Chapter 26
Of course, the one day I'm planning to wear white pants, I get my period—four days early. A betrayal from my own uterus so precise, it deserves applause.
I'm in the shower, letting the cramps and hot water battle it out, and it doesn't help that I'm not in my own bathroom; I'm upstairs with Ben.
He sprinted out like a man on a mission—poor guy nodded through my crash course on ultra-absorbent wings like his own life depended on it.
And just to top it off, it started mid-sex. White sheets. Crimson horror. I wanted to die when I saw it on his thighs, his belly, his... everything.
My face went redder than the sheets and I bolted, locking myself in the bathroom, him on the other side, begging me to open because it was fine and he really didn't mind and apparently, I couldn't be hiding here for my whole life—says who?—so I opened.
"Knock knock. I come bearing offerings," I hear him behind me, his voice impossibly soft.
Supplies land on the sink. "Need anything else?"
"No," I grumble.
I should apologize for traumatizing him, but instead, I put more strawberry scrub on and hope I can exfoliate my shame away.
He notices my terrible mood and takes a step forward.
"Don't come closer," I warn, voice ricocheting off the tiles. "This is a battlefield."
He tilts his head, frowning. "Do you know who you're talking to? I don't scare easily. Not from a little war."
"It's not a little war. It's catastrophic. Trust me, you don't want this visual." I turn around, hoping he'll go already.
"Try me," he says instead.
When I look behind my shoulder, my eyes widen.
I see him through the fogged glass, pulling his tee over his shoulders, then unbuttoning his pants and dragging them down.
"What? Ben! No!" My hand wipes the fog and I gape at him, horrified. "What do you think you're doing?"
He doesn't answer. Instead, the shower door swings open and my eyes drop to his fully naked and unapologetically male body.
"You're not getting in." I plant both hands on his chest, trying to shove a man who may as well be carved from stone. "Ben, seriously. Leave."
His hand hooks the door, the other snakes around me as he walks in, and those maddening eyes that still look at me like I'm something precious lock on mine.
Thick steam curls around us as he says, "Turn around."
"There's no way we're having round two," I snap furiously. "Absolutely not."
A long inhale from him, like he's fortifying himself against my barbs, and then his hands, gentle but insistent, catch my hips, and he turns me himself.
Oh god. I shouldn't have looked down but instinct won.
The blood—my blood—trails down my thighs, swirling into the water around his feet like spilled ink.
Mortification hits hot and I press my forehead against the tile. "Ben, I swear I will end you if you don't back off. This is disgusting." Heel to the drain, I try to push it in. Manage some of it.
Ben's mouth brushes my shoulder. "Nothing about you disgusts me." Then he kisses the other one. "I'd drink all your body fluids, and eat out of all your holes—every single one of them. Don't care."
I whip my head around. "That's deranged."
"Probably."
"Pervert."
"I'd say hopeless romantic."
A laugh breaks out of me before I remember to resist.
"We've swapped so much DNA we could pass for one by now," he says and reaches for the shampoo, pumping it into his hands. "Turn around. I'm washing your hair."
I narrow my eyes but do as he says, and mutter: "You just want to boss me around."
"No. I want to take care of you when you're in pain," he says firmly.
He starts massaging my scalp, and instantly, I melt. Worse, I purr, embarrassingly loud as my head tips back, surrendering to his fingers.
"Okay, fine. This isn't bad."
He rinses my hair gently and starts braiding my hair with so much precision I'm left in awe. Then he plants another kiss from his height on the top of my head and he's done.
I turn around to face him and drag the braid to the front, checking it. "Pretty solid. Mara made sure you wouldn't embarrass her, didn't she?"
"Told you. I'm not scared of wars." His huge palm shoots up between us. "Hand."
I stall because I still don't get what he's doing here.
He clicks his tongue, growing impatient. "I said hand."
When my tiny palm lands in his, it practically vanishes.
His fingers fold around mine, and he starts pressing along the base of my palm, hitting all the acupressure points.
"Oh. That feels so good. What woman taught you this one?"
He snorts a knowing laugh. "No woman, don't worry. Doctor training."
I watch him work. "You have ridiculously elegant fingers, you know that?"
He smirks at me through wet lashes that make his eyes even darker, more lethal. "Are you trying to flirt with me while I'm fixing you, Emma?"
I bite my lip, stealing a look.
Big mistake.
His naked body glistens under the steamy spray that slides down, across his broad chest and that merciless six-pack, and then further, where he hangs against his thigh, heavy and indecent, like he’s always one second from being ready.
