And maybe I want him to, so it’s definitely safer to hide out in here all day.
His signature four beat knock on my door pulls me from my thoughts.
“Come in,” I call out, bracing for what might be next.
“I ran you a bubble bath. Thought it might help relax you.” he says, leaning against my doorframe.
He smiles. And it’s disarming.
“That’s incredibly sweet of you,” I say.
And it is. Wow.
“Go enjoy it. I’m gonna head down to the gym.”
“Can I use that gym, too?” I ask. “Later, I mean. Later today?”
I could definitely use time on a treadmill to blank my brain.
And having a place to work out could be very convenient as an escape.
“Use it whenever you want. I’ve found a spare key fob for the door in my desk. I’ll leave it here for you.”
“Thank you. I haven’t worked out since I’ve been here. I could use a good run.”
“Go for it. You wanna skip the bubble bath and come work out with me right now instead?”
“Absolutely not. A hot bath sounds perfect.”
He smiles at me.
“Thank you, Killian,” I say with sincerity.
“My pleasure, Violet,” he replies softly.
I follow him down the hall to his room, feelings flitting around in my chest like a confused moth that has been bit by a flame it got too close to but doesn’t know how to fight the urge to fly right back toward the fire.
Urges. I’m definitely overcome with urges, despite my fear for everything going on and I’m feeling guilty about it, too.
Everything in Killian’s room is tidy. He even makes his own bed on Sundays. That says something about him to me, for some reason. I watch him walk around the column that leads to the nook where his desk is. He returns with a key fob. “I’ll pop this onto the desk in the guest room on my way down.”
“Thank you.”
I slip into the master bathroom.
The lights are off, the blinds down, making it all dark and atmospheric because there are three candles lit on the corner of the tub and bubbles are high up, floating three or four inches above the top of the big soaker tub.
I twist the lock and then peel myself out of my clothes and sink into the hot bubbles with a moan.
42
Killian
The gym in my building has too many fucking people in it. This is why I never use it on Sunday mornings. I should turn my third bedroom into a home gym.
After fifteen minutes of lifting, I abandon the workout because it’s jam-packed and these people aren’t acting like they’re here to work out, more like it’s social hour and they try to pull me into conversations, despite that I’ve only taken one earbud out to reply and quickly put it back in, which most people would take as a hint. These people don’t take that hint.
It doesn’t take long before I’ve had enough and head back upstairs deciding I’ll do some push-ups, pull-ups, and sit-ups in my room.
When I step in, I see that the bathroom door is still closed. Shit. She’s probably still in the tub.
I’m about to leave when the door opens and she’s coming out in a towel, the clothes she had on before in a bundle under her arm.
She freezes, eyes wide.
Poor girl is terrified, probably thinking this was my plan – get her naked and corner her. Though, sounds like a fuckin’ plan to me.
“Sorry, honest, I did not mean to be here. Gym’s jam-packed.”
I back out of the room and head toward the terrace doors where I immediately drop and give myself twenty for my impure thoughts. And then I have more of those delicious thoughts, so I give myself twenty more.
***
She doesn’t surface until evening.
My stomach is audibly protesting that I’ve been at my desk most of the day getting ahead with shit, so I head to the kitchen and she’s there, her right sole against her left calf, her sweatshirt falling off her shoulder, revealing creamy, beautiful skin.
“Want some?” she asks, looking over her shoulder at me while spooning salad into a bowl.
Yeah. Want is a good word.
My first thought is that I don’t know how to translate the look on her face. Sometimes my first instinct is that she’s being sultry intentionally. But her looks of terror that generally accompany my reaction suggest otherwise. My second thought, it’s more of an urge. It’s the urge to sink my teeth into the skin between her throat and shoulder, pinning her against the counter, grinding against her ass, and then kissing the teeth marks I leave behind all better before I feed her dinner with my fingers and then curl up and give her a foot rub.
“Yeah. I want some.”
Salad sounds like a shitty alternative, but I am hungry, so it’ll do for now.
She bites her lip and studiously avoids my gaze as she serves out two big bowls of the stuff, before pulling open a drawer for two forks.