“Oh,” she said. “Sorry. I’m used to having to work harder to get ...”
“To get Beau to listen to you?” I finished, my hands balling into fists.
“Yeah.”
“You’re not killing him.I am.”
“Noah,” she said, mimicking me.
“Fine. Butsomeoneshould for the way he treated you.”
She was quiet for a beat, and when she spoke next, her voice was barely audible over the sound of the shower. “It wasn’t always so bad.”
“Oh, shit. No, Emma.” I took a staggering step forward before stopping myself. “You don’t need to defend yourself. I’m not blaming you for staying.”
“My mama did,” she said. “Every time we talked, she’d beg me to finally see reason and leave him. ‘Emma Miller,’ she’d say, ‘you are too smart to keep falling for that man’s lies. I raised you to be a strong, modern woman, so start acting like it.’ That’s why I didn’t want you to call her. I’m worried she’ll tell me that if I’d taken her advice, this wouldn’t have happened to me.”
“She’d be wrong for it,” I said, angry all over again. “Men like Beau? They’re more dangerous when they’re desperate. He might have snapped and run you off the road or something instead. And I’m sorry I tried to push you into calling someone. I won’t do it again.”
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
The shower cut off, and she reached out to snag her towel.
I quickly turned my back again.
I heard the shower curtain open, and then the sound of her stepping out. “Uh ... do you have clothes I can wear?”
“Yeah, sorry. We probably should have grabbed those first.”
I led her out of the bathroom. It sat right at the top of the stairs, with my bedroom to the right, and the guest room to the left. I’d done laundry the other day, so there were plenty of clothes to choose from. Emma selected a pair of dark sweats, a T-shirt, and a big cable-knit sweater that would look like a dress on her. She was on the taller side, but the men in myfamily ran bigger than most, and at six foot four, I stood head and shoulders above her.
“I can change into them while you shower,” she said, clutching her little pile to her chest, beads of water still clinging to her skin.
My stomach tightened. I’d been so fixated on making sure she got warm and clean that I hadn’t thought ahead to what might happen next. From the look on her face, it was clear she still didn’t want to be alone, so I guessed we were doing this.
I snagged some clothes for myself and returned to the bathroom with Emma right on my heels. She closed the door behind us while I cranked the water back on. My shirt stuck to my back, sticky and uncomfortable and starting to smell from how much I’d sweat in it. I pulled it off overhead and dropped my hands to my belt, tugging it loose. Emma, I was sure, had already turned her back like I had, but I tossed a glance over my shoulder just to check.
She was ogling me, her cheeks pink, eyes wide, mouth open as her gaze drank me in.
My dick twitched.
Don’t you fucking dare,I warned it.
Emma yanked her eyes up to mine, her face turning absolutely scarlet. “I like your tattoo,” she blurted, likethatwas what she’d been so distracted by—a tiny four-leaf clover on the back of my shoulder that I’d drunkenly gotten on St. Paddy’s Day my junior year of college.
In any other moment, I wouldn’t have let a woman get away with such a blatant lie. I would have turned, pressed her back to the door, and tormented her with my fingers and my mouth until she confessed the truth. But that wasn’t what this was between us. It couldn’t be. So I made an exception.
“Thanks,” I said.
She whipped around to face the wall, and I stripped off the rest of my clothes and climbed into the shower. The water was still warm, and the feel of it pelting into me after a long day of work and then a short night of trauma made me understand why Emma had moaned. This felt like a luxury. I wanted to linger, let the heat go to work on my sore muscles and the steam carry away all my dark thoughts, but Emma was out there waiting, and I didn’t know if not being able to see me was enough to trigger her panic, so I worked the soap over my body quickly, scrubbing off the dirt and sweat.
“Am I good to come out?” I asked when I was done.
“Yup!” she said.
I cut the water off and pushed the curtain back.
