Chapter 43 Helena
I didn’t remember the car ride home. I just knew Grim was there. That, after securing my clothing back in place, he put me in The Judge.
Draped my coat over me.
Buckled my seat belt.
And knowing he was with me was enough to ease my mind because I fell asleep after that, and I only stirred again when he carried me into my apartment, which he let himself into with his misty powers.
“Smoke skills,” I corrected myself aloud, murmuring the words into his leather jacket and once-more-human chest.
“That lady in 402,” said Grim as he turned down the darkened back hall, not bothering to hit a single light switch. “The one with the rhinestone glasses?”
“Ms. Lynn.”
“Pretty sure she hates my guts,” Grim rumbled. “She grilled me pretty hard about why you were passed out. Couldn’t tell her I literally boned you senseless in a mausoleum, and I didn’t want her to call the cops, so I had to tell her you were drunk.”
“Mmmmnot really a lie,” I murmured when he bypassed my bedroom, heading into the connecting bathroom. My insanely pink bathroom with flower decals on the wall.
Again, he forwent hitting the lights, which left us in the glow of the light-up, pina colada–scented, ukelele-shaped plug-in air freshener.
Gently, Grim set me down, the cold tiles stinging my bare feet, bringing me reluctantly back to life.
“Your shoes are in the living room,” he said, though I hadn’t been worried about them.
Woozy on my feet, in a good way, I smiled up at him. Grim’s eyes traced my face, lingering on my lips before finding my gaze again.
Behind us, the shower clicked on.
“You’re a dirty girl,” he chided. “You know that?”
I put my hands on my hips. “Well, I wasn’t before.”
“You desecrated a tomb. What’s wrong with you?”
“Grim!”
“Yeah, I know it’s all my fault,” he said, smiling to himself, pleased with himself, as he took hold of my shirt, which he gently lifted over my head. I let him have it. And my bra. “Still, no regrets.”
He unfastened my skirt next, letting it fall.
My underwear? Still MIA. Had he put it in his pocket? I was pretty sure he had.
Hopefully we hadn’t left it in the tomb…
Steam filled the small room, and Grim must have used his shadows to shift open the sliding door, because his hands—and eyes—never left me.
He guided me backward, into the hot stream that did feel blissful as it washed over me. I grabbed my yellow loofah, happy when Grim climbed in after me, his clothes evaporating as he came to stand in front of me, leaving the shower stream at my back.
“When you were here before,” I said as he reached behind me to riffle through my shelf of products. “And I was in here. Did you think about me being in the shower?”
“No.” His eyes cut back to mine. “You were singing. And I liked your voice. It’s beautiful. Like you. That’s what I thought about.”
I smiled again as all the warm fuzzies came up to engulf my heart.
Grim shrugged, bringing a bottle of my citrus shower gel between us. “I didn’t become a raging sex addict until after you kissed me. If that’s what you’re asking.”
Still grinning, I looked away. “I thought for sure you thought I was out of my mind.”
“Who kisses a skeleton?” he asked before answering himself in an ironic mumble. “Same type who fucks one, I guess.”
“I liked kissing you,” I admitted. “Besides, by that time, I’d had a crush on you for a while. Though I didn’t think you liked me back.”
A few beats of quiet passed before he spoke again.
“That night I fixed the uke,” he said. “It was late, and the whole reason I came in at all was because I thought you were talking to some guy. I wanted to know who, and I was jealous as fuck for a second until I figured out it was a pineapple.”
“You were spying on me?” I might have blushed—and furiously so—but I didn’t really mind Grim knowing I talked to my stuff. Maui at least. “Through the window? And did you say you were jealous?”
“What were you talking to that thing about?”
“Maui’s a she,” I said as he opened the gel, giving it a sniff. “And I was probably ranting to her about you.”
“Yeah, well,” he said, pouring a generous amount of gel onto the loofah, “she didn’t rat me out, so you won’t have to worry about her going missing.”
I laughed as Grim lathered up my loofah, tattooed hands working the yellow puff into a ball of fragrant suds before he applied it to my shoulders, gently washing me.
“This orange shit,” he said. “You smell like it.”
“You must like the stuff,” I observed as he moved to wash my breasts.
“You kidding?” His eyes flicked between me and his task—which he seemed to be taking quite seriously. “I could fucking drink it.”
I laughed again, my spirit beaming in his presence, my heart reveling in his undivided attention—his affection.
Grim continued to dote on me, washing me with reverence, like he really did think of me as precious. He even shampooed my hair and surprised me by following up with conditioner.
Relaxing fully, maybe for the first time in months, possibly even years, I let him take care of me, and fingers going to his chest, I traced the outline of his sun tattoo.
“You’re not mad at me anymore,” he asked, “are you?”
“No.”
“Good,” he said. “Next time you are, I know how to fix it.”
That got a snort-laugh out of me. “Grim, you’re joking again.”
“That was abso-fucking-lutely not a joke.”
He shut off the water, and when we got out of the shower and into towels, Grim brushed my hair. I let him do that, too. He even took the curl cream from me after he was done, insisting on applying that for me, too.
“I could get used to this,” I said.
“Yeah, me too,” he replied, the smallest catch in his voice. Enough of one to bring all my worries rushing back. I wouldn’t dare let my heart sink under the weight of them. Not so long as I had him with me. Not when I wanted our time together, however long that happened to be, to be happy.
When he carried me to my bed, I held on to him extra tight.
“Don’t tell me you have to go,” I whisper-pleaded when he laid me on the covers.
“Not yet,” he said. “Not if you don’t want me to.”
“Stay. Please.”
He evaporated and re-formed on the bed next to me.
Unable to help myself, I all but attacked him, kissing him as I straddled him.
“We think the same, librarian,” he said, his human voice rough with renewed desire as those tattooed, ring-lined hands, following my curves, fell down my body, which once again came alive under his touch.
Then I relished giving him a taste of his own shock-rock medicine when, guiding his hard shaft to my entrance, I lowered myself onto him, moaning as he again filled me to stretching.
His mouth fell open in awe before he seized my hips. I rode him with slow and even movements. For a little while, he even let me have control, his hands only encouraging my rhythm, deepening penetration.
Until he flipped me under him, taking over to make love to me again. Soft, slow, and human this time.
Which maybe, just like him… I needed.