I assume she means the bath. Bewildered and off-center, I nod.
She hops off the counter and walks around me, turning off the water that was inches from overflowing. She kicks off her sandals and pulls her shirt over her head.
I turn my back.
I haven’t earned the right to call her June. Watching her undress also feels wrong.
Undeserved.
With my back toward her, and my eyes closed, it’s even worse than if I were watching her undress. My imagination is filling in all the gaps between all that fabric rustling. I hear the rasp of a zipper sliding down, and the soft sigh she makes when… when she what? When she’s bending over and sliding her panties down her legs? As she steps into the water? As she lets down her golden hair and runs a hand through it? Why is the thought of her letting her hair down so fucking sexy?
Once again, I’m rocking an erection, and no amount of cold showers will do a thing to help me. One thought of Juniper and I’m gone.
“You can turn around,” she says.
I rub a hand over my mouth, muttering, “That’s not a good idea.”
“Why?”
There’s no way of answering that with all the sex-filled images running rampant through my mind, so I just turn around.
She’s sitting in the bath, hot steam curling like wispy smoke around her, her wavy blonde hair in a messy knot at the top of her head, and her arms wrapped around her raised legs. Her skin is pale, and the faint dusting of freckles covering her bare shoulders is making me want to kiss each one. I can almost see the curve of her right breast.
“I got very good at hating you,” she says.
My eyes snap to her face.
Her expression is so serious that I brace myself for the worst. “You’re not a hateful person.” She wasn’t before. She was sweet and innocent.
“I know,” she agrees, resting her chin on her knees. “I never realized how much of a good motivator hate could be.”
Crossing my arms, I lean against the counter. “And what did it motivate you to do?”
“Build a life for myself where I would never need you again.”
You had to fucking ask, didn’t you?
The same flicker of amusement from the front door returns. “Come here.”
I eye her warily. “Is that order a prelude to your drowning me in your bath?” I deserve it, but that doesn’t mean I’m willing to embrace my fate so easily. I’m too much of a survivor for that.
A soft smile tugs at her pink lips. “I think that’s the first honest thing you’ve said to me for a while now.”
I walk over to her, sinking into a crouch in front of her. She’s so damn pretty, and I need to be close to her. Who cares if she drowns me in the bath?
With a tight grip on my shirt, she pulls me closer, and her kiss is so sweet it short-circuits my brain.
“Thank you for finding my sister and sending her to me.” Her eyes glisten with tears. “She means more to me than anyone in the world.”
“I’m sorry it took me so long to find her.”
“Yeah, well.” Sniffing, she draws me into a hug. “Your way worked out better than my way of screaming at my parents from outside their front gate.”
Chuckling, I wrap my arms tight around her and drop a kiss on her bare shoulder. With a groan, I inhale the sweet fragrance of her skin, fighting with myself not to climb into the bath alongside her. Far sooner than I want to, I release her and press my forehead to hers. “You shouldn’t hug me when you’re all beautiful and naked in a bath, Juniper. I’m strong, but I’m not that strong.”
As I kneel beside the bath, she tilts up her face to me, the bright overhead lights casting her brown eyes a warm, deep golden brown. “Because you want me?”
My hands frame her beautiful face. “Because I've never wanted anyone as much as I want you. When you walked into theHaven Academy library is when my life started, and when you left me, my world turned gray. Because I love you, Juniper Edith Alicia Mabel Harrington, and no woman comes close to the way I feel about you.”
