Page 51 of Under His Watch

She inhaled deeply, making her breasts rise above the surface of the water. “Are you interested in me?”

20

TESSA

Ididn’t know how else to ask it. Coming right out with a direct question seemed both stupidly silly but also most appropriate. I felt juvenile, like I was back in junior high and asking if a cute boy in classlikeliked me. As adults, these sorts of things were simplified and implied.

Romeo seemed to want me. I caught him watching me when he must have thought I wasn’t paying attention. I noticed how strained he was when I passed by too closely, daring to brush against him.

But everything was just so confusing. He made no moves. He didn’t ask me anything intimate or personal.

We’d fallen into a strictly platonic roommate situation that felt so damn wrong. Like we were both dismissing this undeniable magnetism that kept us loosely together.

“Am I interested in you?” Romeo asked, returning my question to me over the steam rising from the tub. “How can you even ask that?” The hint of amusement in his tone almost made me smile.He wasn’t mocking me but was incredulous that I posed that question to him.

I nodded, uncertain of speaking until I had his actual reply. All the pent-up tension and waiting had come—literally—to a boiling-over point as we sat in the hot tub together.

“I am. You’ve held my interest since the moment I saw you.”

I furrowed my brow, thrown off by that comment. The first time he saw me was when I was helpless and raped. It didn’t soothe me. If that first impression of my needing saving was the lasting one that he hinged his connection on, I had no hope.

“Oh.”

“What’s wrong, Tess?” he asked, quick to realize that I wasn’t pleased with his response.

“Um.” I cringed, hating that I’d said a single damn thing at all. I was an idiot to ever assume something more could happen between us. He was sweet and generous, but never intimate anymore.

Because Iambad in bed?I wasn’t sure why that worry stuck at the front of my mind, like that had to be the reason he didn’t want to sleep with me again. If it was good, or as pleasing as it had been for me, why wouldn’t he want me again? I was here, always available. He never left my side, not since the shooting at the cabin.

If I hadanyexperience before him, I bet I would at least have some confidence and knowledge to know how I measured. He’d gotten off. That had to count for something. But his lack of interest counted for a lot more, too.

“I…” I shook my head, intimidated to speak up now. I’d only stick myself further into a hold of regret.

“What?”

“Are you interested in keeping me here because I’m a responsibility?”

He stared at me, his hard face blank and shadowed under the night sky.

“That since I have no one else and nowhere else to go, you’re obligated to take care of me and keep me here?” I licked my lips, finding more courage to get these thoughts off my chest. “That I’m athingto take care of and make sure I stay unharmed?

“No.” He shook his head.

“You…” I sighed, pushed to reveal it all. “You had sex with me. But ever since, I’ve realized that you might not have wanted me at all. That you only went along with it because I was being needy and scared from my nightmares.”

“No. I want you, Tess.” He shifted in his seat in the hot tub. “I want you with every fucking breath I take.”

“Because you have to?”

“Fuck. No, Tess. No one determines what I have to want or not want.”

“But you’ve been so distant, and I don’t know what to think.”

“Think that I will be here to help you and take care of you.”

Just not like that?

He didn’t miss my instant wince. “I want you, Tessa, but I donotwant to push you or pressure you.”

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