Always meaty, distracting, plotting against my nervous system.
Honestly, no idea how he stuffs that in his pants. Must be sorcery.
I clear my throat, trying to scrape composure into my voice. "Do your patients ever flirt with you?"
Damnit, he didn't even reply and I'm already feeling the sting. I bet they do. I totally would.
"Sometimes," he admits.
"Young? Old?" I pry, trying to mask it as innocent curiosity. Based on his expression, it isn't working.
"Both." He smiles.
"How do you handle it? Smile politely? Keep your hands professional?"
His mouth twitches. "I love when you're jealous."
"I'm not jealous," I snap, glaring at him. "I just want to protect you. You know patients. One look and they turn it into something ridiculous. So keep your eyes low."
He bites his lower lip and nods slowly. "Okay, chief."
"And your hands are actually too perfect... for a guy."
He only snorts, rolling his eyes.
"Elegant, gentle. Like you." I snort too, catching myself. Then give him a look. "Though I'm not fooled anymore, you're not that gentle. You just fake it well."
His hand grips my hip and he takes a step forward, pulling me back until I press my spine against the tile.
"Would you want me gentle? Gentle wouldn't have made you come ten times in a row. Gentle sure as hell wouldn't have made you squirt."
The heat of the comment makes my blood pressure rocket so fast it spurts down my leg before I can stop it.
My hand flies to his chin, locking it while I shove it in the drain. "BEN! You can't say that. Not right now."
His grin turns criminal. "Why not? It's the truth."
"It's the truth, it's the truth," I echo, indignant, and red all over my cheeks. "Because I'm literally bleeding on you, you idiot."
He blinks, his face pulled back. "So making you scream from the top of your lungs and soothing your cramps makes me an idiot? Got it."
I glare at him instead of an apology, too prideful, and he finishes the last slow circles on my hand.
"So? Better?" he asks.
I pout. "Maybe, a little."
He taps my nose, infuriatingly sure. "You should stop lying, you're really bad at it."
I tut. "Fine. Better." Roll my eyes. "Miraculously better."
He smiles triumphantly. "Thought so. I know your body better than you do."
"That's true. Also, you look absurdly hot when you go into this healer-warrior mode." I stretch on my toes and pull on his damp lip.
He kisses me back, much more tender than usual, and my hand is already sliding down his body.
The moment I touch him down there, he twitches and juts toward me— like I said, always ready.
Ben inhales sharply, his body visibly wired tight, letting me play with him for a short beat before he exhales through his nose and he holds my wrist. With a maddening control—he brings it back to his chest.
"Uh-uh, no touching." His voice comes out rough, dragged from the edge of control.
I take a step back and frown. "What? Why?"
He tilts his head. "Thought you didn't want me here."
"I want you now," I say, giving him my best bratty pout. "What happened to all that filthy talk five minutes ago?"
His eyes flick down, urging me to look where he's fully erect now, and seeing him like this in the steam, I'm seriously tempted to wrestle him.
"I can deliver on that filthy talk right now, if you want," he says like he's warning me. Then he softens a notch. "But you know that when I start, I can't stop, and this is your first day—your body needs rest. So I'm not giving you leverage when you say 'Remember that time you ruined my uterus?'"
I smirk. "I'm blaming you for getting my period earlier. I never had this much sex, and my body is all confused."
He shrugs lazily. "Not my fault. My sexual preference is you. Often."
He glances at the mist curling through the big shower, so dense now we can’t even see each other anymore.
"Damn, woman. How hot do you like your water?"
I let him see the dark flash in my eyes and reach for the faucet. "Actually, I was just thinking it's not hot enough."
"Nope. Enough boiling," he says, already turning off the water.
He moves out of the shower, doesn't even dry himself, and he's already holding a towel open for me, wrapping me in it as I step out.
My eyes must do their biggest ever.
His mouth twitches. "You look like a gremlin."
"I am a gremlin," I say, clutching my towel like a cape. "Feed me."
He gives me a salute, mock-serious, and vanishes with his towel through the doorway.
By the time I've wriggled into clean clothes and tiptoed back into the bedroom, I notice he's already bundled the sheets into a plastic bag, and covered the bed, protecting me from my own embarrassment, which is unfairly, disgustingly sweet.
When I wander into the kitchen in loose sweats and hoodie, he's stretched out on the sofa, watching Drive. Ryan Gosling brooding under neon rain—it's always been our soft spot.
But my eyes catch on the dining table. "No way. You made red velvet cannoli again?"