"You want to," she said finally, into the towel, "say something else to make this worse?"
"Shall we take a bath?" he said pleasantly.
Another silence.
Then: "I'm sorry." It came out quiet and compressed, the sound of someone who had lost every argument. "I didn't mean for that to — you just — you wouldn't stop and I—" She stopped again. Her jaw worked. "I couldn't — I've never had anyone touch me like that and I—"
She was going to start crying again.
He reached down and picked her up.
He lifted her cleanly with both arms, one under her knees and one at her back, carrying her in a smooth princess style the way a man does when he has decided she is going somewhere and is transporting her there. Her naked body pressed against his chest, full and warm and heavy — her soft belly and wide hips and the full, round, heavy weight of her breasts pressing against his chest with warm skin-on-skin contact as significant mass met another surface.
She grabbed his neck.
