The heated spray fell from the ceiling. Icepicks against our chilled flesh. Salem shivered then moaned when I leaned her back and massaged the warm water into the locks of her hair.
“I’m sorry you were scared tonight,” I muttered, memory going back to the terror in her eyes.
Old fears flashed across her face.
Grabbing a sponge and coating it with shower gel, I began to wash her.
Carefully the way she deserved to be handled.
Returning the favor, Salem pumped gel into the palm of her hand, rubbed her palms together before she smoothed them over my shoulders and down my arms. She peeked up at me when she admitted, “I think I needed you to see.”
She distracted me by running those hands all over my body.
Slowly.
Seductively.
I did the same, somehow knowing this was what she needed. For someone to hold her for a bit. To let her know she was safe.
We washed each other, her hands on me and mine on her.
It was really fuckin’ hard to keep my cool with this girl slick and bare and the hottest thing I’d ever seen. It was bad enough when she was clothed. But this? It was mind-altering. Earth-shattering. Being with her this way.
Lost in the shift of this night.
Like maybe we’d both tripped into something better.
Something right.
Our hearts were a thunder that pounded louder than the drone of the shower, louder than the rain on the roof and the thunder in the distance.
We were caught up. Lost in the connection that refused to let us go.
Our hands searched and our mouths roamed.
I kissed her jaw, her cheek, that nose.
Her lips ran over my pecs, my stomach, back up in search of my mouth.
I kissed her long and deep. My hand on her chin to control the desperation.
She sighed and gasped and stroked her tongue over mine. A slow, intoxicating dance.
When the water started to cool, I finally pulled myself out of the trance and turned off the showerhead. I reached out and grabbed a towel and wrapped that lush body in it, grabbed another to wrap around my waist, then I was hoisting her up.
She squealed in surprise.
“I can walk, you know.” There was a tease on her sweet mouth as I carried her to the massive vanity against the far wall of the bathroom.
Propping her on the counter, I grabbed another towel to run through her hair. “Now why would you do that when you have me to carry you around?”
Salem giggled. “You’d better watch out…a girl could get used to this, and then you’re never going to get rid of me.”
I smirked down at her. “Damn it. There you go, foiling my master plan, darlin’。”
“Devious.” She grinned.
My chest felt light while everything else was tightened in a fist.
Need unending.
Want growing into something it should not.
Love.
I shoved down the stupid, errant thought.
Blasphemy.
Disloyalty.
This black magic that was sinking into my blood and pounding through my body.
Only thing I could do was be here, right now, for her. Show her she didn’t have to be alone.
But where did that leave me? Wasn’t sure how to stand in front of the beauty of who she was while being me. Worse than that was wondering how the hell I was going to walk when this was over.
Especially when she started running her fingertips over that word again, a clear question in the action.
I blew out a strained sigh then I pressed her hand hard against it like she could feel the vileness pour out. “That’s who I really am, Salem.”
In question, she looked up at me, waiting.
“Who my father made me.” I amended it, not sure if it was true. Because this? It was in my blood. There from the day I was born. Still, I doubted it’d have come to fruition the way it had without the one who’d planted it in me. “But that doesn’t make me innocent of it, Salem. I’ve done the unthinkable.”
Salem blanched, and I could feel her heart rate kick up a notch. “I don’t know if I can believe that.”
I brushed my fingers through her damp hair at the side of her head. “That’s because you’re seeing who I want to be. Who I’m trying to be.”
“Or maybe you haven’t ever had anyone see you for the man you really are.”
Shame built from the depths where I tried to keep it buried.
Softly, she touched my face, but there was a desperation that lined her voice. “Did you choose that life?”
I gave a harsh shake of my head, the words shards as they popped off with a scoff. “I was forced into it with a literal gun to my head. Told it was my time. That it was my duty, and if I didn’t, it would fall on my brothers.”
Too bad I didn’t fuckin’ know our bastard father had already gotten to Trent. Spun him into destruction the same way as he’d done me.
All of us manipulated from the minute we were born.
Those who had tried to stand in the way had been systematically taken out.
Sorrow riddled her gaze. “How old were you?”
I swallowed over the razors in my throat.
My eyes dropped closed, unable to keep looking at her when I made the confession. “Fourteen was my first. My father said it was time to prove my loyalty. He took me with him on a raid, to act as one of his guards. Turned out, I was a good fuckin’ shot, and I sealed my fate that day. I rode with the piece of shit until the day Trent found a way out. Asked us to leave with him to find a different life. A better life.”
I’d thought I’d found that with Kennedy.
Cupping my cheek, Salem urged me to look at her. “And what if you would have refused? Left before Trent found a way out?”
“My father would have killed anyone I cared about and made me watch.”
Those blue eyes were different then. Blazing with an empathy I couldn’t fathom when she should be looking at me with the disgust I deserved. “I know evil, Jud. I’ve seen it. I’ve lived with it. And I know that’s not what’s looking back at me right now.”
Agony slashed through my conscience, that place that was forever going to wail. “But I went back, Salem. I fuckin’ went back thinking I was doing the right thing, and I ended up committing the greatest sin.”
The unforgiveable.
Something I could never take back or make right.
I’d given that truth to Kennedy, and she’d left. There was no chance in hell I could offer it to Salem. The girl barely knew me as it was. But somehow, in that moment right then, I didn’t think I’d been more in tune with another.
Not with Kennedy.
Not once.
Because she’d never looked at me quite like this.
Like maybe there was a chance that I could be saved.
Like there could be redemption for a man like me.
How the hell could I ask for it, though? When I deserved to suffer with the truth of what I’d done for the rest of my life?
“The only thing you can do is live in the here and now, Jud. The past never has anything to offer but chains…chains and regrets and hard lessons. And yes, we can learn from them, but we can’t remain captive to them. You have to live each day for what it has to offer. You don’t have to be alone, either, Jud, I’m right here.”
Fuck, this girl was sweet.
Fierce and sweet and brave, and the only thing I wanted to do was wrap her up and keep her forever.