Chapter 16 Jamie
JAMIE
We showered together.
It was the first time I had ever seen him naked, and he was just… too much.
There was just too much of him.
Too much of everything.
And I didn’t know where to look.
Unlike me, Reign wasn’t shy about his naked body.
In fact, he seemed almost… proud.
Hell, I didn’t blame him.
He looked good, and he knew it. Not that I would ever tell him.
“Hand me the shampoo bottle, baby,” he said from behind me. I shivered. He was close—close enough that I could feel something hard poking me in the small of my back.
I handed him the bottle without looking over at him. I could hear him squirting the shampoo into his hand, then I felt it in my hair.
I tensed from the contact, and he moved in even closer to me, his lips near my ear. “Relax.”
He said it as if it was an easy thing to do.
I was still reeling from all that had happened in my bedroom.
On my bed.
The details of it all were a little fuzzy, mostly because I was too focused on the sensation to really remember much of anything else.
And that sensation?
It wasn’t like anything I had felt before.
I closed my eyes when his fingers massaged over my scalp, feeling my muscles relax a bit.
“That’s my good girl,” he said.
He had been saying things like that a lot. Calling me his baby, his girl… his.
What had changed?
Did my ignoring him make his affection grow?
Did I encourage this by trying to keep my distance?
If I had known, I would have acted clingy. Because I didn’t think I would be able to get rid of him easily now.
Did I even want to get rid of him?
I shook my head at my confusing thoughts.
I didn’t know. All I knew was I had never felt fear as intensely as I did when I realized he was at my father’s bar.
Any of my father’s men who looked closely enough at him would have recognized him instantly.
And then he would have been trapped there.
My father’s men would have captured him, and I doubt they would have let him go easily… or at all. He was a stupid, stupid boy.
What would I have done if that had been the case then?
And it wasn’t like he blended in with the crowd so easily.
He was the kind of man who drew attention wherever he went, which was why I was so surprised we were able to walk out of there without anyone noticing.
“Time to rinse, baby,” he said, gently leading me under the spray of water.
The rest of our shower happened the same way.
He did all the work while I stood there and tried not to look at him too much.
By the time he turned the water off, I was dead tired on my feet.
I just wanted to go to bed.
“Almost done, okay?” he said, as if sensing my exhaustion. He probably did.
I nodded. At this point, I was too tired to be shy anymore. It wasn’t like he hadn’t already seen it all.
He wrapped a big towel around me and found one for himself before grabbing my hand and leading me back to our room.
I told myself I wouldn’t look at my bedroom any differently, yet my cheeks still burned at the sight of my bed, of the blanket crumpled up in one corner, and of my panties and bra that he had taken off me and thrown carelessly on the floor.
We should have taken care of that before we did anything else. I pulled away from Reign’s hand. He stood where I left him as I picked them up and put them in the dirty laundry basket.
“Shut up,” I said when I came back to him and noticed him smiling.
“I didn’t say anything.”
He didn’t have to say anything. His face was loud enough.
I went to the closet to grab something to wear.
Surprisingly, there was an overnight bag on my floor for Reign.
He had someone deliver it to him before we even arrived home.
I had been too shocked by his audacity to say anything at the time, but now that I put some thought into it, I really shouldn’t have been surprised at all.
I watched him rifle through the bag and pull out a pair of boxer briefs.
My eyes moved down to his cock briefly before I looked away. I had been doing that all evening, curious for a closer look, but too shy to stare at it for more than a few seconds at a time.
He caught me looking. His smile was all devil when he said, “You can look if you want, baby. After all, I am thoroughly enjoying the view myself.”
I threw the closest thing I had—my hairbrush—at him.
He caught it with one hand, winking at me.
I quickly pulled on some clothes, an old T-shirt, and some sleep shorts. He was frowning at me a little when I emerged from the walk-in closet. “What?” I asked.
“Baby, whose shirt is that?”
I looked down, pulling the gray shirt up with two hands. “This?”
He nodded, his look darkening. I rolled my eyes at him. “My brother’s.”
“Your brother’s?”
“Yes, you little maniac. There’s no reason to be jealous.”
He walked closer to me. I held my ground, staying where I was. He cupped the back of my head and pulled me toward him, pressing a hard, quick kiss against my lips. It was over before I could react, and by the time he pulled away, my lips were tingling. It wasn’t… all that bad.
