15. Razor #3
It’s the way she’s built. The way water runs down her spine and curves over her ass. The way her skin glows in the bathroom light. The freckles scattered across her shoulders that I never knew were there. The small scar on her hip that looks old, probably from childhood.
She reaches for a towel on the rack. I should look away, but I can’t move. My feet are rooted to the floor, my eyes are locked on her, and my brain has completely stopped functioning beyond the base male response of want.
She wraps the towel around herself, tucking it between her breasts, and turns toward the sink.
That’s when she sees me in the mirror. Our eyes meet in the reflection, and neither of us looks away.
Time slows, pressing in on us. Her pupils dilate, those green eyes going dark. Her lips part slightly, a quick intake of breath that I can see in the rise and fall of her chest. I can see her pulse jumping in the hollow of her throat, fast and hard.
I should apologize, say something like “Sorry, didn’t mean to,” even though we both know it would be a lie.
Because I was trying to look. And she knows it.
And more importantly, she’s not mad about it.
She doesn’t cover herself more. Doesn’t yell or slam the door or call me a pervert. Just stands there holding my gaze in the mirror while something builds in the air between us, thick and warm and dangerous.
I can see her processing. Can see the moment she decides not to be afraid of this, not to run from it. Can see her making a choice about what this moment means.
Then she breaks eye contact first, looks down at the sink, and that’s when I know I need to move.
I make myself walk away. Make myself continue down the hall to my room like nothing happened, like I didn’t just see her naked and wet and looking at me with want in her eyes.
I close my door and lean back against it, exhaling hard.
Fuck.
The image is burned into my brain now. Permanent. Every curve, every line, every drop of water catching light on her skin. The way she looked at me in the mirror—not scared, not angry, not embarrassed. Aware. Interested. Willing.
This is a problem.
I’ve been attracted to her since the spanking incident days ago, when I felt her get wet under my hand and knew she responded to pain in ways that suggested she’d be responsive to a lot of other things too.
But seeing her like that, vulnerable and naked and looking at me like that, that changes everything.
Now I know exactly what I’m working with.
Know what she looks like under Shadow’s borrowed clothes and my stolen sweatpants.
Know she’s got freckles on her shoulders and a scar on her hip and nipples the color of rose petals.
Know the exact curve of her waist and the shape of her thighs and the way water pools in the small of her back.
And I know she knows I was looking.
Worse, I know she didn’t mind.
I change my shirt, trying to focus on anything else. Tomorrow’s operation. Tyler’s apartment. The laptop. Exit strategies. Equipment lists.
Anything except the way Jade looked standing there, dripping wet and looking back at me through that mirror with eyes that said yes instead of no.
By the time I head back downstairs, she’s in the kitchen making coffee. Fully dressed now in jeans and a long-sleeved shirt that covers every inch of skin I just saw bare.
We don’t make eye contact.
Shadow’s on the couch, reading something on his phone. Hawk’s still outside doing his perimeter check; that’s probably more about avoiding Jade than actual security.
The cabin feels smaller than it did an hour ago. The air feels thicker.
“Coffee?” Jade asks without looking at me.
“Yeah.”
She pours a cup, sets it on the counter between us. I pick it up, careful not to let our fingers touch even though I can still feel the phantom sensation of what her skin must feel like, warm and wet and soft.
The silence is loaded with things neither of us is saying.
Shadow looks up from his phone, glances between us, and his eyebrows go up slightly.
“I’m going to check the perimeter,” I say, needing air, needing space, needing to not be in this cabin with her smell still in my head and the image of her naked body playing on repeat behind my eyes.
“Hawk’s already—” Shadow starts.
“I’m checking it again.”
I leave before anyone can argue.
Outside, the air’s cold and clean and doesn’t smell like her soap. I light another cigarette and walk the tree line, checking for tracks, for disturbances, for anything that isn’t right.
But mostly just trying to get my head straight.
Tomorrow we execute the plan. Get into Tyler’s apartment, copy the laptop files, and get out clean.
Hand the evidence to the Ruthless Saints and let them handle Tyler.
Then Jade disappears into witness protection or a new identity or whatever the fuck Hawk’s planning for her, and this whole situation resolves itself.
That’s what needs to happen.
What’s actually going to happen is complicated by the fact that I can’t stop thinking about her naked in that bathroom.
Can’t stop remembering the way she looked at me.
Can’t stop wanting to see her like that again, except this time with my hands on her instead of just my eyes.