Chapter Twenty-One
SIMON
I wake up with something warm against me. I’ve got chills—most likely my body trying to bring my fever down—which makes me want to burrow against the heat at my back. Which is probably why it takes me a while to wake up fully. And longer to realize I don’t know where the fuck I am.
And that warm body behind me? Is Sebastian fucking Pierce.
“What the fuck?” I’m pretty sure we’re in a hotel room.
Lord knows I’ve been in enough of them professionally to recognize the signs.
The flat-screen television on the wall, the little hang tags on the water bottles, the mini fridge full of overpriced snacks and tiny bottles of booze.
It’s a nice-looking place too. Roomy, with comfortable but minimalist-looking furniture.
I see the sun setting over a glittering lake when I drag myself over to the window.
The weather has broken for a little while. This is nice but deceptive. The storms rage hardest sometimes in the middle of the night.
“Good, you’re awake. How are you feeling?”
“A little like I got kidnapped.” I turn with narrowed eyes, but the chattering of my teeth somewhat mutes my attempt at a death glare.
“You need a hot shower.” Before I can protest, he’s out of bed and into the bathroom.
I try not to notice that he’s again wearing nothing but a skintight pair of black boxer briefs, or the way every muscle in his legs flexes with every step he takes. Or that his happy trail and his five o’clock shadow are the stuff of fantasies.
Oh, let’s face it, that ship has sailed. I follow him with sluggish steps like the sick, dutiful puppy I am.
Which… “Holy shit, that shower is bigger than my apartment.” The entire bathroom is decked out in a shimmering blue tile that screams that it was imported from somewhere. The floor is warm under my feet, suggesting some heating elements underneath. These are definitely not budget accommodations.
“They only had a two-bedroom suite left. More than we needed, but it’s nice.”
“Wait a minute. If this place has two bedrooms, why were you squished in with me?”
He turns with a grin. “I wanted to know when you were awake. Here. Get in. I’ll get your medication. Try not to pass out until I get back.”
“The flu is highly contagious, you idiot.”
He waves me off. “I never get sick. Now get in the shower.”
Part of me wants not to do what he says just to show him he’s not the boss of me, but the part of me that feels achy and cold wants desperately to be underneath the hot spray. So I get in, and when he steps inside with me a few minutes later, I’m too tired to fight much.
“I’m a big boy, Sebastian. I can handle showering all by myself.”
Except a taunting voice in my brain is calling me a liar. The entire time Sebastian was gone, I stayed hunched over, letting the hot water beat on my aching back while most of my energy went to holding myself up.
“You look like shit,” he says as he pulls me against him. He pumps some bodywash from a dispenser on the wall and lathers me far too gently for the Sebastian Pierce I know.
“That’s super rich coming from a guy who left me looking like an abuse victim after sex.”
He huffs a quiet breath in my ear. “I did get an earful from the emergency doctor earlier.”
A fuzzy memory floats up. The doc asking about my broken bones. “Ugh. Yeah. Sorry.”
“If I’d shown more restraint with you, things might not have seemed so suspicious.”
“I didn’t want you to show restraint,” I admit. Immediately, though, I wish I could call the words back. He doesn’t need to know how much I liked what we did. Asshole’s got a big enough ego, and I prefer not to acknowledge what it might say about me.
I clear my throat and change the subject. “So why did you kidnap me and bring me to an overpriced hotel suite with a lake view?”
“While you were busy working yourself into a coma, Belle Argo issued a mandatory evacuation notice. You wanted to go home to your rickety apartment, where you would have been sick, alone, with nobody able to come for you if you needed help. I was coming here anyway, so I brought you along.”
“Oh. Sure. Why the fuck not?”
The smile he gives me is downright predatory.
It doesn’t help that he’s currently lathering my upper body.
“You know, I’m generally very against kidnapping.
I was taken once as a teenager. It’s why I’ve worked so hard to help the clients of my company who have gone missing.
But in the end, you didn’t want to stay at the hospital any more than I wanted to leave you there, and I wasn’t about to leave you alone.
Besides, you fell asleep in the car, and I don’t know where you live. ”
“You could’ve woken me up and asked.”
“If you have further questions, please review my previous points.”
“Ugh. You are a bastard.”
Still, when he pulls me against him and steps under the spray to help rinse me off, I can’t deny how much I love the contact.
I’m far too sick to even think about sex, but simply having someone close to take care of me feels…
honestly, way too good. Comforting. Nobody’s cared for me in ages. Not since I was a young child.
I blink against the pressure behind my eyes and pretend the droplets trailing down my face are from the shower. It’s fine. I’m fine.
“Since you’ve already decided I’m a bastard—no surprise since you’re not the first person to call me that—I’ll also tell you that your boyfriend experience for next week has been canceled.”
What the fuck? “Canceled? How do you even know about that?”
“More accurately, I suppose you could say it’s been reallocated.”
“Reallocated?”
