18. Anastasia
Anastasia
W hen I look in my bathroom mirror I want to force Rhett away, but he leans with arms crossed in the door way, watching me through the reflection.
He lied. I look absolutely terrible. My eyes are red and puffy, with black smudges from my mascara. All my hair is hidden in my hat still and I’m too nervous to look at the damage.
“You don’t have to stay,” I say quietly.
He pushes off the frame, stopping close behind me. “I’m not going anywhere.”
My chest flutters as his hand reaches up, pausing on the hat. I nod, taking a deep breath as he pulls it off. My hands shoot over my eyes immediately. It’s bad.
“Nothing we can’t fix,” he assures me. “Do you have scissors?”
I peek at him through the reflection. “You want me to trust you to cut it?”
“I’m happy to wait and take you to a salon tomorrow. I still suggest we do. But if you’ll let me, I’m more than capable of making it even at least.”
I smile sadly, opening a drawer and fishing out some salon scissors I keep for when I just need a little trim between visits.
Rhett takes them and then my hand as he sits on the toilet and guides me to kneel on the soft mat between his legs.
“Don’t give me a pixie cut,” I warn.
“You could pull it off,” he teases.
The asshole in the maze chopped my hair to my shoulders. I sit back, tucking my knees to my chest. It isn’t the end of the world, but I’m so incredibly sad it wasn’t my choice even when I’ve debated short hair before.
“What happened to you isn’t a joke. It was assault, and if I thought the police would be any damn help I would be marching there now. But I’m going to find out who was behind it.”
“It was dark. I don’t have any identifiers to give anyone.”
Rhett stops cutting. His hand grazes under my chin, forcing me to look back at him. “They’re going to pay for what they did to you,” he promises.
The knot in my stomach tightens. I don’t know how he’ll do it, but I believe him.
“Thank you,” I whisper, turning back around when he lets go.
He cuts away a few more strands. Every comb of his fingers through the shortened lengths makes my eyes flutter, and I suppress my moans.
“Don’t ever thank me. I’m yours, remember?”
“My guard.”
He leaves a pause of silence. “Yes.”
“I don’t think you could have predicted hairdressing being part of the job,” I muse.
“You do keep it interesting.”
I smile to myself. When he seems finished, I look at the bundles of hair on the vanity counter sadly, but I wander over to the mirror, and with it all an even length I actually like it. Though it could do with a few layers and shaping. I’ll get it fixed tomorrow.
Rhett hasn’t moved, and my chest tightens at the blooming mark on his face. I take a washcloth and run it under the water, coming back to him.
I sink to my knees again, facing him, bracing a hand on his thigh. I can’t decipher the emotion swirling in his blue eyes. Pained ... perhaps vulnerable. But he lets me bring the cloth to his face and his brow pinches with the sting. I clean away the blood around the cut gently.
“Want to tell me what was worth getting into a fight over?” I ask carefully.
“Can I ask you something?”
His question is so ... scared.
“Of course.”
“If you plan to tell your father what happened, can we tie our stories together? That I got this at the same time?”
My heart begins to drum. So whatever he was up to, my father doesn’t know about it and he’s trusting me to keep his secret.
“What did you do?” I whisper.
He takes my hand at his face and I’ve never seen him look so lost.
“It’s better if you don’t know. Can you trust me?”
I shake my head. “You want me to lie for you. You were supposed to be with me tonight and you left me for something that got us both hurt.”
Misery fills his eyes. “I am so. Fucking. Sorry I wasn’t there tonight. It was all so unexpected and sudden. Your safety is everything to me, and telling you where I was is a huge risk to that.”
“My safety is your job,” I snap, pushing to my feet.
I trail over the rest of him like I don’t know who’s been by my side all this time. If he’s capable of lying now, what else has he been hiding? There’s a tear in his black shirt at his bicep, and when he stands I don’t see the color of his tanned skin through it.
“Ana—”
“Take off your shirt,” I demand. He looks confused before I add, “You’re hurt worse than just a right hook to your face, aren’t you?”
Rhett’s face falls. I don’t think he’ll do as I ask, but when he reaches back and folds out of his T-shirt I suppress my gasp at the deep slash over his bicep.
“You need stitches,” I scold, angry for some reason that he didn’t tell me sooner. That he was tending to my damn hair when he was sitting there with a wound from ... a knife? A gun? Shit, what did you get up to, Rhett Kaiser?
I march to the sink again, soaking my towel and wringing it.
