Chapter 18
Chapter Eighteen
Corvus…
I’d like to think that things like this weren’t in my nature, except that it secretly was.
I loved to take care of my woman, and I had – once upon a time, but she had been the wrong woman who had taken advantage and strayed, making a total fool out of me.
I wasn’t apt to make the same mistake twice, but I couldn’t deny that there was something different about Savannah.
From the first time she was in this tub, my hands buried in her hair as I made certain any bit of the crime scene we’d left behind was off her – I could tell, and I was positively itching to do things properly for her since that night.
She’d been so good back at the club a couple of weeks back that I had been truly frustrated that life and business had gotten in my way of this most just reward.
I undressed her and helped her into the tub. She gasped at the heat of the water, and I know – it was definitely a touch too hot, but I wanted it that way. I wanted the heat of the water to sink into her very bones and work loose the tension she seemed to always carry in her back and shoulders.
“Relax,” I ordered her. “I’ll be right back.”
“Okay,” she murmured, leaning back against the end of the tub. “I don’t think that will be a problem.”
I chuckled and left, going back into my bedroom to change.
I had my phone silenced, but I couldn’t stop myself from checking it at least once. The group text was slightly active, but it wasn’t anything that needed my attention, so I set it down and vowed not to pick it up again.
Syn knew I was… indisposed this evening, and said he had it in hand, and I believed him. I just couldn’t cede my control over anything for even a moment. I was well aware it was a “me” problem, but it wasn’t actually problematic for me, and thus I felt no need to change it.
A sort of “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” mentality, if you will.
I changed out of my suit from the day and opted for comfort, putting on a fresh undershirt in my signature color, black, of course, and a comfortable pair of black lounge pants.
I checked the bedside table, set up for the next phase in helping Savannah to relax, and lit the mild candle that would melt into a lovely massage oil and balm.
It’d been a long time for me, rewarding a woman in this way. I still wasn’t sure how to feel about it, other than fulfilling the driving want to do it.
I was wrestling with a lot of feelings when it came to Savannah Kittridge – she was a divine puzzle, a challenge, and I was enjoying playing with her and figuring her out.
I was also trying to figure out why she seemed to press so many of my buttons.
She flipped so many of my switches back to the ‘on’ position.
Switches so long dormant they were covered in a layer of dust and cobwebs.
I wish I could say it bothered me, but what truly bothered me the most was the fact that it didn’t…
I swore off anything serious with any woman years ago, and I was determined to keep this the same – but I had to admit, what she’d done to please me the most over the last couple of weeks, was what she hadn’t done! Which was that she hadn’t seen anyone else.
She hadn’t gone on any dates or hooked up, and the way she rebuffed Specter’s advance on the staircase had stung him to the point that even he wouldn’t admit what she’d said.
I ran my fingers through the flame of the massage candle and huffed a slightly conflicted sigh before clenching my fists and banging them together one on top of the other in a fidget before taking myself back into the bathroom.
The tub was filling nicely, with her long, graceful neck and shoulders the only things above the mounds of bubbles.
“Where’s the waterline under there?” I asked, taking a seat on the low stool up by her head.
“It’s almost ready to be shut off, but not quite,” she answered, blowing a bit of the heavenly scented foam off her hand and into the mountain in front of her.
I chuckled, and she rolled her head back to smile up at me with those bright blue eyes of hers, and I shook my head.
“You’re adorable.” The compliment slipped out of my mouth before I even knew I was going to make it.
Her smile brightened, and she turned, rolling in the tub to cross her arms on the back of the tub and look at me, resting her chin on them. I was struck by a thought and so asked, “You like to swim?”
She looked curiously at me for a moment and said, “How did you know?”
“You’re a natural in that position. Looks like you’ve done a lot of chatting at the edge of a pool.”
She smiled then and said, “My brother and I spent a lot of summers in the pool at my grandparents. I did swim meet in high school and partway through college.”
“Did you now?” I asked.
“Mm-hm. Won State in the 200-meter butterfly my senior year. I just couldn’t keep up with the sport and academics in college, and for me, the grades were more important than the athletics, so I dropped it midway through my junior year.
I miss it, but I don’t regret the decision.
There were so many talented girls and even some Olympic hopefuls, and I just wasn’t in it to win it like they were. ”
“I get that. I was on the swim team in the boarding school I talked about.”
“Oh?” She raised an eyebrow like she was surprised we had such a thing in common.
I nodded. “Freestyle and water polo.”
“Water polo?” She giggled. “I can’t imagine you in the stupid little helmets.” I laughed and nodded.
“Ah, yeah – might even have a photo or two downstairs of it.”
“Oh, this I’ve got to see,” she proclaimed, and I shook my head.
“Some things are better left buried.”
She giggled and turned around, leaning against the back of the tub with a lingering sigh.
“I love this tub,” she confessed. “And it was kind of a week – bad inspection on one place and just—”
I drew her head back, a hand under her chin, and stood just long enough to smack a kiss on her lips and another on her forehead on my way back down into my seat as she giggled.
“You’re supposed to relax, that includes not talking about work or getting yourself worked up over what stresses you out.”
She turned and leaned her chin back on her arms to look up at me.
