* * *
ROSA
Afterwards, with my body tingling with satisfaction, I’m desperate to sleep, to escape from everything that happened yesterday; the things that will happen tomorrow.
I want to carve out a tiny pocket of time for myself, to think about what Trent confessed to me. To turn his words over and examine their sparkle more closely. To see which of my emotions it triggers—his jewelled profession of love.
But there’s no sleep, no time. Trent keeps me awake.
He holds me long after I expect him to roll away. Even when he finally stirs, it’s not to separate himself but to gather my boneless body into his arms and take me through to the bathroom.
He puts a towel on the vanity counter before setting me down, protection against the bite of cold marble, then runs a bath, pouring in bubbles and scents and lotions until the water resembles a large fluffy cloud.
Then he carefully lowers us both into the enormous tub, holding me against his chest, slowly lathering a cloth and wiping down each inch of my skin while the water laps near the lip of the bath.
“Lie back against me,” he whispers when my eyelids grow too heavy to bother lifting. “You can rest here while I list everything I adore about you, starting from your exquisite fingers.”
I guess because they’re what he’s currently soaping and massaging rather than being his absolute favourite bits.
My body is sore, not just from where I’ve been hit, restrained, choked, and bitten, but also where he’s stretched me so far, my muscles complain even after they’ve snapped back into place.
He was rougher the second time. Harder, faster. I couldn’t keep up and then I didn’t want to. All I wanted was to have him use me like another expensive toy his dad financed. For me not to have to contribute. To opt out, only coming back to myself when the pain receded, and the pleasure mounted; or maybe they rose together in perfect tandem, creating a better harmony than anything anyone’s played on my body before.
“Did I tell you today how beautiful you are?” he murmurs, the low voice soothing me as well as any mother’s lullaby. “You’re so brave and so strong.”
The sounds mean nothing. I might be beautiful through a kink of genetics but I’m not brave and I’m nowhere near to being strong.
Nonsense. Sweet nonsense.
It makes my heart soar, restores the balance from the words he growled in the heat of our coupling. The care, the tenderness, the ability to read what I need before I know myself… if this is what falling in love is like, I don’t want to stop. I don’t wanthimto stop.
I want us to keep falling forever.
“What sort of designer do you want to be?” he asks when he’s reached the end of his adoration list and the hot water needs a refresher we’ve been in so long. Trent’s arms are soft around me, ready to lift me if my chin ever falls below the level of the water. It’s been an age since I last felt so treasured, so protected.
“I’m interested in clothing design but that’s such a long shot I’ll probably lean harder into interiors. There’s a woman working at a studio in town who’s keen to have me as an intern during the summer break. That might lead into a job.”
“And what’s that? Choosing wallpaper that matches the carpet?”
I reach my arm up to rest my hand on the back of his neck, curling my fingers into his hair and stroking, sensing the shiver that runs through his body at the touch. “Along those lines. There’s a girl in her last year who’s selecting artworks for corporate offices. That must be fun.”
He snorts with laughter, shaking his head. “Have you been in a corporate office lately? My dad has bland junk on every wall, so it doesn’t offend anyone who visits. I’m pretty sure that’s the opposite to what art should do.”
“There might be a few non-beige offices among all those clients.”
“Why don’t you think the clothing stuff would work? Aren’t there new designers popping up all the time?”
“And failing all the time. New Zealand is too small a market to support many at the level you need to be to generate a good income. I could move overseas but then…” I let my sentence trail into a shrug.
“Then you wouldn’t be in control,” he whispers, setting alight more than the sensitive nerves near my ear. The thrill of being seen pulses through me. “And we both know how much you like to be in control… until you don’t.”
Some of the fog clears from my mind. The sense of connection grows stronger, surrounding me like a fluffy blanket. Underneath is the same old fear—what you’re given can be taken away—but I push it aside.
“You know,” Trent continues in a musing tone. “If you need a financial backer to kick start your business, you now officially have one.”
“It might be a bit early to think about that.”
His arms come around me stronger, his legs wrap around mine, crushing me in an abundance of Trent. I hear the hitch in his breath, wait for him to reply, but the intensity of his embrace is the only answer.
