Chapter 22
The first sign my brain registers to tell me something’s wrong is the fact that Arugula is no longer sleeping on my back.
Since he arrived, I’ve woken up with the cat having been there all night, and had to move when I woke him in the morning.
He doesn’t even take litter box breaks, which has gone from worrying to just making me think he’s a heavy sleeper.
I move my arms, then my legs on the plush, comfortable sofa, trying to see if he just rolled off and is sleeping somewhere else. I swear I can hear his purring, though I don’t feel him anywhere.
“Rutabaga?” I mumble, using one of my twenty nicknames for my new furry friend. Whenever Shiloh takes him back, I’ve decided I need to get a cat of my own. Having a friend in my otherwise empty house is—
“Did you just call my cat Rutabaga? Like the vegetable?” a voice full of disbelief asks from above me.
The shock has me rolling over so fast that I flip right off of the sofa with a yelp, landing between it and the coffee table in a tangle of blankets and confusion.
The room is still mostly dark, with the only light coming from the menu on the TV where it defaulted once the movie ended.
I look up, eyes adjusting, and my heart jumps to my throat when I see the looming figure standing behind the couch.
I can just see Arugula in his arms, his fluffy tail flicking back and forth while he purrs.
“I—who—yes?” I gasp, managing to get to my feet without doing something else stupid.
“What are you doing here? My door was locked!” There’s only one person it could be, and my brain has finally, happily supplied Shiloh’s identity so my heart can stop trying to race out of my chest in the confines of my ribs.
“Yeah,” Shiloh agrees. “Want me to relock it?” As I watch, he goes back to the door, shifting Arugula in his arms as he does. I just stand there, perplexed, while Shiloh locks the door like he belongs here.
“How did you get in? Wait, no.” I rake my fingers through my hair and step out of the alley between the coffee table and couch. “That’s not my question. Give me a second to get the light—”
“Maybe you don’t do that—”
“And I can think of—” The light flicks on just as I look back at him with my finger on the switch. He’s frowning, and Arugula is kneading at his arm, but those details quickly fade out of my head as I stare at him.
Blood stains his shirt, his jeans, and his boots. There are bloody tracks on my floor and smears of it along his face and arms. To my credit, I don’t scream, but in a sudden, childish reaction, I turn off the light, only to turn it on again.
He’s still covered in blood.
A crooked smile curls over his lips as I get my first real look at him in the light. Well, first good look even though he’s drenched in the drying, flaking insides of another person, since he’s not looking particularly injured or unwell.
“Did that make it better?”
“Please tell me that’s fake.”
“If do, and it’s a lie, will that still make it better?”
Finding myself unable to hold his gaze, I look down between us to focus on my bloodied floor. It’s not real wood, since there’s no way I could afford that or deal with the upkeep. But I press my lips together and stare at it, anyway. “There’s blood on my floor.”
“Hmm?” Shiloh looks down, following my gaze. “Yeah. Sorry about that. I thought I got all of it off the bottom of my boots, but—”
“You have gotten blood on my floor.” Somehow this is the biggest issue for me right now, instead of something reasonable like wanting to know why he’s covered in blood. “I have questions.”
“I would hope so. It feels kind of weird that you’re more worried about me getting blood on your floor than about me being covered in blood in the first place.
” He pauses, tickling Arugula’s chin with hands that are impeccably clean from the wrist down.
“I would’ve showered and cleaned it up before you woke up, but the moment Arugula saw me he walked up your back, then you were making cute noises and nuzzling your pillow.
It was adorable, until you called him Rutabaga. ”
“You’re really holding this against me.” My hands come up and I wince while pressing against my tense muscles that never seem to get any looser. “It’s a cute nickname.”
“Ruru or Aru or, I don’t know, Mittens is a cute nickname.
Rutabaga is a whole separate name.” Shiloh rolls his eyes that, for the first time, I can see are bright green set under heavy lashes.
His hair really is on the redder side of auburn, and he’s tanner than I’ve ever been and will ever be.
Surprisingly, though, his freckles still stand out, though I can’t tell how many he has thanks to the smear of blood up his left cheek.
“Can you, I don’t know, go shower or something?
” I ask. “Though I don’t know what you’re going to wear, because I’m absolutely not letting you on my furniture in that.
” I gesture at his clothes, still trying to keep myself calm.
