Every nerve in my body seems to light up with his husky voice.“Baby.”
“Again.”
I swallow hard. Then I say,“My baby.”
And he doesn’t let go.
CHAPTER
TWENTY-SIX
STORM
“You can borrow my toothbrush.”
I stare at Sloane Stevens and marvel over her.
She is blond and beautiful and green-eyed and her lips are pink and her hips are small and her throat is too and she’s holding out an electric purple toothbrush that was just in her mouth, for me to put in mine.
Her face is shiny and clean and I watched her do some sort of skincare process that took a good half hour. The entire time I sat on the edge of her bed, my feet planted on the floor, my knee bouncing.
There’s an ache in the back of my throat.
I’m not entirely sure what it’s from.
All I know is that in this lilac-coated and strawberry-scented bedroom, I feel nothing like I felt in the hotel with my dad.
Nothing like I felt in the marina with Lydia, her body tense against mine.
Here is a bubble.
Calm.
Safety.
Away from the storm.
Pretty and gorgeous and a place I will never belong.
She’s in a lilac sleep set; a collared shirt, loose on her body, and boxer shorts complete with black buttons. Her tanned legs are muscular and even her toes are cute, painted white, nails cut short. She cocks her hip in the small bathroom as she waits for my answer. There’s a lilac shower curtain pulled closed, a bathtub with all sorts of loofahs and sponges and bubble baths and bath bombs around the ledge. There’s a book too, I already scoped it out when she gave me an official tour of her place. Poetry. Something by some guy named Charles Baudelaire.
He must be French. I should tell her I am too. Well…not really. But half French Canadian has to count for something.
I take a breath and glance at the offering. No one has let me use their toothbrush before. Not that I’ve asked. Or needed it. But it’s still a first.
“Or not,” she says, rolling her eyes. But as she goes to put it on her counter, full of makeup and face products and a stack of soft white cloths she said she uses specifically for her face, I stand up and close the space between us.
I pull the toothbrush from her fingers and wrap one arm around her back.
She lifts her chin to look up at me, her eyes bouncing between mine. Her skin looks so good, soft and glowing and perfect.
I want to kiss her.
I need to kiss her.
What would she think of what I’ve done this past week? What would she think of what my parents do? What would she think if she had been Lydia, running away with me from the man who was no doubt set up to kill us? By whom, I still don’t know.
This is no world for Sloane.
