. God, he couldn’t remember the last time he’d had this much fun during sex. “No, but the way your hands so easily find their way to my ass gave me an inkling for your preference, sheriff.”
Alex bucked against her, but her gasp didn’t cover his moan.
“You like it when I call you that?” Norma teased, tracing the shell of his ear with the tip of her tongue. “I think you do.”
“I think,” Alex said, adjusting his hold on her thighs, “that if you’re using words like inkling and preference, I’m doing something wrong.”
“No, honey. You’re doing everything exactly—fuck!”
Processing both the sound of honey on Norma’s lips and the sounds she made when he moved faster, but not harder, nearly obliterated Alex’s resolve. But he couldn’t resist teasing her. “What were you saying about inklings and preferences?” he panted.
Norma’s giggles were punctuated by other, unintelligible noises, but she managed to slap his shoulder playfully. Alex hadn’t planned on reducing her to single syllabled responses, but fuck, he liked it, seeing her senseless to everything but what he made her feel.
I love you, he thought, over and over, as though she could hear it if he focused hard enough. “You’re perfect,” he said instead. His admission pleased her nonetheless, and Norma leaned down to suck at his beck.
“If you give me a hickey—”
“You’ll what?” Norma laved her tongue over the spot.
“I’ll do absolutely fucking nothing.”
Norma’s laugh morphed into a shriek as Alex picked up the pace a fraction, and when she leaned her head back against the doorframe, Alex licked his way from her collarbone to her earlobe.
“Oh, Alex, I think—I think I’m—”
She was. He could feel it.
“I’m right there with you, baby.”
Pressing her forehead against his, Norma held his face in her trembling hands as she came, quiet at first, then with a series of heaving, high-pitched gasps that sent Alex over the edge.
His arms shook as her body slackened, but her legs wouldn’t support her if he tried to set her down. “Bed, Mrs. Romero?”
Too blissed out to chastise him, Norma nodded and wrapped her arms around his neck. Alex stumbled the couple of steps to the bed, sat down with her in his lap, and leaned back against the mattress to lay her out. Norma rolled off him and onto her stomach, nuzzling the duvet with a sleepy sigh, so Alex, satisfied that she wouldn’t miss him, rose to get a washcloth from her bathroom. Still, after he pushed himself up on still shaking arms, he leaned over her and kissed her cheek. “I’ll be right back.”
“Wait, wait,” Norma muttered, reaching blindly for him.
Alex caught her wandering hand. “I’m just getting something to clean you up.”
“Hmm, what about a bath?”
Biting back a laugh, Alex squeezed her hand. “Sure, I can draw you one, but I still have to leave to do that.”
Norma released of his hand to swat at it, but she missed twice. “Smart ass.”
Unconvinced that Norma would still be awake by the time he prepared her bath, Alex wet a washcloth at the sink while he waited for the water coming from the bath tap to warm. Sure enough, by the time he returned, he had to wake Norma to clean her up. With a pitiful grumble, Norma complied with his request to roll over, and by the time he’d finished taking care of her, she’d pushed herself up on her elbows and pulled her robe closed.
“You sure about that bath?”
“Maybe tomorrow,” Norma sighed, smiling sleepily at him. “Will you stay with me?”
Forever, he thought. “Yeah, of course. Give me a minute, okay?” His knees crackled and popped as he rose, and Norma winced. “I’m fine,” he insisted. “Just not, uh, used to…” He trailed off, the dirty talk that had been acceptable minutes before seeming unthinkable now. But Norma, indifferent to his awkwardness, smiled dreamily up at him. “I’ll be right back, okay?” He waited for her to nod before slipping into the bathroom. After turning off the tap and cleaning himself up, Alex leaned over the sink and stared at his reflection in the small mirror.
Christ. He was in love with Norma Bates. He’d been in love with her. And he had no idea whether it was fair of him to be in love with her while she was this vulnerable.
With a shake of his head, he turned on the tap and splashed cold water on his face. He couldn’t solve this problem tonight. Right now, she wanted him to sleep in her bed, and he’d take it.
When Alex returned to the bedroom, he found Norma curled on her side under the covers with her back to him. Her even breathing suggested that she’d fallen asleep again, so he flipped the light switch next to the ensuite, tip toed to the bed, flicked off her bedside lamp, and felt his way to the other side of the bed in the darkness. She’d pulled the covers back for him, so he slid into bed without disturbing her. Before he could settle, however, Norma scooched over to his side of the bed, and he felt her warm, bare skin against his side.
“Is this okay?” Norma whispered.
“It’s perfect, Norma.”
Emboldened by his response, Norma snuggled closer, resting her head on his chest and her arm over his torso, and Alex slid his arm under her shoulder to wrap around her. “Thank you for tonight,” Norma murmured. She hesitated only a moment before pressing a lingering kiss to his chest.
Unsure how to respond with anything but the one thing he couldn’t say, Alex buried his nose in her hair and kissed the top of her head. “You mean other than the vandalism, you had an okay time?”
Alex felt Norma’s smile against his chest. “Yeah, sheriff. I had an okay time.”