Page 50 of Bourbon & Blood

“What if something happens?” I asked, and he looked at me. “You know, like an emergency or something…”

“House has internet, satellite linkup. I got a sat phone… but ain’t nobody to call, cher. The police?” He huffed a derisive laugh. “Anybody comes up in here that don’t belong, the people out here, me included, handle that ourself.”

I nodded, a bit wide-eyed and said, “I mean, I meant more like a medical emergency. Like what if one of us has a heart attack, or like a stroke?”

He smiled a slow curl of his lips and said, “It’s my time, it’s my time…”

I nodded mutely. That honestly scared me more, not less. I mean, how would I get out of here without him?

“You want the tour?” he asked.

I nodded again.

He led me around the bottom floor of the house first. There was a guest room, the office that I’d glimpsed, and the kitchen with a dining table enough for six in it. The living room took up the lion’s share of the bottom floor, and then there was the bathroom which was nothing short of majestic – its ceiling and the one wall slanted and following the sharp incline of the stairs on the inside of the house, but it was also slantedoutside.That being the part of the house with the corrugated metal as the siding, which made so much more sense when you saw this space on theinside.

The walls of the shower were stone, and the bathtub was a completely separate entity; claw footed, and deep – a majestic, hammered copper. I think I made an audible noise of longing at the sight of it.

“You like?” he asked, and I nodded.

“It’s beautiful.”

He nodded and I turned to look at the vanity, which was equally gorgeous – a stone backsplash and counter to match the shower, the sink basins also copper, the walls a warm golden, vertical shiplap. The floor was a deep gray slate tiling reminiscent of flagstone and the woven bathmats completed things nicely – the space masculine, but not overtly so, and ever so lovely.

“Just finished it in the last month or so,” he said.

“You did this yourself?” I asked.

He shrugged one of his massive boulders of a shoulder and said, “I had help.”

He jerked his head, and I followed him out and around to the bottom of the stairs. We went up, and I found us in his bedroom – which admittedly, wasn’t much.

A bed, only one broken bedside table, and an old dresser that wasn’t nearly right or big enough for the space. Probably something from his boyhood home.

There was another bathroom up here. I was surprised to find it, but not nearly as nice as the one below it. Just a shower, a sink, and a toilet and just like every apartment bathroom I’d ever been in with its cheap plastic shower wrap and basin. The vanity a Formica countertop around a plain sink.

“Doin’ this one next,” he said quietly at my back and I jumped.

“A bit anti-climactic after the other one,” I murmured with a bit of a forced smile, keenly aware that we stood near his bed with its black sheets and rumpled covers and that the buck stopped here.

The first, of what would probably be many payments, was due.

He stepped in closer to me and said, his voice low, “Let down your hair.”

I swallowed hard and reached up, pulling the hair tie off the end of my braid, separating the rope by combing my fingers through it.

His breath caught, and he pushed my light lace kimono off my shoulders. I kept my eyes off his face, the fear thrilling through me as I didn’t know what to expect, and the garment fell to his floor.

“Look at me,” he ordered softly, and I did… my gaze flicking to his, my mouth going dry, making it difficult to swallow.

I swear, he stared right down to the bottom of my soul.

“Please,” I begged, hanging on the moment. “Just don’t hurt me.”

I hated how my voice trembled, but I couldn’t help it.

He reached up, his fingertips lightly grazing my cheek, wrapping around the back of my neck, burying in the back of my hair. His thumb stroked along my jaw and I squeezed my eyes shut, hot tears leaking out of them as he stepped forward, closing the space between us.

I gasped as his lips touched my forehead lightly and a shudder ran through me from the crown of my head to the soles of my feet. I sobbed lightly, and his arms closed around me. Without knowing what else to do, I put mine around him and held on tight.

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