“Better,” he says. “I’ll choose something for you to wear.”
I want to tell him I can dress myself. What comes out is shaky, pathetic.
“Fine. Just—just get out.”
“You forget,tesoro.” He guides me out of the bathroom, one hand hovering at my elbow. “I’ve seen every angle of you on camera. And now in the shower. Modesty is... academic.”
The bedroom is tidied.
Bed made. Floor spotless. Every trace of my rebellion erased.
Includingmyclothes. The heap I left on the bathroom floor, henley, jeans, underwear, boots, is gone. Vanished like they never existed.
“Where are my clothes?”
“Being laundered.”
A flat lie. He doesn’t even try to make it convincing.
Panic flares, hot and sharp. I want to tear apart the room, search every drawer and closet, find the last pieces of my old life and cling to them.
But I’m barely standing. The towel is the only thing keeping me upright.
He crosses to the wardrobe. Opens it. Surveys the contents with the casual authority of someone who planned every item on these shelves.
He pulls out underwear first. Soft cotton, pale pink, simple. The kind of thing that looks innocent while being devastatingly intimate. Then a bra that matches. Then a dress. Dove gray, elegant, the kind that skims the body without clinging.
He lays them on the bed. “These.”
My pulse pounds in my ears.
“Turn around,” I say, not really expecting him to comply with my request.
But he does. Immediately. Hands sliding into his pockets, posture easy. He gives me his back without being asked twice.
While I fumble with the towel, he strips off his wet shirt and reaches for dry clothes hanging on the valet stand by the door. Of course someone had them ready, this place runs on invisiblehands. He steps out of his soaked trousers and into dry ones, then pulls a fresh shirt over his head, and I catch the shift of muscle across his back, the dark ink of a tattoo disappearing below his waistband, before I make myself look away.
My towel falls to the floor.
The air is cool against my damp skin. I drag the underwear up my legs with shaking hands, and the fabric is obscenely soft. It glides over my skin, and I have to clench my jaw against the sensation.
My nipples tighten against the cool air and the memory of his hands in my hair.
I grab the bra. Try to fasten it behind my back but my fingers slip. Again. Again. The clasp refuses to cooperate, and my arms are shaking too badly to manage the fine motor control required.
“May I?”
His voice comes from over his shoulder. He hasn’t turned around.
Humiliation burns through me. Hot and thick and awful.
“Just do it.”
He turns. Steps behind me. His fingers find the clasp and fasten it in one smooth, practiced motion, his knuckles grazing the curve of my spine.
My stomach clenches, sharp and involuntary.
His breath catches just for a second. Right behind my ear, close enough that the warmth ghosts over my skin.