“You really must not be feeling well,” Sebastian murmurs. “You’ve gone from only being able to use four-letter words to only being able to repeat what I say. Maybe I should’ve left you at the hospital after all.”
“Fucker.” I may be exhausted, but I pinch a piece of skin on his back.
“Do that again and I’ll punish you for it later.”
“Mmph. Can’t even get excited about that right now.” I sway slightly in his arms.
“Time to get you back to bed.”
I manage to put up the barest of protests, which does nothing whatsoever. He makes me swallow the pills from the hospital and then returns me to our bed. Not our bed but—whatever. There’s a bit of time when he seems to be on the phone, but he stays close to me.
The storm picks up outside. The sky darkens and the heavy sound of wind and rain beating the windows makes me secretly glad I’m not at home alone. My apartment really is rickety. The shaking subsides, and I go in and out of consciousness, but I start to feel a bit better.
Sebastian’s fingers wander across my back. “Tell me about these scars.”
My tattoo covers them, but anyone close enough can feel them. A few clients have asked, but I never answer.
“You don’t have to tell me, but you need to tell me if you’re okay after what we’ve done. They said at the hospital that you’d previously had broken ribs and a broken arm. These scars aren’t what you get from an accident. I may be an asshole, but I don’t wish to harm you or add to your trauma.”
“We already had this conversation. I enjoyed what we did just fine. If I hadn’t, I would have told you to stop.”
“Even if you were abused as a child?”
I suck in a breath and get racked by a shiver that has nothing to do with my body temperature. For what I say next, I can only blame exhaustion.
“Look, I already told you my family was conservative and religious. My father didn’t believe in sparing the rod.
I think I said something about getting whipped if I used swear words.
That wasn’t an exaggeration. I know it’s why I talk the way I do now.
I need to remind myself that I’m in control and nobody can tell me what to say anymore.
Or what I can do with my body. Also, I learned a lot about pop culture by watching movies after I left. Samuel L. Jackson is the fucking best.”
“Of course.” He says it with a smile, then starts running his fingers through my hair so gently it doesn’t even hurt.
Fuck, I might be falling in love.
“You were saying?”
Nothing about love. “Right. Well. I’ve asked myself plenty of times if the fact that I like rough sex is because of my father or despite him. Since I have no idea, I’ve chosen to go with the latter because it’s the one that makes me feel the least icky.”
I swallow hard and rub away the ache in my chest. Just the flu. Nothing to do with being beaten by parents who were supposed to love me.
I yawn, feeling sleepy again. “Listen, I didn’t have a way to escape my father’s anger when I was younger.
What you and I did together was my choice.
And it was new for me too. Different from just letting Elijah tie me up and humiliate me a little.
I didn’t know I liked those games until you and I were in the middle of playing them.
You don’t need to worry. It was good for me.
I’m not about to report you to the police or anything. ”
“I don’t give a shit about the police. I give a shit about not traumatizing the person I’m sleeping with.”
You didn’t. I’m a little fucked up about how much I liked it, as in nobody has ever made me feel as good as he has, and I can’t afford the warm and fuzzy feelings he gave me. That’s not something I’m going to say to him. He may not exactly be a client, but he’s sort of—wait.
“You said something about Brennan and my boyfriend experience. How did you know about that?”
What the hell has been going on while I was unconscious?
“I contacted Brennan when I was driving us to this hotel.”
“When you were kidnapping me.”
I’m not mad. Even if I had the energy to be, I’m sort of oddly touched that he wanted to take care of me, and maybe that’s fucked up, but here we are.
“When I was driving you inland, so you’d be safe from the hurricane.”
“Whatever.”
“I called the assisted living facility, but they were closed, so I left a message. Then I called Brennan because I didn’t know who else to call. I didn’t know if you had family.”
“Not really. Not anymore. Brennan’s kind of the closest thing I’ve got. He’s sort of like an uncle, I guess, except he’d be the pervy uncle who fucked his nephew, so maybe never mind.”
Sebastian clenches his jaw. “We’ll talk more about that when you’re feeling better. All you need to know for now is that I agreed to pay for your previously booked boyfriend experience, plus a hefty fee for Brennan’s inconvenience.”
Another yawn. “That was stupid. You paid for a boyfriend experience, and I’m too sick even to have sex. And you’re stuck here having to take care of me.”
His hand trails lightly over my arm. “Well, what kind of boyfriend am I if I don’t take care of you while you’re sick?”
Dammit. He’s not allowed to say things like that.
I don’t answer him because I can’t. Sleep is pulling me under. Not even the thunder and lightning outside can drag me back. I don’t have the energy to keep talking. There’s a smile on my lips, though. I can feel the muscles tugging in my cheeks.
It hurts. All of this is going to hurt. Because all of this is temporary, and I’m going to miss it like crazy. I’m still here, and I already do.
His lips brush my temple as I’m drifting off. I guess pretending could be nice for a little while.