Page 82 of My Lucky Star
“Thank you,” I muttered, shampooing my hair. The pink stuff smelled amazing.
He shifted behind me, running his fingers through my wet hair until the shampoo rinsed out, his touch unbearably gentle. Reverent, slow strokes that made me tremble like an internal earthquake. More intimate than anything we’d just done. My heart lurched and I took a deep breath.
“Why haven’t you done this before?” I asked. “Your bathroom is practically built for... um... steamy encounters.” I found the pair for the pink bottle that said conditioner and moved onto that. “Let me guess,” I continued breathlessly. “They all spread their legs before they ever make it here?”
I had to be crass. I had to shake the weird mood his soft touch had spread down my back, its sticky tendrils sneaking into my heart.
I heard his heavy exhale as he let go of my hair and grabbed a bottle of shower gel. I busied myself with applying and rinsing the conditioner. When I risked another glance at him, I caught him leaning languidly on the wall, looking like a Mediterranean god covered in suds, his eyes all dark thunder. “I never brought anyone up here.”
Blood whooshed in my ears. I stepped out of the shower and found a towel on a shelf. In fact, I found fifteen towels, all stacked so neatly they must have been measured with a ruler. With shaking hands, I pulled down the remaining fourteen with my one, scattering them across the floor.
“I’m sorry.” I kneeled down to gather them, feeling naked for the first time since I’d discarded my pants on the bathroom floor.
“Stop, Aria. It’s fine.” Cem dropped a towel on my shoulders and crouched next to me, his skin still soapy and slick.
I could have an affair with him, collect memories and make this special for me.For me. But it couldn’t be special for him. I’d remain a tiny blip on his radar. He wouldn’t remember me.
I had convinced myself of that, and it let me off the hook. I couldn’t really break his heart. Not in a million years.
“Are you okay?” He rubbed the towel against my skin like he’d rescued me from drowning.
“Yeah, nah. I just find it hard to believe. That I’d be... the first one. I’m never—”
“You’re the one and only.” He kissed my neck, then my ear, his hot breath flowing straight into my heart. “And there are so many firsts I want to experience with you. If I can stop you from running away. If I can somehow stop you from... dismissing us.”
I heard the pain in his voice, but I couldn’t believe it. He was an actor. A great actor.
“I’ve seen a lot of pictures of you with gorgeous women. Are you telling me you don’t sleep with them?”
He chuckled. “I’m not celibate, but I’ve never brought anyone home. Why would I? They’d bump into my parents, and you’ve seen where that leads. I’d be meeting their parents and so on.”
“And you don’t want to get serious,” I finished for him, resuming my towel-folding. I couldn’t get them as neat and tidy as they’d been, no matter what I tried.
When I restarted the folding for the third time, Cem yanked the towel from me.
“You know what I think?” he said, expertly folding the towel and sliding it on the shelf. “I think you’re hellbent on misjudging me because then you’ll have an excuse not to take this seriously.”
His words stung a little, but I still had a half a leg to stand on. “I don’t believe everything I read online, but it doesn’t look like you’ve been serious with anyone. They call you a playboy.”
Cem’s eyebrows sailed up. “I don’t want to get serious with the wrong person. Do you? How about that neighbor who butlers for your parents? Do you want to get serious with him?”
“No,” I admitted. “But I’m not sleeping with him, either.”
He stood up and heaved the rest of the towels into a laundry basket. “You might, one day. When you’re lonely enough. Or maybe you’re stronger than me, I don’t know. I’m weak. What we did...” He peered over his shoulder at our crime scene. “I’ve thought about that... about so many things I wanted to do to you... since the moment we met. I thought if I had sex with you, I could think clearly for a second.”
I got up, too, wrapping the towel tighter around myself, watching those incredible muscles flex as he rinsed himself under the shower.
He turned off the water and grabbed the towel he’d just neatly folded, securing it around his waist.
“Did it work?” I asked. “Can you think clearly right now?”
His eyes glimmered with an emotion I couldn’t quite interpret. “All I can think is that I want more, but I won’t.”
“Won’t what?”
“I won’t touch you again until you say it.”
“Say what?” My gut wobbled and I hugged myself to stop from visibly shaking.
