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“Trust me, I don’t want to be within ten feet of you, let alone touching you when you look and smell like a sewer rat,” I grumble, scrunching my nose.
“Then put me down!” she demands.
“It’s for your safety,” I bite out and carry her down the steps. Setting her down, I use a padlock to lock the hatch. She eyes it warily. “Also for your safety.”
I walk over to the ladder, and she laughs smugly. “How am I supposed to get up there now, genius?”
“Oh shut up, would you?” I rub my forehead. She’s giving me a headache. Then I pick her up, throwing her over my shoulder in what’s starting to feel like the only way I can control her.
I begin climbing one handed, and she doesn’t flail like last time but does threaten, “If you drop me, I will cut off your balls.” Among other creative ways to punish me the entire way up.
I take the key out of the control box for the ladder and make sure she watches me put it in my pocket. “No key, no way out.”
“Alright, you’ve made your fucking point. Uncuff me so I can shower this nasty-ass shit off me.” Some of the muddy water has begun to dry, streaking her face with gray residue.
I rub my thumb over my scarred knuckles and rake my bottom lip between my teeth. “You’re welcome to shower, but I’m not uncuffing you.”
She rotates until her back faces me and wiggles her hands. “How do you expect me to do that with these on?”
“I could help you”—a slow grin plays on my lips—“but I’m not breaking your rules.”
“Go to hell, Fox.” She tosses her head dramatically to purposefully whip me in the face with her wet hair. She struts into the bathroom and groans loudly when she realizes there’s no door to slam in my face.
Reggie
There’s not even a goddamn door. This bathroom is the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever seen. But not as ridiculous as Roan thinking I’d ask him for help now. Or so I thought…Until it takes me ten minutes to get my pants a quarter of the way down my thigh.
The whole time, Roan stands on the other side of the glass watching me struggle. What makes it worse is that he doesn’t gloat. All he has to do is stand there with a slight cock of his head and the ghost of a smirk on his lips, and I feel two feet tall. Somehow, despite throwing me around like a sack of potatoes, there’s only a light smudge on his shirt while I look and smell like a sewer rat.
“Jackass, get in here.” I jerk my head at him. The smug bastard cups his ear and leans toward the glass, his brows squished together. “Please.” I just want this shit off. The thought of the grossest city-street water all over me makes my skin crawl.
He doesn’t move an inch, but raises an eyebrow. I throw my head back and give in. “Would you please help me get my clothes off?”1
“Begging suits you.” His eyes blacken and his voice comes out hoarse, so gravelly that I can feel it scrape down my arms like grit. He walks past me and turns on the water. The shower isn’t separated from the rest of the bathroom by anything other than space. It’s tucked into a corner, sharing the same blue-tiled floor as the rest of the room. No curtains, no tub, no door, not even a half wall. Everything is out in the open.
I hear a flick of metal and then feel the sharp point of a pocket knife drag across my shoulder. I swallow deeply as he coasts the blade up the slope of my neck and stops below my jaw. “I can see your pulse.” He presses the flat of the knife deeper into my skin, and I feel the thump of my pulse push into it.
Everything is narrowed down to the delicate point biting at my skin so thinly covering my carotid artery. His presence at my back is suffocating, even though our only place of contact is his knife at the juncture of my throat. I take long and full breaths through my nose, doing anything to keep my pulse from rising and jumping into his waiting blade.
He lifts it off my neck and uses it to brush my wet hair off my shoulder. “Hope you didn’t like this shirt too much.” He cuts the straps of my tank top, and it falls into a pile at my hips.
“I’m burning these clothes anyway.”
I peek at the mirror next to me to watch our reflections as he unclasps my bra, and his chest caves on a heavy exhale. I pinch my arms to my side so that when he cuts my bra straps next, it doesn’t fall to the ground.
My cheeks grow hot, and my skin prickles before I let it fall. His fingers twist in my bunched-up tank top, and he begins to slide it down my hips. When he gets to where I stopped with my attempts to remove my leggings, he drops to a knee. My chest burns with the need for urgency, battling the slowly brewing heat in my lower stomach that craves to drag this out. His gaze is scorching on the exposed top of my ass. Fisting my pants and shirt, he pulls everything down.
My eyes slide to the mirror to find Roan’s already there. His bottom lip falls open and his brows knit together like he’s in pain as he regards my bared body. His head lolls back and his jaw clenches, his neck bobbing with a swallow.
I can’t handle the weight of his attention. Not when I’m so exposed, unable to cover myself, and he’s fully dressed. I don’t look at him when I walk past and into the stream of hot water. He doesn’t leave.
I do my best to ignore him and grab a bottle of body wash from a shelf cut into the wall. It’s awkward and difficult to grasp with my hands behind my back. I drop it, and heat floods my cheeks knowing I’m going to have to ask for his help again.
He watches the bottle roll into the center of the shower, then slides his hooded gaze to me. The stench of the street water seems to magnify in the steam. If it were possible, I’d stand under the water until it scalds the filth off me. But I won’t feel clean until it’s scrubbed off.
“Will you help me?” I stare at my feet.
“I’ll have to touch you,” he says with trepidation, like he’s not sure he can handle it.
