CHAPTER EIGHTEEN #2
“You have twenty minutes.” He didn’t raise his voice. He didn’t need to. “If you’re not out of that tub by then, I’ll drag you out myself. And you’ll walk out of this bathroom exactly how you are now.”
Heat surged through my body, a molten mix of fury and something terrible and electric.
“Naked?” I whispered.
He lifted an eyebrow. “I wasn’t speaking in code.”
My heart hammered so hard I thought the water might ripple.
I opened my mouth to demand answers.
Where were we going?
What did he want?
But before a single word made it out, Riley’s hands moved to the waistband of his boxer briefs.
My breath caught in my throat.
He didn’t look away.
Not once.
Not while he hooked his fingers into the elastic.
Not while he pushed them down his hips in one slow, devastating pull.
The fabric slid over hard muscle, revealing more of him inch by inch, until…
Oh God.
Heat flooded my face so violently I felt dizzy.
I didn’t know where to look.
Anywhere but at him.
Except everywhere was him.
My pulse stuttered. My throat went dry. My mind emptied.
He stepped out of the briefs casually, like this was nothing, like this was normal, like he wasn’t standing completely naked in front of me while I sat frozen in a tub of bubbles.
I made a strangled sound, half inhale, half disbelief.
Riley didn’t acknowledge it.
He simply walked across the bathroom, unhurried, confident, utterly unselfconscious, toward the glass shower on the other side of the room.
His body was…
I couldn’t even think the word.
It felt forbidden just to look at him.
He turned on the shower, water roaring to life.
And then he stepped under it, muscles flexing beneath the spray, head tipping back as the water cascaded down every line of him.
He didn’t look at me.
He didn’t smirk.
He didn’t speak.
He just showered, naked, like dragging me out of the tub was as casual as rinsing shampoo from his hair.
And I sat there, submerged in too-hot water, cheeks burning, stunned into absolute silence.
He meant it. Every syllable had carried the hard, unbending truth of a boy born with too much power and too little conscience. My pulse stuttered, my breath jumped, and the water that had felt like sanctuary a moment ago suddenly became a trap.
I needed to get out.
Now.
I didn’t move immediately. Shock still pinned me in place.
I did not look at him. I could not. My eyes flicked anywhere else, everywhere else, landing on neutral corners and safe shadows as heat rushed up my throat.
I swallowed hard, watching him only enough to track his movements. Not enough to truly see him. Not enough to record the infuriating, perfect geometry of his body. Only enough to know when he was turned away… when I had a chance.
I braced my hands on the edge of the tub.
My towel sat on the marble counter. Too far. A maddening arm’s length from salvation. I stretched, fingers straining through steam. I felt the hot air, felt the soft fabric ghosting the tips of my nails… but it slipped away. An inch out of reach.
Of course.
Of course it would be.
The water kept hitting tile in steady, drumming pulses. I risked another glance. His back was to me, head bowed under the spray, dark hair plastered to his neck. His shoulders flexed when he reached for the shampoo. My breath strangled itself somewhere in my chest.
This was my moment.
I rose from the bath in one fluid motion, water cascading down my skin as silently as I could manage. My feet hit the marble with a soft slap, my body trembling from the heat and the cold and the sheer mortification of being exposed in the same room where he showered like this was normal.
I darted across the few feet of floor, snatched the towel with shaking hands, and wrapped it around myself in a frantic cocoon just as he shifted in the shower.
My heart hammered against my ribs so violently I thought he might hear it over the water.
I clutched the towel tighter.
I had made it.
Barely.
I went straight for the bathroom door that led into my bedroom, water still dripping from my legs, the towel clutched to my chest like flimsy armor. My fingers slipped on the handle the first time, then the second. Useless. My pulse was a frantic drumbeat in my ears.
The door didn’t budge.
Of course it didn’t.
I had forgotten to unlock it.
A curse clawed up my throat. I fumbled for the bolt, hands trembling so badly I might as well have been wearing mittens. The metal felt too small, too slick, too far away from competence. I could barely breathe.
Behind me, Riley’s laugh rolled through the steam. Low. Amused. Infuriatingly warm.
I didn’t dare look at him. I couldn’t. Not while he was still naked in the shower behind me, water cascading over the body I was trying very, very hard not to picture.
The lock finally clicked into place. Victory came late and pathetic.
I yanked the door open, bolted through without a backward glance, and slammed it shut behind me with far more force than necessary.
The echo chased me into the room.
I hurried across the bedroom, dripping water onto the polished floors, every footstep a small betrayal of my desperation.
The walk-in closet swallowed me in soft lighting and orderly rows of clothing, none of which seemed remotely appropriate for whatever nightmare he had planned.
All I knew was that I had to be clothed. Fast.
My hands shook as I pulled on underwear, then something simple, something I could breathe in. A tank. Jeans. My hair clung wet to my back and shoulders, water still sliding down, but I could not stop long enough to worry about anything except not being caught half-naked in front of him again.
Not after that.
Not after seeing the long, slow way his boxer briefs had slid down his hips.
I forced the memory away, furious at myself for even having one.
A few minutes passed. The water shut off in the bathroom. My stomach tightened. Then tightened further when I heard the sound of his bathroom door open, then the soft tread of his steps crossing into his bedroom.
I went still.
Too still.
A few minuters later the door to my bedroom opened as if it belonged to him, not to me.
Riley stepped inside. Clean. Dressed. Entirely unfazed. The faint scent of his shampoo mixed with cologne drifted into the room, warm and sharp and maddening.
His eyes found me instantly.
A slow smile curved his mouth. The kind that knew exactly where my mind had gone. The kind that made my palms sweat.
“Well,” he said, voice soft but far too confident, “that was fast, princess.”
I didn’t move. I didn’t breathe.
He let his gaze travel lazily from the wet ends of my hair down my denim-covered legs, lingering long enough to make heat crawl up my neck.
“You know,” he murmured, stepping farther into the room, “I would have much preferred carrying you out of that tub naked.”
The air left my lungs in a sharp, silent rush.
He smirked.
“Come on. Time to go.”