“Love is a powerful emotion, sometimes it clouds judgment,” I start, not wanting to put a damper on things, but also wanting to keep it real. “What if this is just us feeling good because we can’t stay away from each other?”
“Then that’s a good thing. If you’re suggestin’ that’s all it is, you’re wrong.”
I want to be wrong. I love him. My heart can’t take being crushed by him ever again. “I trust you. I trust us.”
“Then hold onto that.” He presses a kiss to my nose, then my eyes, then my lips. “Marriage is hard work, but I’m here for the long haul. I told you that — whatever it takes.”
“You can start by using the loofah on my back, I can’t reach.” I roll my lips, trying not to laugh.
“I’ve no idea what the fuck you’re talkin’ about, but any excuse to touch you is a good one.”
This time, he helps me off him and I crawl backward, taking my silk robe off the nearby chair where I draped it earlier. “What do you think you’re doin’ with that?”
I shrug my arms inside. “I—I guess I’m not used to just strutting around naked,” I say honestly.
He shrugs the robe back off my shoulders and it slides down my back and onto the floor. “No clothes around me, babe, no point.” He lifts me into his arms and I feel calm in his embrace, just like I always did.
“Did I tell you how annoying you are?”
He grins. “Yup, and you know I never listen to you.”
“You can say that again.”
He carries me into the bathroom, then sets me down on the side of the tub while he reaches into the shower and starts to run the water. When the steam starts to form, he holds his arms out and I take his hands. He may be a beast in the sack, but Hazeis a gentle man with me. Always has been. He handles me like I’m the most precious thing in the word.I can’t believe I fucking cried.
When he faces me, something prompts me to ask, “What’s wrong?”
His brows furrow, and his face shows pain — he seems like he wants to say something, but when he parts his lips, he simply says, “I’m just feelin’ all mushy.”
I cup one side of his face. “You’d tell me if there was something wrong?”
He purses his lips, then he smiles, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. “Nothin’ could ever be wrong with you in my arms.”
He pulls me into the shower and I relish the hot water on my skin as we both stand beneath the warm spray. He takes my body wash and immediately soaps up his hands and begins to wash me.Fucking wash me.
“I could get used to this,” I moan when he pulls my back to his front.
“Is this the loofah I’ve been told so much about?” He twirls the purple object around on his finger by the tassel. “This got to touch your body, and I didn’t?”
“You’re jealous of a sea sponge?” I sigh. “Jesus, Aust.”
He chuckles. “I think my hands do a better job.”
And they do. All night long.
CHAPTER
TWENTY-FOUR
Haze
“Never asked you why Sinclair wanted you for the security job at the station,” Sawyer says the next day in the office.
I glance at him. “What’s it to you? It’s a job ain’t it?”
“Yeah, but from what you told me, Willow’s dad hates you.”
I rub my chin. It escaped my mind Sawyer is sometimes an observant little shit, and he was here the day Cameron came for the impromptu meeting in my office. I haven’t heard from him since. Only one text asking if anything had changed, which it hadn’t.
