Chapter 16 #3
He sets me down gently on a velvet bench—velvet, because obviously—and his cock finally slips free. I feel the immediate loss, the emptiness, and resist the urge to whine about it.
Lorcan moves to the tub and starts running water, his naked back to me. I watch the muscles shift under tattooed skin—Celtic wolf, skeletal raven, Gaelic script I haven't a prayer of reading.
My brain kicks back online. Okay. Let's review.
My Heroic-Kidnapper-Who-Got-It-All-Wrong lives in a converted warehouse overlooking Boston Harbor.
He has a library. A three-story library back home in Ireland, and apparently an equally impressive one here because of course he does.
He reads Declan Cross thrillers and gets heated about historical accuracy in Vatican conspiracy plots.
He also has a private chapel where he larps as a crimson-robed monk while spanking women who beg for absolution.
The duality of man, I guess.
Did I… hit my head and fall into a dark romance novel? What the actual fuck is going on here. This can't be real. This cannot be my life.
"Stop thinkin' so loud, a stór. I can hear ya from here."
I smile. Suddenly enjoying the moment. Because this isn't a dream. I'm not asleep. I'm not delusional or dead.
I'm literally the luckiest girl alive. Sitting in a bathroom that looks like Architectural Digest poster child for 'masculine'. I catalog details as steam starts to rise from the filling tub.
Slate tile floors. Heated, obviously—my bare feet aren't cold.
A massive walk-in shower with like, seventeen different shower heads including a rainfall panel that could probably drown someone if they weren't careful.
Double vanity in dark walnut with vessel sinks that look like smooth black stone.
The mirror above it is backlit, casting this soft glow that's probably designed to make you look good even at 3am when you stumble in to pee.
Towel warming rack. Because regular towels are for peasants.
Two bathrobes hanging on hooks—one charcoal, one cream—like he keeps them ready for guests. Or women he rescues from mob dungeons.
Everything is masculine and expensive and deliberately not sterile. This isn't some cold modernist bathroom. It's warm. Grounding. The kind of space designed by someone who understands that bathing can be meditation, ritual, ceremony—or all three.
Which tracks, I guess, given the whole monk-robe situation downstairs.
Lorcan tests the water temperature with his hand, adjusting the faucet slightly.
My Heroic Kidnapper, I think, watching him move with precise care, is a control freak who disguises it as caregiving.
Which, honestly? Relatable.
He turns, offering me his hand. I blow out a breath, stand on still shaky legs, and cross the distance between us. I take his hand, allowing him to help me into the tub. The water is hot, but not biting. I sit down and immediately, the overthinking stops.
Just… stops.
Lorcan touches my shoulder. "Move forward, lass. Make room."
Then he steps into the tub behind me.
"We're gonna bathe together?" I ask. I don't know why this never occurred to me. Maybe because Jino is in charge my baths these days, and he prefers to keep a professional distance, mostly using bath time to tease me into failure with strategically-placed fingers and strict orders to not orgasm.
"We don't have ta," Lorcan replies, settling behind me. His legs stretch on either side of mine as he leans back, pulling me with him until my back is settled against his chest. "If ya don't want to."
"Oh, I don't mind. In fact, this is… lovely. Nice. Grand, as you would say."
I can feel him chuckle as he grabs a bar of sweet-smelling soap from a dish on a black marble table next to the tub. "I don't know how Giovanni handles aftercare these days. Or Jino. But this is how I do it."
And then he begins to soap me up.
Just like Jino does.
Nothing at all like Jino does.
Because Jino does it from outside the tub. At a distance.
Bathing, as far as Jino is concerned, is training.
Bathing, according to Saint Lorcan, is indulgence.
I sigh. Letting go of the stress that's kept me in a spiral for the last twenty-four hours.
"That's it," my Saint says. "Let it all go." He pushes me forward a little, breaking our skin-to-skin contact. And I'm just about to protest when a cupful of hot water is poured down the back of my head. "We're gonna wash away all your problems now, a stór…"
I close my eyes. Leaning forward, head bowed as he caresses me with cups of water poured over my body.
The tub fills.
I float.
He cleans me.
Washes away every single doubt in my head.
He shampoos and conditions my hair.
Combs it out.
Teases me a little between my legs with the bar of soap.
Fondles my breasts.
Talks to me in lyrical Irish words I have no hope of pronouncing, let alone understanding.
And the next thing I know, he's drying me off with a warm towel, pulling a t-shirt over my head, and putting me to bed.
He gets in the bed next to me.
We're going to sleep together. Not like slave and master. Not like subject and king.
Like…
The thought is so traitorous, I can't even think it.