Robin turned, Cormoran had caught her by the hand as she reached the bath. Her hair settling around her, Strike caught her in his arms, almost as if he was relishing the ease at which he could now be close to her. He pulled her to him, cupping her face in his large hands, almost lifting her off her feet as he kissed her. Robin sighed against his lips. He shifted his arms to hold her, hands sliding on the curves shrouded by the green silk. In the flickering candlelight, the shadows of his crooked face had created a darkly intense magnetism as he looked down at her and she shivered.

She ran her fingers up his chest, feeling the curve of his square shoulders under his white cotton shirt. She loosened his tie, running her finger through each knot to unravel it. Her fingers curved through the gaps in his shirt and she began unbuttoning it at the curve of his belly. His laughter broke the pent-up silence, as she stroked the almost-fur of his black stomach hair.

"Like that, do you Robin?" he quipped in a husky whisper.

"Well, you will keep flashing me with it,' she said playfully, twisting each button open until she could trace the map of his chest. Partially curious about how it would feel but soon with fascination, as with each stroke, her inner walls clenched at his palpable masculinity.

Robin swallowed. Strike nodding in mock curiosity at her outward reaction, "Thank god I didn't get that bloody full body wax then," Strike said matter-of-factly,

Laughingly tracing light kisses at the hollow of his throat, Robin occasionally flickering her tongue over areas that seemed particularly sensitive for him as Strike's hands tightened against Robin's waist. Her hand covered the reverberating beat in his chest.

Strike brushed the back of his fingers over the curve of Robin's breast as she moved back to undo Strike's cuffs. She stretched herself upwards to feel the combination of the soft skin and the tickling bristles of his top lip against hers. His shirt drifted down his back. As he hummed another small moan into her ear, Robin moved her mouth to cover it. Her hands fell to Strike's belt buckle, biting her lip, she slipped the leather from where it was tucked, pulled the prong from its hole and slid the belt off.

Their kisses became deeper and quickened as she made slow work of undoing Strike's trousers. She slipped the waistband from his hips and down his hairy thighs. Once they had fallen to his ankle, he freed himself of them, kicking them away.

Robin's hands gripped the elastic waistband of his boxer shorts. He brought his fingertips to her chin and pulled his mouth away, lazily trailing kisses down her throat. As the kisses soothed her, she felt her hands relax and she inched her fingertips down to where the tip of Strike's cock lay under the thin fabric.

Breathing in the fresh scent of Strike's aftershave, she stretched her fingers under the elastic, circling the silky-smooth skin which evoked a more insistent line of kisses and her breath escaped her hard. Robin drew a soft line down the long, hard length with the back of one finger, up and down. He pushed himself against her opening hand as she retraced her lines. She felt her own frisson of excitement as he kissed her below the ear and decided she was more than ready to see him naked.

Robin slid down to her knees and ran her finger around the inside of the waistband teasing him, she heard Strike exhale hard. She brought it down an inch and kissed the space before pulling it away from his body and over his cock as it responded to the sensation of the air. She dragged her nails along it and smiled up at him when he groaned loudly.

"Robin, come here," Strike grasped her shoulders as she stood and spun her around, pulling her over to him as he sat on the edge of the bath.

His hands stroked the precipice of her shoulders and slunk down her arms. Strike brought his hands under Robin's arms and slid them over the lace of her bra covering the tightened nipples. He pushed the bodice down to her waist, so the dress clung to her hips and then pulled it down over her hips and bottom.

"I fucking love all these knickers, Robin," Strike murmured next to her ear.

She smiled to herself.

He thought to himself that this side of Robin shouldn't have been a surprise to him – that she was prim and proper, was just one of the ways Strike had misread her when she started working for him. For a man who was so perceptive, Robin had confused and discomforted him at every turn. He decided to see if he had imagined one thing correctly.

Strike pushed the fabric easily down her thighs.

She turned to face him and he sat back to take in the silk of her skin, her creamy curves, rise and falls. His heart thrummed faster and combusted.

He splayed one hand on her stomach, while his other hand gingerly fingered the delicate bow at the top of the keyhole opening at the back of her briefs. But, he found, it was only for show. Slightly disappointed, Strike focused on the peeping top half of her bottom, revealed by the lace window. He began to circle the outline of the cut-out panel on her skin before an agonising stroke of the peach cleft of her smooth buttocks. His fingertips tickled, making Robin squirm in his arms.

His almost-black eyes glinted at her as they continued to rake over Robin's body and he began to remove the sleeve that covered his knee. She stroked the tops of Strike's shoulders while he dropped both hands to pull the end of his leg from the vacuum socket with an imperceptible sigh, laying it on the ground and slid off the gel liner. Robin looked at the amputated end of the leg impassively, his erection disturbed her equilibrium much more and she reached out to touch the scarring. She gently scratched her nails along the inside of his leg, testing where his nerve ending responded and soon a groan began its rumble in his throat.

Her hand slid over Strike's back as he turned and lifted his legs over the edge and into the water first, lowering himself into the warmth of the bath. He rarely had this luxury but the stump was the only part of him that relaxed immediately.

Strike looked up at Robin, ethereally beautiful in the candlelight but her expression more Lilith than Eve.

"I want to kiss you," Strike breathed.