Thankfully, being woken up from my dead-sleep is doing a lot to suppress my panic and makes all of this seem a little surreal.
I’m hoping to ride the high of sleepiness for at least another three minutes.
“Oh, I have a change of clothes with me,” Shiloh assures me.
As I watch, he puts down Arugula then unlaces his black combat boots and leaves them on the mat, his socks going with them and stuffed inside.
Arugula sniffs at the blood before trotting right back to me with his tail in the air and a series of meows that sound conversational and directed at me.
Am I being lectured by a cat? That’s certainly what it feels like when—
“What are you doing?” I yelp, noticing Shiloh tug off his long-sleeved shirt and drop it on the mat as well. He pauses with his fingers at the button of his jeans and stares up at me in surprise.
“Uh…stripping so I don’t get blood anywhere else?” he asks, bemused. “Why…?” he trails off, and his lips twist into a mischievous grin. “Oh, are you nervous to see me naked, Scaredy Cat?”
“No!”
Yes.
“Even though I’ve touched you all over, had my fingers and mouth on your cunt, and fucked you before filling your pretty pussy, you’re getting all shy with me.” God, he’s having too much fun with this, and part of me considers going to the kitchen, getting a knife, and stabbing him.
He was an intruder, officer. I rehearse the claim in my head, planning my whole charade for when the cops inevitably show up with Shiloh’s body bleeding on the floor. He was covered in blood, and he broke in to steal my cat. I think he might be some kind of bad guy…
Shiloh gives a soft snicker and shoves his jeans down his legs, leaving him in a pair of black boxer briefs that cling to toned, tanned legs.
I feel like a deer in headlights when he pads across the room and reaches up to cradle my face in his hands.
“I’ll answer all your questions, babe,” Shiloh promises, as fear and uncertainty finally start creeping their way up my body toward my tongue.
“Well, probably. Unless you ask me something really off the wall about my childhood trauma.”
“You have childhood trauma?”
He snorts and rolls his bright green eyes that seem too truly emerald to be real. “Don’t we all?” Before I can say anything else, he kisses me, though it’s more of a brush of his lips against mine that reassures me way more than it should.
“And I’ll clean your floor,” he adds, before heading straight for my bedroom, unerringly knowing where the shower is and belatedly making me realize he knows the layout of my house without having to ask. “Just give me a few minutes, Scaredy Cat.”
I love the way he uses my title, like it’s something other than my brand. I’ve never considered that it could be a pet name, instead of just ironc for my blog. But Shiloh makes it feel…
Special.
“Fuck.” I glare down at Arugula while he twines around my ankles, stepping on my bare feet with abandon. “Your owner is a menace.” The questions and the anxiety are building, and I barely pay attention to the sound of the shower spraying hot water against Shiloh’s perfect body.
Get a hold of yourself, I chastise, and go to the kitchen to grab the floor cleaner and a few old towels that I’ll probably need to burn.
I tell myself that I’m just getting them out to throw them at his face, but when I come back to the living room to stare at the bloody footprints, I find myself moving automatically. I can’t just not do anything.
I can’t just wait for him when he’s shown up here covered in someone else’s blood.
Did he kill someone?
I tell myself it’s fake. He’s just bullshitting me and there’s nothing to be afraid of. Surely I’d somehow be able to intuitively know if he’s a killer. Surely I wouldn’t be so attracted to a murderer.
Except…if I’m being honest with myself, maybe a part of me has always known he’s more than just an obsessed fan.
“Don’t start,” I whisper as I scrub away the last of the still-tacky blood.
It’s better that I’m doing it now instead of waiting for Shiloh to get out of my shower and dry off.
At least it’s not dry, and I barely have to scrub away the—
“What are you doing, Persy?” Shiloh’s words and sigh make me jump, and I nearly levitate off my hands and knees at his perfectly silent approach.
“How do you do that?” I hiss as I turn to look up at him.
Arugula is already rubbing on his legs, but this time he ignores the cat.
“You just don’t make any noise, and—” My words end with a surprised yelp when Shiloh reaches down to tug me to my feet, and the towel wrapped around his waist performs admirably, deserving a medal when it doesn’t come undone to drop to the floor.
Though, would it really be such a crime to be able to see the full picture? It’s not like I haven’t felt it in my hands and in my—