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“What happened to you?” She reached up like she was going to touch my face and stopped herself. “Am I allowed to ask that?”

“Nothing happened to me.” I held her gaze. “But we had to make sure Vulture and Samson understood they can’t fuck with my old lady.”

Her cheeks blushed. It was fucking gorgeous. “You’re really okay?”

I grinned and hooked one arm around her waist before I pulled her close. “I think I like this, having you worry about me.”

“Not sure I’ll ever not worry. You know,” she added, her gaze darting away. “If, um, this, you know.”

If this worked out. If it became something real. I understood what she couldn’t finish.

“Yeah, Ivy. I know.” I pressed my lips to her forehead. “Let me get this blood off me.”

“Yeah,” she sighed, nodding. “Good idea.” Ivy stepped back and then followed me into the bathroom.

I turned and toed off my boots, watching her with a smile. “You want a show?”

She shrugged. “I always want a show where you’re concerned, but right now I’m going to scrub you clean,” she said with a firm, deliberate voice. “If that’s all right,” she added shyly.

“It’s more than all right, Ivy. Sounds like a slice of fucking heaven to me.” It had been too damn long since I’d let a woman worry about me or take care of me, but with every act of kindness, Ivy reminded me what I was missing.

The smile she aimed my way was so soft and sweet it hit me right in the chest.

Chapter Twenty-Four

Ivy

The shower was hot and the bathroom had steamed over by the time I started on his back.

His body was incredible in general. A broad, sculpted chest that tapered down to a narrow waist. Each breath teased a glimpse of his six-pack. He was a lean man, but his thighs looked thick and powerful in jeans and especially in his boxer briefs.

But covered in sudsy water? He was a god sculpted from clay by the hands of a master.

I moved slowly, gliding my soapy hands over every inch of him. I had to scrub off the blood in some places, and something more than blood in others. I didn’t ask about the something more, I just worked around it in silence, the water running pink at our feet before it ran clear.

“You killed them?” The question came out before I made the decision to ask it. I shouldn’t have, not because I was scared of Knox but because I didn’t want the answer. I kept my eyes on my hands. “For me?” Those last two words came out barely above a whisper.

He said nothing for a long time. When I looked up, his gray gaze was fixed on me.

“Of course,” he grunted. “Those fuckers ran you off the road. They would’ve killed you if you hadn’t,” His words stopped abruptly but I didn’t need him to finish that sentence.

“I know, Knox. I know.” I gripped his forearm, steady and sure. “I also know that it was my own damn father who ordered it.”

He nodded, something flickering in his eyes that looked a lot like sympathy. “That’s shitty.” It was such a simple sentiment, but it pretty much summed up my life until I met him.

“What’s it like to kill someone?” I needed to focus on something other than the way my heart fluttered in the presence of my husband.

“It doesn’t feel like anything, it’s just something you do.”

“But I mean, do you feel triumphant or guilty? Sad? Do you feel anything, like, in your soul?”

“You always give away a piece of yourself when you take someone’s life, even pieces of shit like Samson and Vulture. But sometimes it had to be done, no matter what it costs you.” His gaze didn’t waver as he spoke, but there was a weight to each word that stuck with me.

“Do you regret it?”

He shook his head. “No, I don’t. Those motherfuckers tried to kill you and there is no fucking world in which they get to live after that.”

There had to be something wrong with me for thinking that was hot. Right? He’d killed two men who had attempted to kill me, and I should feel some kind of way about that. I should feel something. Disgusted. Afraid. Worried.