“I am jealous. So please try to stay away from any fucker who isn’t your family.”
“Seriously? And what would you do when you’re jealous?” I asked lightly, though I was anything but. I needed to know how he handled jealousy because the last thing I needed was to be in a relationship with a man who couldn’t control or handle his anger.
“I might die of heartbreak,” he answered seriously.
I shot him a deadpan look. “Sure.”
Shaking my head at his antics, I climbed onto the bed. He followed me, positioning himself behind me so he could help dry my hair and brush out the tangles.
I sat there for a moment. I couldn’t even remember someone I loved doing this for me as a child.
For the first eight years of my life, I had lived with my mom. Dad was busy rebuilding a broken empire he had just inherited from his dad.
And Mom had been neglectful and abusive.
“What are you thinking about?” Reign asked.
“My mom,” I said. I felt his hand pause.
“Why are you thinking about your mom right now?”
“I was just thinking that I couldn’t remember someone I loved brushing my hair. It had always just been people Dad had hired to help around the house and help with my care…” I trailed off when I realized what I just said. “I’m not saying that you love me or that I love you. It’s just…”
“I know what you mean,” he said softly, moving my hair off to the side and kissing the back of my neck. I shivered. “Did your mom not brush your hair?”
I shook my head. “I always got the feeling that she didn’t like me very much.”
She might have even hated me. She certainly didn’t do things like brush my hair as a child. Thankfully, I wasn’t completely neglected. There had been help—nannies and cooks and maids around the house who had taken pity on me, and then there was Gina.
She showed up at a time when things had been the darkest for me. Not that she’d known that. She started working for Dad the same year Mom left. And at that point, Mom was nothing more than a shell of herself.
“I’m sorry, baby,” he said.
“I didn’t tell you that for you to pity me.”
“It’s not pity.”
Sure it wasn’t. I didn’t bother arguing with him about it. I didn’t need it. It was something I came to accept a long time ago, and I didn’t need anyone, but especially him, to feel bad about it for me.
I didn’t know what had caused it, and I hadn’t cared that much, considering I was still a child then. Even now, I didn’t know where Mom had gone off to, or even if she was still alive.
I flinched when Reign got caught in a little tangle at the end of my hair. He leaned forward and kissed my head. “Sorry, baby. I’ll be gentle.”
“You already are,” I responded.
It didn’t take him long to finish brushing my hair. Before I knew it, we were settling ourselves into bed. Reign positioned himself behind me, wrapping his arms around my middle and pulling me in close to him.
I didn’t fight him.
I didn’t feel the need to.
I was getting used to his touch, and I didn’t know if that was a good thing or a bad thing.
We slept soundly all through the night.
I wouldn’t have woken up in time for work if my phone hadn’t vibrated on the nightstand from a call.
I blindly reached out for it, looking briefly at the screen to see Caine’s name on it.
Reign’s arms tightened around me from behind. “Who is it?” he asked, his voice surprisingly clear. I wouldn’t be surprised if he had been awake for a while.
“My brother,” I said, answering the phone call. “Hello?”
Caine didn’t speak right away. “Are you still sleeping?”
“No. I just woke up,” I lied, looking over at the time. It was barely seven. “Did something happen?”
“No, I just wanted to ask about the text you sent me.”
“Oh, that.” I forgot about that text. I had forgotten that I hid at Dad’s bar, not wanting to go outside because I was afraid Tito might have been waiting for me. If Reign hadn’t come when he did, I would have called Caine to come and pick me up.
“Yes, that,” he said. I could feel Reign’s breath at the nape of my neck, reminding me of his presence there. It wasn’t like I could forget anyway.
I didn’t know how much of the phone call he could hear. I was hoping it wasn’t much, but I didn’t want to risk it.
“Can we meet for lunch?” I asked.
He paused. “Lunch?”
“Yeah,” I said, knowing why he was hesitant. It wasn’t like my brother and I hung out all that often. And when we did, there wasn’t much we could talk about. There wasn’t much we had in common. It was times like this that I wished we had a younger sibling to act as a buffer between us.
“Okay. I’ll pick you up around noon.”
“Sounds good,” I said, hanging up.
“Everything okay?” Reign asked.
I turned around until I was looking at him. His blue eyes were soft this morning, but surprisingly clear.
“Everything’s fine,” I said.
It seemed like he wanted to say something, but he stopped himself at the last moment. He settled on “Good morning” instead.