Page 44 of Feel Free to Scream

“Would you like to take a bath?”

My gaze jumps in the direction of the sound, finding Keller leaning in a doorway, wearing nothing but a towel around his wet, glistening body.

“I imagine you’re rather sore after all that.” He just waves vaguely, the gesture encompassing all of my humiliating memories.

“No, thank you,” I snap, although god knows I am very sore.

A bath sounds amazing. Just not here. I need to get out of here. Immediately.

Dragging my eyes away from Keller’s bare chest, I force myself to sit up, intending to get up, but the sight of my own body under the sheets stops me in my stride. I’m entirely naked. I gasp, trying to remember how I got that way.

“Your clothes were unsalvageable,” he tells me casually, like everything about today is normal. “Except the skirt. It’s in the wash. I got you some stuff,” he assures me, pointing to a neat pile of clothing. “Should be your size.”

I look at the neat bundle of clothing, but don’t move towards it immediately.

Given everything that occurred, and feeling my clammy skin, I regret declining the bath. Soreness aside, I am filthy. In more ways than one.

“Chill,” Keller tells me, returning into the en suite. “I’ll run you a bath.”

Seconds later, the water’s running inside.

I’ve never felt anything further fromchill. Mortified, awkward, shy, angry, frustrated, and to my everlasting annoyance, a bitaroused, yes, but certainly nowhere near relaxed.

I ask the one question that matters this morning. Everything else is irrelevant. “Can I go back to school?”

Because that was the point, wasn’t it?

Keller’s voice answers from the bathroom. "I think so. The council sent a report back to the board to let them know you were very obliging.”

The formal, polite tone, glossing over what I’ve done to be consideredobliging, makes this entire situation surreal. Are we supposed to ignore what he did to me, or worse yet, pretend he wasn’t the one under that blue mask, that it wasn’t his fingers, his lips, hiscockI felt on and inside me?

“I think they let you back in. Check your emails,” he suggests.

“Oh.” I look around the unfamiliar, tidy, vast room, spotting nothing. “My phone’s in my bag.”

I have no idea what I’ve done with it. I certainly came in the house with it, but what happened to it, I couldn’t say.

“I’ll find it,” he assures me, finally coming back from the bathroom, still unfairly gorgeous, and distractingly mostly naked.

I ease to my feet, taking the bedsheet with me, and sway a little, my legs weaker than they’ve ever been, like I’ve had a hard workout. There’s also an uncomfortable awareness low in my core.

Keller’s next to me in an instant, first steadying me, his hands around my waist. I freeze, electricity shooting through my skin, certainly much more pleasant than when he jabbed a device right at my clit. Before I can tell him to let go, he grasps me under the knees and behind my back, lifting me up bridal style like I weigh nothing.

I gasp, as the sheet pools to the floor. “This isunnecessary.”

“Tell that to your jelly legs. Hold on.”

I don’t want to do it, but he’s so damn tall, I’m too far from the ground. Though he holds me steadily, with no hint that my weight is of consequence to him, I can imagine falling to the floor, and I don’t want to. So, I wrap my arms around his broad shoulders, flushing. It’s the rational thing to do. Attempting to get back to my feet would likely just end in my tumbling down and hurting myself.

The moment I’ve done it, I regret it.

I amnaked. My bare breasts are right against his wet, sculpted chest. But Keller’s not even leering, acting like my nakedness is of no consequence. I suppose he’s seen it before.

He strides to the bathroom as I blush, both at the ridiculous position and his proximity.

I can’t stop myself from noticing things that shouldn’t register. He smellsverygood. Woodsy, spicy musk, some sort of a cool undertone evocative of winter. I’m looking down to avoid meeting his gaze, but it’s not helping. His muscles are downrightabsurd. It’s truly unfair that someone like him exists at all. If life were fair, he would at least have a microdick to make up for it. No such luck. My asshole can attest to it.

But we’re not talking about that. We’re pretending today’s normal, that nothing’s strange or wrong. He washed my skirt, drew a bath for me, and is now carrying me towards it like a princess, and we’re not addressing the elephant in the room.

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