Robin's hands reached behind her to undo the clasp of her bra, then she pulled down each strap before shrugging it off. His eyes took in her full breasts as they arched towards him and his lips parted expectantly. But she pulled back not allowing him close enough.

In retaliation, Strike reached out, hooking his fingers into the elastic of her briefs and began to edge them down, pressing bruising kisses over the thin skin over her hipbone. Robin craved to feel his fingers inside her and bent down and eased them off. He held her hand as she stepped into the welcomingly warm water of the bath and supported her as she lowered herself to lie in his arms.

As they adjusted themselves to fit, Strike's chin cracked off of Robin's head, "Ow! Fuck!'

Robin gave a half-laugh as she rubbed his chin, "it won't be out of action for the foreseeable future, will it?" and he laughed with her.

But the sensation of the warm water and their skin sliding against one another soon had Strike turning to pick up the sponge and soap from the table next to the bath and passed it to her. Robin wet both and worked the sponge into a lather, as Strike kissed the curve leading from her shoulder to her throat his fingers trailing underneath her arms, along the side of her bottom.

Stroking water over Robin's flawless ivory back and shoulders made Strike feel like the sculptor of a marble statue. Then her breasts were finally in his hands, and he savoured their weight, rubbing his thumbs over her nipples coaxing them into hard buds. She wiggled in his lap and he groaned into her ear reaching around her to taking the sponge.

Strike began stroking her arms and shoulders with the sponge, leaving a trail of foam as she leant her head back into the crook of his neck turning he head to feel his lips on hers, his tongue running against the edge of her lips. He traced along her clavicle and she was lost in a state of rapture as he neared her peaking breasts. But he didn't return to them, instead, he circled her belly, sweeping away the rose petals that clung to her skin, again and again, just grazing the top of her mound. Every nerve ending sparked in response as he soaped her body and his kisses became deeper. She felt as if, secure in his arms, he was anchoring her from floating away.

As he rocked his hips against the cleft of Robin's bottom, he pressed a kiss to her shoulder and the water shifted around them, her rose-pink nipples lifting out of the water like two volcanic islands. As the water settled over them, a petal floated to cling to her right nipple and Strike bent over and lifted her so he could lick it off in swirling sweeps.
He slid the sponge further down lifting Robin's leg with his own thigh, so he could stroke the sponge over her leg and up her inner thigh. His wrist just tickling her opening. Robin put her hand over his and guided him as he circled the sponge over her breasts. Then she moved it down over her stomach again as he continued to massage her but it wasn't enough – she needed the touch of his long fingers.

Robin pulled the sponge from his hand leaving the sponge to float and guided Strike towards her opening. She stroked his fingers up and down until the rhythm she desired was achieved. Her hand left his there, as she reached her arms up and looped them around his neck as his other hand combed the back of her hair. Then the tip of his finger slid inside her, curving and massaging her outer wall as she tightened around him and murmured his name.

Strike eyes roamed over the ivory and gold woman writing in his arms. This was a new Robin. A secret Robin. She had been his secretary, his friend and partner and now his lover. Matthew had sensed in him a threat and he hadn't been wrong. From the first moment, they had met this was what he had wanted to see. Strike felt utterly unashamed about it now.

Desperate to prolong the consuming burn, Robin stopped his hand and pushed herself up to sit on the edge of the bath and slide along until she was behind Strike. Once back in the water, he held her feet in his lap so she could continue what she had started doing to him earlier that evening.

Soaping the sponge again, she circled it over the upper half of Strike's back, across the still red line of the scar on his back. Then she found the one on his arm. Scars that had bonded them together. His hands gripped the edge as one of Robin's hands massaged his scalp and the other dragged the sponge down his chest, circling his soft belly. Then as he arched against her, she stroked it lower, gently sliding it up and down his cock until he groaned, grabbed her wrist and twisting his body to put his arm around her and drag her onto his lap.

The water swirled around them and slopped over the side, splashing onto the tiling below.

Robin's legs wrapped around Strike's back. She dipped her hand in the water behind her, cupping the weight of his balls in her palm and gently grazing them with her fingertips. His hands on her hips slid her up and down his cock until he grimaced.

"Robin? Can we move out of the bath?" he said repressively, kissing her cheek as she nodded.

She reached backwards, pulling the plug. Climbing out of the water, she found her legs trembled. Robin sat on the edge of the bath till she could safely rely on them again. Strike watched transfixed as the rivulets of water trailed down over her skin and combined until Robin pulled a white cotton towel around herself.

He lay back in the bath eyes closed as she traced the thick lashes framing his eyes. Calmed by the pull of the water as it drained, Strike began to push himself to sit on the side and Robin stood.

She picked up a towel and while he was focusing on not killing himself getting out, she flicked his arse with it.

He went still and looked down at her from under his brow, eyes shadowed, a smile almost touching his lips, "Oh, that's how it is, is it Robin? Taking advantage of a man at his weakest moment."

"Please!" she rolled her eyes and threw it to him.

While Robin brought him his crutches, Strike tucked the towel at his waist. He pulled her into another time-obliterating kiss, striping her of the towel he dried her body and she returned the favour. Once he was only damp from the warm steam that still hung in the air, Robin dropped the towel and walked ahead into the bedroom.