“That doesn’t leave me much to talk about,” she said.
“Then don’t talk,” I said, raising a brow. “Sit right for me, please.”
She gave an adorable little pout but righted herself in the tub.
I laced fingers and bent my hands back, thrusting them out from my chest to a satisfying crackle through my knuckles.
I put my hands on her shoulders; her hair piled off them and her neck, and worked my fingertips and thumbs in deep. She gasped, then let out a groan.
“This is just the appetizer,” I said gently, and she breathed out a gentle breath and practically turned to putty in my hands.
I concentrated on my thumbs, pressing at the base of her skull where I knew tension was sure to hide, and started with a gentle pressure, increasing until she whimpered, then backing off just slowly enough until she relaxed under my hands.
I kept it there for a count of thirteen – just an arbitrary number that I happened to like, considering the rest of the world didn’t.
At the mark of thirteen, I dragged my thumbs down alongside either side of her spine and, keeping the pressure on, glided against her damp skin over her shoulders, pressing into her traps as I went, letting my fingertips find the hollows above her collarbone and carefully hooking them there so I could keep applying steady pressure.
She turned her head this way, then that, and the bones gave a satisfying pop that I both felt and heard.
“Damn, that sounded like it felt good,” I said.
She laughed a little and said, “You have no idea.”
“When was the last time you had a massage?” I asked her.
She was quiet and finally said softly, “Never, really. At least not a professional one. As for something like this…” she pondered.
“If you have to think about it, it’s been far too long,” I whispered into her ear and she nodded carefully, barely perceptibly.
“When was your last relationship?” I asked.
“End of high school. Beginning of college. Yours?”
“Hmm.” I thought about the last time I would have classified anything as a relationship, and honestly, my thoughts went back to Courtney.
Which was boarding school… she was one of the girls.
While the school was co-ed, the dorms remained segregated, but that didn't stop us from finding ways around it and getting it on, on the regular.
“If you have to think about it,” she said softly. “It’s probably been too long.”
I laughed at that and said, “Touché, Kitten.”
“Why do you ask?” she wondered aloud, and I sort of froze a little, dismissing it out of hand with a light shrug, which I’m sure she felt through my hands on her shoulders.
“Curiosity,” I murmured.
“So, you have multiple lives, too?” she quipped, and I chuckled.
“You only live once, as far as I’m concerned.”
“Hmm, so don’t believe in the hereafter, or reincarnation?” she asked.
“No,” I said simply.
“What do you think happens when we die, then?”
I worked my hands into her tense muscles gently and said, “I believe that’s it. We’re just snuffed out. Like turning off a television set – no power, no sleep mode, just… gone. Lights out, the end.”
She took in a shuddering breath and said, “That’s sort of sad, isn’t it?”
I shrugged again, “Not so much sad as the practical reality, really. It just is what it is.”
Her knees came up, and she hugged them, her shoulders gently pulling from my hands as she said quietly, “It sounds… lonely. I’d much rather believe there’s someone or something waiting on the other side for me.”
“What, like heaven?” I asked.
She laid her temple atop one knee and looked back at me.
“I don’t know if I believe in heaven or hell, per se,” she said. “Just… it’d be nice to think there’s something waiting on the other side. Your family or friends who have gone before you. I just… I don’t think anyone should die and then just cease to exist. That’s not fair.”
“Life isn’t fair,” I reminded her gently. “Death is even less so…” I trailed off, not really wanting to bring the mood down any further.
Inevitably, she asked, “What do you think happened to him?”
“Who?” I asked, carefully.
“The man you killed…” She was very still and very quiet now, her chin resting atop her knees. I trailed fingertips in the water and suds behind her and down her back in wet lines and sighed as I thought about it.
“I think he just stopped being,” I said.
“Lights went out, and nobody’s home – but I’m sure if there is such a thing as Hell, or whatever, he’s roasting in it.
He hurt you, and that is unforgivable,” I cleared my throat.
“Likewise, if he was so cavalier in hurting you, a well-connected professional in your field, I have to imagine he’s hurt others before you.
You don’t get that bold unless you’ve gotten away with it before. ”
She sat up, and turned in the bath again, holding onto the edge of the tub and half-hiding her mouth behind her hands, her blue eyes sincere and cautious as she asked me; “Speaking from some sort of experience?”
I cocked my head, considered her, and decided to be honest.
“I would never touch a woman that way; that’s not my style. Dubious consent is fun to play with, such as in your case… but outright forcing a woman? That’s disgusting. Hitting and hurting? That shows a lack of restraint. I am a man, not a dog; I can’t say the same for the rest of my gender.”
“I can’t exactly say my gender is all sunshine and roses, either,” she murmured. “Nobody’s perfect.”
I smiled faintly and held down my hand to her. She took it, and I murmured, “Let’s get you out of that bath before you turn into a prune.”
She laughed, and nodded, letting me help her to her feet. I picked up a towel out of the towel warmer I had set up nearby and wrapped her in it, helping her over the edge and onto the bathmat.
“Thank you. That was lovely,” she whispered and I smiled at her and rubbed her arms through the warm terrycloth of the bath sheet I’d wrapped her in.
“Oh, I was just getting started,” I said, and I led her in the direction of the bedroom.