Page 49 of My Rose

“I don’t have to work for another three days. I just have to call my grandparents. They’ll be worried about me if I don’t.” I was more than old enough not to have to call and check-in, but it would mean a lot to them if I did.

“Okay.” He watched as I lifted my phone and called them. He watched as I confirmed I was with him and that I was safe—which made him smile—and he watched as I asked if they were okay. When I hung up the phone, he was still watching me.

“What? Do I have something on my face?” I wiped my hand over my cheek.

He caught my hand, and I noticed he didn’t flinch from moving his side like he had the day before when he shifted with quick movements. “No, Rose. Nothing is on your face.”

“So you were just looking at me?”

“I wasadmiringyou. There’s a difference,” he clarified.

His eyes trailed down as he continued his admiration. Unlike what August’s gaze and touch did to me, his was more than welcomed. I didn’t feel dirty or like bugs were crawling on my skin, thinking only of an escape. The sensations Briggs put my body through were quickly becoming an escape. I sucked in a breath when the back of his fingers found my side and then slid down and down.

“What are you doing?” I whispered, my breaths becoming uneven as his hand moved back up to just beneath my breast.

“Thinking,” he replied. “Envisioning.” His hair was still damp from the shower, and some strands had fallen in a way that covered a part of his forehead. It was a different side of him, a less controlled side than I’d seen before. All of it was. Staying at his house had opened my eyes in ways I wasn’t expecting. I wanted to run my fingers through his hair, tug him down on top of me, and wrap my legs around him. I just wantedhim,all versions of him.Everywhere.

“Envisioning what?” My voice came out choppy, like my breathing.

“You.” He leaned in to kiss my neck, and I all but stifled the crazed moan that almost shot from my mouth. “Are you still curious if I shower in oranges?”

Yes.“Maybe.” He bit down on my earlobe, and my toes curled in. Against my shoes.Shit, I was still in my shoes?

“Do you want to know what else I did in the shower?” His breath was warm as it danced over my skin. I really wished he hadn’t gotten dressed. “Did you hear me, Rose?” He kissed my neck, then bit down over the mark he’d made earlier, just enough to bring out that moan I’d stifled before. “Do you want to know what I did to myself in the shower? What things you made me do?”

I nodded and his hand started to trail up further. His palm met with the underside of my breast, cupping it firmly. Possessively. I pinched my eyes closed and arched into his touch, my body demanding more, just as badly as my mind was. My lips parted, my breaths as heavy as the air in the room. And then, all of his warmth suddenly left me, and I opened my eyes as he stood and walked into the bathroom, leaving me with the fire he’d stoked.

I didn’t know what to do. I lay there, panting and pressing my palm to my chest as I tried to calm the storm that was brewing inside me.

He stepped back into the room, and seconds later, his body was between my legs. He bent down over me again, this time covering my entire body as he rested his weight on his elbows. Still, noticeably no flinch from any pain on his side. Maybe he wasn’t lying before. Jasmine told me to find my Lois Lane, but I think I just became that Lois Lane in the equation because Briggs sure seemed a lot like Superman. And holy shit, Superman was between my legs.

“I’m grabbing our breakfast and bringing it up here.” The steady stream of water hissing in the background brought me back to Earth. “I left a towel out for you. Feel free to wear whatever you want in my closet. Just leave out the clothes you’re in now for Rhondato get and wash for you.” He kissed my cheek and then abandoned me all over again. I swear the room spun. One minute, he looked ready to tear into me. The next, he was telling me to go shower in his bathroom. “Oh, and about what I did in there?” I sat up, meeting his gaze that had darkened several shades. “I guess you’ll just have to use your imagination.”

He winked, and everything in me turned to goo.

The second he left his bedroom, I bolted for the bathroom. Stripping down like my life depended on releasing the heat in my body, I got right into the obscenely large walk-in shower. That pressure in my body went nowhere as I found the soap that smelled like him. Several minutes went by where I was rubbing the orange-smelling soap everywhere I could, trying to picture what Briggs looked like in the shower, what parts he rubbed the same soap all over, but struggled when I got to the part he’d kept hidden beneath the towel.That towel. It might be the new unwanted object in my nightmares besides the grandfather clock I’d hidden in and flames that taunted me.

I pried my eyes open beneath the water, my gaze skirting over to the mirror across from me. The reflection had an unobstructed view, my naked body standing in the shower behind floor-to-ceiling panes of thick glass. The marble along the walls made the room feel colder than it was—so unlike my 1980s retro-fit bathroom that still had wallpaper, though it was peeling at the top by the ceiling from the moisture over the years. My eyes fell to his bedroom through the mirror, one of the posts from his bed and the almost regal armchair only increasing the magnificence of the space, along with…oh no.

Inever closed the door.

My heart raced as I looked at the towel on the counter, then back at the door, then at the towel again. The faint sounds of his bedroom door opening caused me to freeze in place before I could exit the shower.

Wrapping my arm around my breasts, my other hand flew up to cover my mouth, like he wouldn’t be able to find me exactly where he told me to go, with the door wide the hell open. I saw trays of food stop mid-air before I could see his body, and then the trays went back.

And then he came into full view—sans trays.

My hand fell from my mouth down to cover my—

“Stop.” My splayed hand stopped on my stomach, my knees locking together. I stayed still as Briggs stepped into the bathroom and made his way to the counter, leaning back against it with a predatorial look about him that made me shiver. He glanced down at the towel beside his hand on the counter, then back at me. Biting down on his smirking lip, his perusal continued down while my heart thundered under my ribs.

“Briggs, I—”

He tapped a finger to his lips, silencing me as he continued. The veins in his arms shifted as he looked up at the ceiling and gripped the edge of the counter, where his knuckles turned as white as the snow outside. I believe he mutteredfuck,but I wasn’t sure over the sounds of the water. Or maybe it was all the blood rushing through my body and settling right behind my eardrums.

“Get back in,” he ordered. Briggs’ head rolled back down from the ceiling at the same time I moved my hand that had been covering my breasts to push the hair from my face, my forearms feeling no better than sandpaper to my sensitive, peaked nipples. The 'fuck' he gave this time was much clearer than the first. But I still didn’t move my feet. His eyes moved to the bathroom door, then back to me. He shook his head, that smirk turning wicked. “Get back under the water, baby.”

I rolled my lips in and stared back at him. His eyes tracked my movement as I side-stepped my way back until the water hit my arm, rippling over my right breast and down my stomach. Pressing my eyes closed, I let the water continue its assault on my taut body, doing nothing to ease the ache of knowing he was standing there, watching me. Though I could no longer see him, I couldfeelhim. I could’ve sworn I heard the splash of each water droplet exploding on the tile once it left my body. Allowing one eye to peek at him through the now steaming glass, my breath hitched at the sight of his eyes cutting through as if no amount of fog could get between what he wanted. The way he was looking at me, I wasn’t sure anythingwouldstop him from whatever he wasenvisioningdoing.

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