Chapter 59 Rae
RAE
MESSAGES: L. Lazarev → Natasha V.
LL: We're done.
LL: Don't contact this number again.
NV: It's the girl, isn't it? The little mouse from the office.
NV: Oh, Lukasha... Haven't you learned what happens to the things you love?
[CONTACT BLOCKED]
By Day 3, I’ve lost count of how many times we’ve done it. Somewhere between “a lot” and “girl, how are you still standing?”
I’m worn down in so many ways. My vagina is whimpering for mercy, my jaw is sore, my nipples are chafed, and my brain is sending urgent, repeated memos about rest and hydration and maybe, possibly, putting on pants at some point this century.
I’ve never been happier.
It’s like I’ve spent twenty-five years walking around with the volume turned down to two, and Lukas cranked it all the way up to eleven.
There’s been an adjustment process, but there’s no denying that, now, every nerve ending is awake, every sensation amplified.
Even the ache between my legs feels like a gift.
If nothing else, it’s proof that this is real, that I’m not dreaming.
A man who looks like that actually wants me badly enough to leave evidence.
We’ve barely left the bedroom. The brownstone has become our own private universe, sealed off from a world that’s no longer relevant.
As dusk settles, Lukas draws me a bath and climbs in behind me. He must have either custom-ordered this tub or bought it second-hand off the orca trainers at SeaWorld, because no other bathing device in the world could possibly contain both him and a second person.
This one does, though. The bathroom fills with sweetly scented steam as I lean back against his chest, suds floating up to my chin.
“Put that thing away, Mister,” I warn him when I feel his penis poke me in the lower back. “This bath is for rest and relaxation only.”
“That’s what you said about the kitchen counter,” he drawls, “and yet I didn’t hear you complaining when the dessert course was served…”
“Oh, shut up, you.” I splash water at him over my shoulder. “The kitchen counter was your idea, in case you forgot. You literally picked me up and deposited me there like a casserole.”
“You weren’t complaining.”
“I was eating.”
“So was I,” he replies.
My cheeks flush despite the heat of the bath. I pull his arm around me and snuggle up under it. Even with the aroma of the bath bomb I scrounged out of a closet, I can still smell him beneath it. That slightly sweaty musk I love so much. I close my eyes and sag into him.
“This is nice,” I murmur.
“Mm.” His lips brush my temple. “I’d forgotten what this felt like.”
“What?”
“Peace.”
He grabs the bottle of shampoo on the ledge and squirts some into his palm. I expect him to hand it to me next, but instead, he starts working it into my scalp himself.
Before this exact second, I wouldn’t have placed “shampooed by my boss” high on my list of erotic fantasies. I guess I’m gonna have to revisit that list, though, because this is quickly vaulting up the rankings.
It’s just so absurdly intimate. His blunt fingertips massage in slow circles, caressing from my temples to the crown of my head. I droop back against him and sigh.
“Why are you being so gentle?” I ask, my voice one notch above a whisper.
His hands never stop. “Because I spent weeks trying to scare you off. You stayed. The least I can do is treat you like you deserve.”
I don’t mean to cry. But the tears come anyways, hot as they slide down my cheeks and mix with the bathwater. My shoulders shake with the effort of containing this tidal wave of feeling that’s crashing through me without so much as a signed permission slip.
“Rae?” Lukas stills. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” I say. “It’s dumb. I just— No one’s ever—”
I can’t finish my thought. The weight of being cared for is crushing me in the best possible way.
Lukas doesn’t say anything. He just tilts my head back and rinses the shampoo out with cupped handfuls of water, careful to keep the suds from my eyes. Then he reaches for the conditioner.
“My mother used to do this,” I hear myself say.
“When I was little. Sunday nights before school—that was ‘Everett Girl Spa Night.’ She’d wash my hair and tell me stories about when she was young.
Then she’d let me braid hers. Even when I did a terrible job, she’d go to work the next day and brag about it to everyone. ”
Lukas’s hands pause for just a moment, then continue their work. “Tell me about her.”
So I do.
I tell him about her laugh, loud and snorting, completely undignified, a head-turner in any room.
How she burned everything she tried to cook except pancakes, which she made perfectly every single time.
The way she’d dance in the kitchen to old Motown songs and pull my dad in by his tie when he got home from work and make him dance with her, even though he had about as much rhythm and hip movement as our refrigerator, and how he loved her enough to let her get away with it.
Then I tell him about the accident. The phone call. The look in Gideon’s face as I told him what had happened.
Lukas listens without interrupting. His fingers work through my hair, untangling knots with inexhaustible patience.
“You’ve been taking care of everyone else for a long time,” he observes quietly.
“Someone had to.”
“Not anymore.” His arms wrap around me from behind, pulling me flush against his chest. “I’m here now.”
I sink into the silent comfort of his embrace like it’s a kind of warm bath of its own. But there’s a prickly uncertainty squirming inside me, despite how good it feels right here and right now. I want to be happy, but I can’t until I’ve cleared the air on this one silly thing.
“Lukas?” I clear my throat so I don’t sound so squeaky. “Can I ask you something?”
“Anything.”
“It’s silly. But it’s been bothering me.”
“Anything,” he says again. “Anything at all.”
I trace idle patterns in the bathwater. “That woman, Natasha, the one who was in your office that day…” I feel his chest tense against my back. “Who is she to you?”
He’s quiet for long enough that I start to regret asking. Then he exhales slowly, his breath stirring the damp hair at my temple.
“A reminder of who I used to be.”
I wait for more. Eventually, he gives it.
“After Elena died, I didn’t want to feel anything. Natasha was convenient. She knew the arrangement and never asked for more.” His arms tighten around me. “She won’t be a problem anymore.”
“You ended things with her?”
“There was nothing to end. There never was.” He leaves a kiss on my shoulder. “She was a placeholder for emptiness. You’re something else entirely.”
I turn in his arms, water sloshing against the sides of the tub, until I’m facing him. His gray eyes are soft in the candlelight and I cup his bearded jaw in my wet hands.
“Thank you for telling me,” I say. “I know that wasn’t easy.”
“Nothing about you is easy, Rae Everett.” But he’s smiling when he says it. A real smile, not the sardonic twist of lips I’ve grown accustomed to. This one reaches his eyes and crinkles the corners in a way that makes my heart do something acrobatic and inadvisable.
“Good,” I tell him. “You could use a challenge.”
He laughs. Like that rare smile, real laughter transforms his whole face.
“You’re trouble,” he murmurs, pulling me closer until our foreheads touch. “I knew it the moment I saw you.”
“Yeah?” I tease with a saucy smirk. “What’re you gonna do about it?”
“Keep you,” he says simply.
He kisses me again, on the lips this time. I kiss back and he kisses some more, and I kiss back and he kisses some more, and we just… do that for a while. Necking in the bathtub like nervous teenagers.
But it’s nice. There are no expectations as to what happens next. It’s like we’ve stepped sideways out of time and space and found a safe little pocket that’s ours and ours alone.
What a treat.
What a thrill.
What a life.
What a man.
When we finally break apart after making out for a long time, I’m breathless, pruney, and happier than I have any right to be.
“We should get out,” I say. “I’m turning into a raisin.”
“A very sexy raisin, though.” He grins—another real one, two in one night, I’m collecting them like Pokémon—and rises from the tub in a cascade of water.
I try not to gawk and fail miserably. Who can blame me? The man is easy on the eyes.
He wraps me in a fresh, fluffy towel that also came from that mysterious Uber haul, then carries me to the bedroom despite my protests that I’m perfectly capable of walking.
It’s okay, though.
I don’t mind being carried for once.