Page 71 of With This Kiss
He looked good, and he knew it. Not that I would ever tell him.
“Hand me the shampoo bottle, baby,” he said from behind me. I shivered. He was close—close enough that I could feel something hard poking me in the small of my back.
I handed him the bottle without looking over at him. I could hear him squirting the shampoo into his hand, then I felt it in my hair.
I tensed from the contact, and he moved in even closer to me, his lips near my ear. “Relax.”
He said it as if it was an easy thing to do.
I was still reeling from all that had happened in my bedroom.
On my bed.
The details of it all were a little fuzzy, mostly because I was too focused on the sensation to really remember much of anything else.
And that sensation?
It wasn’t like anything I had felt before.
I closed my eyes when his fingers massaged over my scalp, feeling my muscles relax a bit.
“That’s my good girl,” he said.
He had been saying things like that a lot. Calling me his baby, his girl…his.
What had changed?
Did my ignoring him make his affection grow?
Did I encourage this by trying to keep my distance?
If I had known, I would have acted clingy. Because I didn’t think I would be able to get rid of him easily now.
Did I evenwant to get rid of him?
I shook my head at my confusing thoughts. I didn’t know. All I knew was I had never felt fear as intensely as I did when I realized he was at my father’s bar. Any of my father’s men who looked closely enough at him would have recognized him instantly. And then he would have been trapped there. My father’s men would have captured him, and I doubt they would have let him go easily… or at all. He was a stupid, stupid boy.
What would I have done if that had been the case then?
And it wasn’t like he blended in with the crowd so easily.
He was the kind of man who drew attention wherever he went, which was why I was so surprised we were able to walk out of there without anyone noticing.
“Time to rinse, baby,” he said, gently leading me under the spray of water.
The rest of our shower happened the same way.
He did all the work while I stood there and tried not to look at him too much.
By the time he turned the water off, I was dead tired on my feet.
I just wanted to go to bed.
“Almost done, okay?” he said, as if sensing my exhaustion. He probably did.
I nodded. At this point, I was too tired to be shy anymore. It wasn’t like he hadn’t already seen it all.
He wrapped a big towel around me and found one for himself before grabbing my hand and leading me back to our room. I told myself I wouldn’t look at my bedroom any differently, yet my cheeks still burned at the sight of my bed, of the blanket crumpled up in one corner, and of my panties and bra that he had taken off me and thrown carelessly on the floor.
