She’s lathering a bar of soap between her hands when I reach her, stepping under the water with her. The sound of the shower hitting my wings sounds like rain against an umbrella before I relax them a little.
Tracing a knuckle against her back, I’m surprised her skin is still cold and clammy.
“Here, let me help,” I offer, my voice coming out a little too low. Her eyelashes flutter against her cheek as I wrap an arm around her middle. She sighs as she leans back into me, relaxing a little.
I gather her wet hair, twisting it together and moving it out of the way, over her shoulder. Taking the bar of soap from her hands, I begin to drag it over her.
With a little scrubbing, the oily residue from the ooze dissolves, washing away down the drain. The heat of the shower is finally starting to warm her, and that knowledge finally lets me relax a little. I hadn’t realized how much I’d been clenching my teeth through the last hour or so, the adrenaline finally subsiding.
It was utter chaos in that lab under the city, the way everything happened all at once. Beforehand, I’d been a little afraid I wouldn’t be able to protect her if everything went to shit, but she handled herself well under pressure. She acted fast enough that we got out of there relatively unscathed.
Bringing the bar of soap down her arm, I find a tender spot just under her elbow. Already the skin is starting to purple.
Lacey stiffens, inhaling sharply as she tugs her arm out of my grasp. She shies away just enough that I can’t see her expression. I almost forgot she fell pretty hard in the waterways during all that mayhem.
“I know what you’re thinking,” she says, before I can apologize for touching it. If I thought she seemed guarded before, she curls somehow further in on herself. Her mouth is a small, tight line, twisting her fingers together.
“. . . Yeah?”
“Yes, and I don’t think you should make a judgment on how this time went,” she says insistently, huffing a breath. She hugs herself in a way that is momentarily distracting—her breasts, lathered up in soap suds, squeeze over the top of where herarms cross. “I mean, I know I panicked, and then when that guy showed up—”
I blink, lost.
It’s not unusual that I stop paying my best attention when there’s a bare, soapy breasts in front of me, but usually I’ve got enough context clues to gather what’s going on. She seems agitated, her head down, shoulders raised up by her ears.
She’s crying and talking to me, and her tits are covered in soap suds, and I didn’t think it was possible that this would feel like a nightmare. There’s some emotional whiplash happening. Is she...anticipating some kind of fallout from me?
“Hey, hey. Slow down. You did good,” I interrupt, and press a kiss to the back of her head, inhaling the scent of her hair. She stammers, pivoting defensively.
“But your rules—”
“Are not more important than you.”
She wraps her arms around herself, clearly unconvinced. I grimace, thinking of the leads she followed with Steel before, wondering if he made her fight for every opportunity to work with him. It makes me regret refusing her before, even if I had my reasons at the time. I don’t want her to think I’m just another obstacle she needs to hurdle, that she needs to prove herself to me.
“It went badlybecauseof me.” She sniffles. “Clayton is right, I should just leave this stuff to him. I’m just walking right into danger. And I put you in danger! This is why everyone thinks I’m just this perpetual damsel—”
“Hey, don’t talk like that,” I say, partly a knee-jerk reaction to hearing her say Steel could be right about anything, but I’vealso never seen how deep her self-doubt goes. I hold her a little closer, stroking her shoulder for comfort. “We got out of there with barely a scratch, thanks to you. Don’t beat yourself up over this. Forget Clayton.”
I have to cut myself off before I start calling him names. I’m sure she doesn’t want to hear whatever vitriol I have reserved for him. It’s hard to put my anger toward him aside when she’s tangled up within it.
She shakes her head a little, droplets clinging to her downcast eyelashes. “How can I?”
Her gaze returns to the window, and her thoughts are clearly miles away as her voice grows thick with emotion. Lacey’s expression makes it clear she’s still processing the realization she had back there, even as she tries to conceal it.
“I can’t believe it’s been that long.” She sniffles again, pulling the curtain up on our silence. “I feel like an idiot.”
“You’re not an idiot. Anyone would fall for a guy with a hero complex and a penthouse apartment.”
She gives a small laugh in response, more of a hiccup. Her wan smile doesn’t fully reach her eyes. It tears something in me.
With the hot shower raining down on us, I nearly miss the tear that slips out across her cheek, merging with other droplets. My breath stills in my chest as I listen hard for hers.
I always want to kiss her. This moment is no different, hazardous grime notwithstanding. I don’t know how to while her ex’s presence is wedged between us.
I waffle on telling her she should repay him the favor by having the world’s most public breakup, but I don’t want to make her feel like I’m just trying to steer her into what I want.I know I have a terrible habit of back-seat driving whenever Maestro goes out somewhere. But it’s not about Steel or me. It’s about her.
“Hey, Lacey.”
