Closing my eyes, I fight the urge to go to him, to bridge the gap. Every night we seem to call a truce, and he wraps around me, dragging me into his body, waiting for me to ask questions, to start a conversation, but I haven’t. I’m still trying to give myself permission to be happy about it, to let my guard down, to embrace him here, permanently.
“Just one, okay?”
I jump. “Will you stop sneaking up behind me?!”
“I didn’t sneak up on you. You’ve been staring into the freezer since I came into the room.”
I shut the door. His eyes drop to the frozen grapes I hadn’t realized I pulled from the bag. “You used to drive me crazy sucking on those while you were reading.”
I toss a few in my glass along with some ice and turn back to the counter to pour my drink. “Why only one?”
“We have plans tonight, and I need you alert.” He opens the back door to let Beau out. “I’ve got somewhere I need to take you.”
“Where are we going?”
“A meetup,” he answers simply.
I reel on him. “Are you fucking kidding me?”
“It’s just to introduce you to those looking out for us here in Virginia.”
Simmering, I toss back the whiskey. “I thought you said no one was looking for me.”
“They aren’t looking for you,” he answers, his eyes conveying the rest. The fact that he needs protection should scare me, but it doesn’t. “I was going to take a quick shower.”
“Then I’ll take a quick bath.” By the time I finish my drink, he’s already in the shower, no doubt to grant me space. Undressing, I see him watching me in the mirror from where he stands, lathering up his body. Eyes locked, I pull off my T-shirt and bra, my skin pinkening from the blush creeping up my neck. He smirks, and I lift my chin, taking my painstaking time to bend, lowering both my jeans and panties. I don’t bother to look back because I know how cruel the act was. I can’t help but bite my lips at his watered-down curse. Stepping into my clawfoot tub, I admire him through the clear shower door as he runs a sponge down his body. The bathroom is the only room I fully remodeled when I bought the house because it was the size of a closet, and though now it’s doubled in size, it still seems small with his proximity.
Ezekiel Tobias King is devilishly dark perfection, especially when wet.
And he claims he’s mine. Forever mine.
Sinking into the tub, I watch him shamelessly as he discards his sponge and runs a handful of shampoo through his dark mane before lifting fiery eyes to mine.
Wet lashes accentuate the surreal color of his eyes. Through the stream of water, I see it so clearly. I’m twenty again and reaching for him just as he meets me halfway into the shower before kissing me senseless while impaling me on his cock. A cock that has stirred to life fully now as the seconds pass and we stare off, both engulfed by memories and coming unglued with need. He’s engorged now, thick, veiny, the sight of his tip, mouthwatering. In an act of cruelty, he turns his back, letting the spray wash over the heavily inked wings stretched out along his shoulders. It’s then I see the distortion, the clear interruption of the pattern I’ve traced with my lips so many times before. Exit wounds.
One just beneath his right shoulder blade and one above his right hip.
Instant tears emerge at the sight of them and what it means. He was gravely injured while we were apart. Hazy images of the night he took me so unforgivingly at my father’s mansion emerge, and I can’t at all recall feeling them, but they could have been there.
“Tobias,” I whisper hoarsely, the blood draining from my face, but he doesn’t hear me. It’s everything I can do to keep from going to him, to demand answers, but there’s a partition far thicker than the glass and porcelain between us. He doesn’t want to push me, and I don’t want to be pushed. He seems just as reluctant at this point to get physical with me for a reason I can’t pinpoint, and I’m not sure how I feel about it. As if reading my thoughts, he turns to me, weighing my expression before ripping his gaze away, another curse leaving him as he turns off the shower, grabs a towel, and leaves the bathroom soaking wet.