Chapter 14
CASSIE
I was on my bed, listening to a story podcast, one of the only things I could do to entertain myself, when a knock sounded from my door.
“Come in.”
I knew when the door opened from the subtle change in the atmosphere around me. That had been one of the surprising things about being blind: realizing I could sometimes detect when someone entered a room through a kind of soundless vibrational shift.
“It’s me,” Vigo said.
I heard his footsteps on the wood floor before they hit the rug, but instead of coming closer to the bed, he walked past me toward the bathroom.
“What are you doing?” I called after him.
The shower turned on, the sound of water beating against the tile floor.
“Heating up the water for your shower,” he said, returning to the bedroom. He took my hand. “Come on, mouse.”
“I don’t want to take a shower.”
“Maybe not, but it’s time.”
“Are you saying I stink?” I’d been washing with soap and a washcloth in my bathroom sink, had even managed to wash my hair there.
It was messy and challenging — twice I’d bumped the gash on my forehead on the faucet — but it was less risky than taking a shower alone and less humiliating than asking one of the Hawks to help me with something as intimate as bathing.
He pulled me to my feet. “Not at all. You might be a little… ripe, but I’m not opposed to ripe when it comes to you.”
He must have seen my cheeks burning because he lifted my chin, as if it mattered.
As if I could see him.
“You’re beautiful, and I still want to bang you every time I look at you, which even I’m willing to admit is a little pervy, but you can’t avoid the shower forever.”
I tried to pull away. “I’ll do it myself.”
“Not this time, mouse. Now let’s go.”
I let him lead me across the bedroom, mostly because putting up a fight would have been even more embarrassing than giving in. It had been a while since I’d seen his muscles — since I’d seen anyone’s muscles — but I felt his strength in his grasp of my hand.
If he really chose to fight me on the shower, I wasn’t going to win, and I didn’t put it past him to throw me over his shoulder and drop me in the shower fully clothed, not because he was mean but because like all of the Hawks, Vigo did whatever he wanted to do, and right now he wanted me to take a shower.
The warm wood floor under my bare feet changed to cool tile, the sound of the shower louder in the bathroom.
“Let’s go over a few things,” Vigo said. “You’ll be able to do this yourself in no time. We could even install some guide rails for you.”
“I don’t want guide rails.” My eyes burned with tears. I had a follow-up visit scheduled with a specialist, but I was still hoping my vision would return.
“I know,” he said. “And you probably won’t need them, but it’s an option.”
He spent a few minutes walking me around the bathroom, counting steps from the sink to the shower, the shower to the toilet.
He guided my hand to the bar on one of the shower doors, showing me that I could use it for balance while I undressed or dried off, explaining ways I could eventually navigate the space to take a shower or a bath alone.
It was nice but it was also terrifying.
“What if I’m never able to see again?”
I felt his hands on my face, could almost see the smattering of freckles across his nose, a playful surprise on his model-gorgeous face. Could almost see the light in his green eyes.
“Then you’ll figure it out,” he said. “We’ll figure it out.”
I didn’t ask him what that meant. The last thing I wanted was for the Hawks to feel responsible for me, to feel obligated to take care of me.
Because the truth was, I’d been alone a long time. And yeah, I’d had Bram for financial support. I’d always known if I needed something — anything — Bram would move heaven and earth to see that I got it.
But I was just beginning to realize that there had been other things I’d been without.
Other ways in which I’d been alone.
I’d gotten used to weathering uncertainty and self-doubt alone — had gotten used to being lonely — and instead of making me weak, it had made me strong. That strength had been an advantage before. I didn’t have to ask Bram for help, for emotional support, because I hadn’t needed it.
Or I thought I hadn’t anyway.
But this was something I couldn’t do alone, and I was surprised by how much I hated the reality.
How much I wanted to hide from it.
“I shouldn’t be here,” I said.
Vigo didn’t let go of my face, and I knew he was still staring down at me. “What are you talking about?”
“I should have gone home with Bram.”
At least Bram was my family, my blood. We had a duty to take care of each other.
I didn’t want to be a duty for the Hawks.
“Don’t say that.” I wasn’t sure I’d ever heard him angry, but I heard the anger in his voice now. “We want you here. Now lift your arms, mouse.”
I hesitated, then followed his instructions, and he pulled my T-shirt over my head.
“Jesus fuck,” he breathed. “I forgot how fucking perfect your tits are. Shit… am I allowed to say that when you can’t see?”