“Sit back down. You’re too damned tall,” I grumble, not thinking as I put a hand on his chest to guide him back. The warmth and firmness of him catches my breath.
I stay standing, silently cleaning his arm from the blood and wanting to ask again how it happened.
As I do, my traitorous gaze wanders over the impressive contours of him, getting a closer look at his huge serpent tattoo.
His skin is marked with more scars than any person should have.
He’s an uncharted map, and I become engrossed learning every marker of it.
The stories behind every mark that makes up the pieces of Rhett.
I don’t realize I’ve stopped moving with the hand holding the cloth, because the other begins tracing a single horizontal line over the left side of his chest.
“What does it mean?” I ask thoughtfully.
I wonder if I’ll ever know when he trains his eyes on the ground and the silence stretches.
“My heart died when hers did. Almost four years ago.”
And mine ... it shatters for him with that explanation.
“What was her name?”
“Sarah.”
“She was lucky to have you.” It slips out of me before I can think anything of it. But it’s the wrong thing to say.
Rhett’s bitter laugh turns me tense. “You know nothing, Ana.”
My hurt at that comment turns to annoyance. I grip his chin, forcing him to look up at me. As we stare off, something grows between us. It’s crafted of anger and pain and longing.
“Then tell me,” I say with determination. “I’m not her. But I’m not going to break. If you want to push me away, then fucking do it, but this time you’re not getting to pull me back.”
Rhett grips my waist, pulling me over his lap, and my breath catches unexpectedly.
“You are something else, Anastasia Kinsley,” he growls.
“No, you’re not like her. You’re all fire and passion and a determination that hasn’t had the chance to be unleashed yet.
You’re something I can’t stand to be around because it’s so fucking addicting, and you don’t even realize. ”
“You’re a?—”
“Don’t call me a coward, little bird. I won’t be able to stop if I have to prove you wrong.”
Heat gathers at my core, and I’m close to doing exactly what I did in the cinema room. But I don’t want to lose him. This past week was miserable with the friction of what I did, and I can be patient.
Though not with kissing him—I need something tonight after what we’ve both been through.
Rhett groans against my mouth, but this kiss isn’t as urgent as the first time. It’s slow and searching. Utterly igniting, and it’s felt far more in my chest than anywhere else. I pull away, resting my forehead to his.
Then I climb off his lap, grabbing a few alcohol swabs and a bandage. “We need to go to the hospital,” I say, doing the best I can at wrapping his arm, which has already started bleeding through.
“No hospitals,” he says quietly.
There’s enough pain in his tone that I don’t push.
“It’ll scar worse without stitches,” I advise him.
“Another scar isn’t going to matter.”
My touch lingers after tying the bandage.
“Every one of them matters,” I say. “You matter.”
Rhett doesn’t look up, but his frown deepens and I want to know what he’s thinking.
“You must be really tired,” he says softly.
I nod, pushing aside the twist in my gut that I might have said the wrong thing.
When I’ve washed my face, brushed my teeth, and changed into pajamas, I’m not shy anymore to wander around the room this way. “Can you stay?” I ask, erupting with nerves at his likely rejection.
“Are you sure you want that?”
“Yes.”
More than anything right now when the thought of being alone in the dark is already giving me flashbacks from tonight.
Rhett says nothing as he comes over to the bed. I nestle down, facing away from him as he takes off his black jeans, and my face warms with the urge to see him in nothing but boxers.
I’m good. I resist.
When he flips the light off and lies beside me I can’t close my eyes. Something isn’t right.
“Ana,” he whispers. The bed shifts, and I shiver at the energy growing closer to my back. “Can I hold you?”
I smile into the dark, wiggling back in answer until I feel his body encasing me from behind.
My head lifts to the arm he slips under me while he tucks the other over my chest. It’s so reassuring, and I’ve never been held this way before.
Like he could protect me from the world.
His breath blows across my shoulder blades before he plants one kiss there, and I sigh contentedly.
“I’ll keep your secret from my father if you promise not to keep it from me forever,” I murmur sleepily after a moment of peace. My hand traces over his forearm pinning me down.
“Okay,” he agrees.
“And I need you to keep one for me.”
“Mm-hmm?”
“After tomorrow. You’ll see.”
He groans, the vibrations of it against my back riling an unsated need I’m trying to ignore. “You have a penchant for wanting to get me in trouble.”
“Like being in my bed?”
“Exactly. What happened to not scandalizing me?”
“You have poor resistance.”
“Only for you, little bird. Only for you.”