She moved in front of the warm spray, letting it pelt her front side. When she turned around, Viking was there with the soap. He squirted some into his big palms, then washed her from shoulders to toes, front and back. Hell, she felt like liquid bones by the time he finished, and she was positive she could fall back asleep. She feared waking up with another nightmare.
“Your turn,” she said.
“You go dry off and get in bed. I’ll be right there.” He turned her toward the doorway, swatting her ass, and all but shoved her out.
“Well, that’s kind of rude.” She looked over her shoulder, noticing his dick was standing straight up from a neatly trimmed nest of curls. “He doesn’t look happy to see me go.”
“He has no brain. Trust me. When I was in junior high, he thought it was a good idea to get with a senior. The senior in question was dating another senior. He didn’t care we were going to get our asses kicked because he got his rocks off. I, on the other hand, got a black eye.”
She snorted and then laughed. “I’m pretty sure you and he are connected to the same body.”
“Yeah, well, tell junior high me that. I let myself be led by him. Now, I’m the one in charge. Now, shoo, go on, before he gets the upper hand.”
Jinx shook her head, laughing at his antics. The lightness felt better than the heavy feeling that had settled over her since she’d woken on the floor. How the hell did he know how to distract her and make things easier all around? He was seriously a miracle worker.
She grabbed her robe instead of getting dressed, loving the idea of sleeping next to Viking without clothes. As she walked into her bedroom, she noticed her bed was a mess. While he showered, she quickly changed the sheets, tossing the dirty ones into the hamper.
Viking walked out, rubbing at his hair with a towel as she straightened the bed. “You’ve been busy.”
“I just changed the sheets. No biggie. I have several sets, so it’s easy to...I’m rambling.”
He went back into the bathroom and put the wet towel inside, coming back with only the towel around his hips. “Whatcha got on under that robe?”
“The same thing you have under that towel,” she said, smirking when he groaned.
“I don’t think you have a dick under there, but I could rectify that if you sat on my lap.”
She pushed his chest. “That was such a cheesy line.”
“Maybe, but does it work for you?”
“Actually, it does.” And it did. She felt like the world didn’t exist when they were together inside the little bubble they created.
“Come on. Let’s settle into bed.”
He pulled the covers back for her, being the proper gentleman she’d come to know and...love. There she’d said it in her mind if not out loud.
Viking went around to the other side, making the bed dip slightly under his weight. He moved until they were side-by-side, and then he shifted, easing her into the crook of his arm. Jinx let out a slow breath.
“Okay, want to tell me about the nightmare?” he asked.
She’d known he would ask. While making the bed, she’d thought about what she could say, whatlies she could weave. Lying within his arms, with his warmth sheltering her, Blair, not Jinx, chose truth.
“It’s more a reliving than a nightmare.” She let out a huge puff of air, needing to fortify herself to continue. “I need you to understand that I was a child when most of, no, when all of this happened.”
She peered up at him, wondering if he regretted asking.
“I’m not here to judge you, Vakker. No matter what happened, what you did or didn’t do, I still care about the woman in my arms.”
“When my sister Clair and I were little, we did everything together. She and I were identical twins. We had two older brothers. Benjamin and Brandon. They were also identical twins, though their personalities were very different. Brandon was kind, and he liked Clair and me. Benjamin never liked any of us, not even Brandon. To him, we were competition. And then, one day, Brandon died when they were twelve. My sister and I were away at camp, but I knew Benjamin had something to do with his death. We were only nine, but he did everything he could to torture us. Our parents kept making excuses for him. He was the golden child. Even beforeBrandon’s death, they showed favoritism toward Benjamin. It was horrid to watch.”
He ran his hand up and down her back, keeping the same steady pressure as she spoke. “What happened to Clair?”
“Benjamin liked to scare us by playing hide and seek. If he found one or both of us, he’d lock us in a dark room for hours and pretend to harm each of us. We never knew if we’d make it out alive. He knew our connection was special, so he’d use it against us. There were always bruises and cuts, nothing too deep or bad, but we had to hide them from our parents, or he’d promise the next time they’d be worse. And there was always a next time. Finally, we devised a system for not getting caught. Until the night he came home drunk or high or both. The week before, he’d gotten in trouble for coming into our bathroom when Clair had been showering. The housekeeper had confronted him, but he’d tossed her down the stairs. She’d broken her hip and needed a new shoulder or something from that fall, Bekkett. My parents paid her off so she wouldn’t say anything. A week later, they left for a trip while he was supposed to be away with his baseball team.” She shuddered,remembering the horror they’d felt when they’d seen his vehicle on the security cameras.
“Why didn’t your parents send him to boarding school or to a mental hospital. Hell, it sounds like they have enough money they could’ve done pretty much anything to make his ass disappear.”
“Golden child, remember? We perfected our hide-and-seek routine by placing a Barbie on a shelf or cabinet within view of the doorway. We would make sure the doll's face was toward the door, with the hands up, so we knew he’d searched through the room already. We would know that was a safe room to hide in because Benjamin never double-backed until that night. I was across the hall and watched him walk past the room I knew Clair was in. That was another rule. We never hid together after he’d found us once and made us hit each other. Anyway, I heard a ripping sound and realized he was walking down the hall with a knife out, scraping it along our mother's expensive wallpaper. He was out of his mind. I didn’t know if Clair could hear the same things that I could. All I could think about was calling the police. Not my parents and not the guards down at the gates. And that was when he stopped andbacked up, looked in the room, and chuckled. I knew Clair was hiding in there.”
