Page 41 of Small Town Firsts
ELEVEN
KIRA
HOLD ONTO ME, VIKING
“I don’t like being handled.”
He tipped up my chin. “Just get in the tub, Sunshine.”
The room was steamy from the heat of the day and the boiling tub full of water behind me. The fact that he seemed to know that I liked it lava-hot made me want to punch him all the more.
He towered over me in the bathroom and made every inch of my skin prickle with awareness. And yet not one bit of him seemed to want to get into the tub with me.
Okay, so the scent of me was questionable, but in my experience most men didn’t care when the end goal was a naked female. Especially a more than willing one such as myself.
He brushed my lower lip with his thumb before he backed up the last few inches in my tiny ass room and ducked back through the door—yes, ducked. My entire apartment never felt smaller than this moment. In fact, I’d actively worked to make sure it felt as spacious as possible and right now it seemed like a damn thimble.
He closed the door firmly and I resisted the urge to growl.
Who was he to tell me to take a bath? Didn’t he realize it was ninety degrees right now?
And yet I found myself peeling off my clothes. I was tempted to burn them, but I wore black for a reason. It hid all of the sins of work—including syrup and alcohol stains. Instead, I dumped everything into my hamper, pinned the sticky mess of my hair up, and wrapped my terrycloth headband around the whole of it.
I hooked my phone to my Bluetooth speaker and cranked up the music.
Normally I listened to soothing tunes in the bath, but I was still pissed off enough to boost the bass heavy pop song playlist I used for cleaning. In the end, it annoyed me more than it probably worked to annoy him—because he was a jerk.
I hissed as I lowered my aching body into the silky water. This tub was why I’d rented the minuscule one-bedroom place. When I’d moved in here five years ago, it was because the owner of this converted house wasn’t from Turnbull. He didn’t know who I was beyond the fact that I had Beckett as a reference.
But the tub had been the only bit of indulgence I’d allowed myself. Working sometimes four jobs at a time—and almost all of them had me on my feet—required something for recovery.
And a bath was mine.
I was tired enough to dump another scoop of my special bath salts into the water. Epsom would be a better bet with the soreness of my shoulders from the flying drunk tackle from the asshat at The Mason Jar. But I had a six-foot-four Viking in my apartment and if he didn’t piss me off for five seconds, I might even let him see me naked.
If he wasn’t contrary enough to tell me we were waiting for my own good.
I lowered myself until I was submerged to my neck. When the song changed to a bombastic Miley song, I’d had enough. I reached for my phone and scrolled for the instrumentals I generally listened to during my winding down time, but I accidentally opened the sexy times playlist. Not mine—but themusic app sure knew what it was doing as The Weeknd filtered out of my small but mighty speaker.
This would probably backfire on me too, but I didn’t care at this point. The warm water did its job and I was close to a parboiled potato before the water cooled off enough to get my ass moving once again. I took a few minutes to use my razor since it was right there.
I had a mile of leg to shave, but it was much easier to do while my skin was soft and slightly oiled from the water. I took my time exfoliating with my body sugar until I was practically rosy. I unplugged the drain with my toes and stood to do a rinse and washed my rat’s nest of a head.
Another few cherries and a lemon wedge dropped from the lather. I washed my hair twice for good measure and conditioned the hell out of it before turning off the water.
And because I couldn’t help myself, I quickly spritzed the tub with the cleaner I kept in the skinny cabinet.
I was squeezing out the last of the excess water from my hair when I heard his voice outside.
“Dinner.”
I frowned. What the hell had he found in my fridge to cook? He had to have ordered something.
And of course I didn’t have anything to wear. I spotted the silky kimono on the back of my door. Not exactly the best for drying off. My big towels were in the linen closet outside.
I did the best I could with the lone oversized hand towel and slid into the silky kimono. All I had to do was make it to my bedroom. Of course it was down the hall with a prime view from my galley kitchen.
“Dammit,” I whispered.
