He glides the soap over my shoulders, slick and warm. The bubbles trail down my arms as he moves slowly, reverently. He traces along the dip of my spine, then down to the curve of my waist, his hands always returning to rest over my ribs like he’s reminding me I’m still here. Still whole.
Neither of us speaks. The sound of water lapping around us and our steady breathing fills the space between us.
He shifts higher, and his hands glide over my breasts next with aching gentleness. They skim across my nipples, pebbling them to spiky peaks. I suck in a slow, trembling breath, and his hands move to my neck.
He lathers the soap there with careful fingers, dragging it along the column of my throat, behind my ears, across my collarbones. My body reacts before my brain does—arching slightly, heat blooming beneath my skin. Every nerve sparks awake. But he doesn’t grope. He touches me like I’m fragile, breakable, sacred. Washing me like I’m something precious.
Then his hands lower and slip between my thighs, tender and slow. And everything stills. The soap slicks over skin that’s too sensitive, too raw, and my breath catches in my throat.
His hands stop moving. We both freeze.
His forehead dips to rest against the back of my shoulder. He doesn't speak, but I can feel the war inside him, the restraint.The aching reverence in the way he stays still, the way he refuses to take this further than I want.
The tension shifts in the room. Electric. Thick. Like a breath held too long. “Lo,” he murmurs, his voice nearly breaking. “Tell me what you need. I’ll stop. Or I’ll stay right here. Whatever you want.”
My heart thunders in my chest. Every part of me is aware of him. Of how big he is, how gentle he’s trying to be. How easily he could lose control, but doesn’t.
I turn around in the tub. There’s barely enough room. My knees brush against his thighs, and the water rises in a wave, sloshing over the edge. He doesn't move. Just watches me, like he’s afraid I’ll vanish if he blinks. His eyes look haunted.
“I’m not touching you like that again until you ask me to,” he says, voice low and rough, like it costs him everything not to reach for me.
And God, do I want to ask. My body aches with the pull of him, the warmth of his skin against mine, the way his presence calms everything in me that's frayed and shredded. Then my eyes catch on something else. A thin, dark line trailing down his face. A trickle of blood mixing with water, sliding over the sharp cut on his cheekbone.
Sex is the last thing on my mind.
“What happened to your face?” I ask, my voice thin, the words tugged from somewhere deep.
His jaw ticks. “I sort of got into a fight last night.”
My fingers lift before I think. I reach up, brushing the wet strands of hair away from the gash. It looks worse up close. Swollen. Raw. It cuts across that cheek I’ve kissed a hundred times and now want to cradle instead.
“With who?” I ask.
He doesn’t answer right away. His eyes drop to the surface between us, where our legs are tangled and the water’s gone cloudy with dirt and ash and blood.
“The guy I hired.”
My stomach knots. “The hitman? So you found him? Last night?”
A single nod. His voice is flat. “Yeah. He made the fatal decision of taking my money and telling Clay about the hit. Without killing him.”
I stop breathing. The air in my lungs turns sharp and useless.
“He told Clay?” My voice cracks. “What else did he say?”
Damian lifts his eyes to mine. They’re pitch dark. Endless. And cold.
“Nothing else,” he says. “He was too dead by that time to speak.”
And just like that, the warmth of the water vanishes. The air turns thin, like the room’s been stripped of oxygen.
Everything goes still—except my pulse, thudding so loud I feel it in my throat.
Clay knows Damian paid someone to kill him. Fuck. We’re not safe. Not even close.
Chapter Twenty-One
DAMIAN
