Massaging my throbbing temples, I exhale a trembling breath. Sam is right. How am I going to face Grayson after killing his grandson? Just the thought of having to look him in the eye is a punch straight to the gut. He also clearly didn’t buy my story of the umbra attack. Why else would he have assigned Erik to watch me?
“Ready for the bath?” Kaiden’s smooth voice brings me back into the present. He’s standing next to the bed, his big frame looming over me. The anger that shone in his gaze earlier dimmed down, only a glint of it still showing through. His hair is disheveled—as if he pulled at it in distress or ran his hands too many times through it. And he’s still wearing the same black jeans and shirt from last night. Only, the shirt’s all wrinkled andbloody. Dark circles paint his undereyes, but he’s still as hot as sin and so beautiful it almost hurts to look at him.
“Yeah,” I reply, and before I can make one move to get out of bed, Kaiden swoops me up in his arms and strides toward the bathroom. Fireworks go off at every point of contact between our bodies.
“I could have walked by myself,” I mumble, heat scorching my cheeks.
“I don’t want you to.” He sets me down on the bathroom counter, the smooth marble cold under my naked thighs.
I clear my throat. “How much of my conversation with Sam did you overhear?”
“All of it.”
“Oh,” I breathe.
“I didn’t mean to eavesdrop. I heard her screaming like a damn banshee, and I nearly had a heart attack thinking something had happened to you. Before I could pop into the room, I realized she was only reacting to you waking up. So, I waited outside until I couldn’t anymore. I had to come in and make sure you were okay. Arms up.”
“Why?”
He lifts an eyebrow as he looks down at me. “Do you usually take a bath with clothes on?”
“I think I can manage to undress myself,” I scoff.
His nostrils flare. “Can you stop being so fucking stubborn just for one night? You almost died, and I thought I was going to lose my fucking mind when I saw you lying on the ground, beaten to within an inch of your life. Let me take care of you. This is more formethan it is for you,” he blurts out the last part. The intensity of his gaze burns a fire trail straight to my soul. But more than that, it’s the way his words poured out of him—like blood gushing out of a fresh wound—that steamrolls through my defenses.
And then guilt gnaws at my insides because he’s right; I’m being difficult on purpose. Still, I’m a hellseeker, and he’s an Elite demon. Even us being in the same room together is forbidden. But every single moment shared with Kaiden blurs the lines of my reality a little more, making me question everything I know. If a demon is capable of so much compassion and a lightborn—a being blessed by the mighty archangels—could induce so much pain, then where do I stand in all of this?
He tugs at the hem of the oversized tee and pulls it over my head. Crooking his index fingers into the boxers I believe are his, he gently slides them over my hips. Eyes on me, Kaiden unbuttons his shirt. Then he takes off his jeans, followed by his underwear, leaving the clothes in a heap on the floor next to the ones he took off me. The need to memorize every inch of exposed bronzed skin with mine is all-consuming.
Kaiden’s gaze travels the length of my body, which resembles a gruesome painting because of the caked blood splattered over bruises in various shades of purple, blue, and yellow. He steps closer and brings his fingers to the blemishes on my abdomen, his touch featherlight. Wrath stiffens his spine and shoulders.
“The violence burning in my veins, Iris. Fuck. You don’t even know the lengths I would go to make that worthless piece of shit suffer. I want to revive him so I can skin him alive. I would use every ounce of power I have to kill him in the most torturous way I can think of. And then I would bring him back to life and resume the torture. I would continue doing so for all eternity.”
Framing his stubbled cheek, I say, “It’s okay. He can’t hurt me anymore. Thank you…for saving me. For what must be the hundredth time.”
Kaiden leans into my touch. “I didn’t. You saved yourself.” Something akin to pride shines in his gaze. “I just found you.”
“Well, thank you anyway for taking care of me,” I whisper while dragging my thumb along the shape of his perfect lips. Ashudder passes through him. It’s a heady feeling, Kaiden being affected by me. We are so close that the mesmerizing dance of gold and red in the obsidian sea of his eyes makes me dizzy. Drinking him in, I let my palms travel over the intricate tattoos on his torso. I gasp when the pads of my fingers sweep over numerous raised scars. “Whoa, Kaiden. What happened to you?”
Kaiden tenderly wraps his hands around my wristsand stops me from touching him further. A muscle jumps in his cheek. “My father.”
I sweep over every inch of exposed skin on Kaiden’s body with newfound scrutiny. He mentioned the dark room before but left out the part that gave him this many scars. I can’t believe I haven’t noticed them before. But I realize now that besides that day I woke up in his penthouse for the first time, I haven’t seen him naked. The tattoos cover them so well, though. If you didn’t know exactly where to look, you could easily miss the puckered skin and the faint white marks.
What kind of monster does this? I push down the smelted rage that overtakes me, threatening to spill over, before saying, “I’m sorry you had to go through that.”
“It was a long time ago.”
“Still…I’m sorry,” I murmur and bend, brushing my lips over one of the marks on his chest. He sucks in an unsteady breath as I pepper kisses on all the visible scars.
“Angel,” he rasps, letting go of my wrists to grab my chin softly between his fingers and tilt it upward. The emotion shining in the obsidian sea sends my pulse into overdrive.
I close my eyes as he bends, ready to feel his plush lips over mine. But bitter disappointment thickens in my veins like syrup when, instead, he slides his forearms under my thighs and picks me up again. Stepping over the rim of the bathtub, he sinks us both into the hot water with my back to his front in between his muscular thighs.
He washes me methodically, without lingering too much in one place. His touch isn’t sexual by any means. Still, his growing erection digging in my back makes it clear how much he wants me. When his fingers whisper against the skin on my inner thighs, my lips part on a sharp inhale, and a slow burning fire pulses through me. He doesn’t inch up, though.
Instead, he starts lathering my hair while his fingers massage my scalp. I’ve never felt more precious, more cared for than in this moment. A moan escapes me, and his cock twitches at the sound, followed by a rugged exhale. However, he still doesn’t act on it and uses the detachable showerhead to rinse me.
When Kaiden finishes, he lifts me out of the tub, places me on my feet, and pats me dry. He then wraps me in a fluffy towel. Popping off, he lets me take care of my business. As I’m about to exit the bathroom, he appears out of thin air at the door, wearing only a pair of basketball shorts. My brain short circuits at how insanely gorgeous he is. The shorts hang low on his trim waist, accentuating the V lines on each side of his sculpted abs. He also has that happy trail of hair pointing south that I’m dying to follow down with my tongue.