“It doesn’t matter.” Just a week earlier, the compliment would have made me flush with pleasure. Now my body seemed apart from me somehow, something that existed in the seeing world while I lived in the darkness.
He knelt at my feet and took my hands, then placed them on his shoulders. “Hold on to me while I get your shorts off.”
I hated this — hated being so helpless, so dependent — but I held on anyway, because the only thing worse than having Vigo undress me like a child would be falling on my ass in front of him.
He slid my shorts and underwear off my hips and stood in front of me, then guided my hand to the shower bar. “Hang tight.”
“Where are you going?” I hated the panic in my voice.
I heard him rummaging under the bathroom vanity followed by the crinkle of plastic.
“Getting a trash bag for your arm.” He maneuvered my cast into the trash bag, then reached for my ponytail. “I’m going to use this hair tie if that’s okay.”
He pulled it from my hair and did something to secure it to the trash bag. “That should do the trick.”
I heard the rustle of his clothes and realized he was undressing.
“Are you… are you showering with me?”
“Obviously. I’m not going to send my mouse into the wet slippery shower alone.” He opened the shower door and took my hand, then pulled me gently forward. “Three steps.”
My bare feet hit the tile in the shower on the third step. Hot water sprayed over my right side and I felt the brush of Vigo’s arm as he closed the shower door.
We were naked in the shower together, but instead of feeling turned on, I was terrified.
The water came from my right, and I knew Vigo stood in front of me, but other than that I was completely disoriented, floating in the abyss of my blindness.
“It’s okay,” Vigo soothed. “I’ve got you. You’re safe.”
He was a liar. He might be able to keep me from falling in the shower, but there were a million other ways in which I wasn’t at all safe.
“I’m going to put your back to the shower so we can wash your hair.”
He held on to my waist and turned me around until I felt the shower beating onto my neck and back.
“Tip your head back, mouse.”
I followed his instructions: let him help me get my hair wet, lather it with shampoo, steady me while I rinsed it out.
He put conditioner in my hair, combing it through my long strands with his fingers, and helped me rinse that out too. Then he lathered my body with soap, his palms smooth and confident as they mapped my skin, dipping under my arms, into the crack of my ass, between my thighs.
It was intimate but not sexual, entirely utilitarian, but for the first time since the accident I felt a flicker of desire at my center, his hands stroking the slippery body wash over my skin, reminding me that my body was still there even if I couldn’t see it.
“I want to shave under my arms,” I said when I’d rinsed the soap off my body.
“Do you want help?” he asked.
“No, just… can you get me to the bench? Hand me the razor?”
He guided me to the shower’s built-in bench and I felt the warm, wet tile under my ass. Then he took my hand and closed it around my razor.
“Lift your arms,” he said.
I did and he lathered my shave cream under my arms.
“Tell me if I’m slicing myself to ribbons,” I said as I made the first stroke under my arms with the razor.
“Nah, you’ve got this,” he said.
I finished and handed him back the razor and shaving cream. I expected him to put them away, help me stand to rinse the shaving cream from under my arms.
Instead he lifted one of my legs and braced my foot on his thigh.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m going to shave your legs,” he said. “Unless you don’t want me to. I mean, I’ll still want to fuck you if you have hairy legs — am I allowed to say that while you’re blind? — but I thought you might want it done since you wanted to shave under your arms.”
“No, it’s… it’s okay.” I leaned back, using the wall of the shower as support while Vigo lathered my legs with shaving cream.
He started making long slow strokes over my right calf with the razor. “This is kind of soothing.”
“Easy for you to say,” I said. “You don’t have to shave your legs every other day.”
“Fair,” he said. “Although I’m more than happy to do this for you anytime.”
I sank into it: the shower spraying all around us, his big hand around my ankle to steady my leg, the confident stroke of the razor as he moved it over my calves and thighs.
He was right, it was kind of soothing.
“Anything else?” he asked when he was done.
“No, that’s good. Thank you.”
He helped me to my feet and put me under the spray to rinse off the shaving cream.
I tipped my head back, sighing with pleasure as the hot water soaked my hair all over again. I’d almost forgotten that my body could feel good, had almost forgotten that I had a body at all.
“Feeling better?” he asked, crouching at my feet to rub the shaving cream off my legs.
“Yes.”
“Good.” He reached past me to turn off the water. “Let’s dry you off.”