Page 38 of When He Lies
She gasped and whipped down deeper into the lingering bubbles. Her hands covered her breasts, and then, realizing that she’d left a very important part of herself vulnerable, she immediately slapped one hand over her lower, ah, goods, and kept her left arm over her breasts. “What are you doing?”
He turned toward her voice, even as one hand kept gripping the door. “You locked the door.” His gaze remained on her face. Only on her face.
“Yes. Because I am naked in here.”
His gaze stayed on her face. A muscle flexed along his jaw.
“What did you think I was doing?” Simone snapped.
“Hiding. Plotting. Planning how to get away from me.”
Okay, it was both eerie and a bit impressive the way Ryan had listed all of her activities. Time to regroup and distract him. “You picked the lock. That’s naughty.”
Another flex of the muscle along his jaw. And that stare of his did not leave her face.
“It’s also impressive,” she heard herself say, “the way you haven’t looked down.”
“You have no idea how impressive.” A growl. Then, “I need to clean up, too, Simone.”
“There’s, um, a shower right there.” She would have pointed to the side, but her hands were busy.
He lifted an eyebrow. “You want me to shower…while you are right here?”
Where was the problem? The bathroom had a tub and a separate shower. “You’re seeing me naked.”
“I am keeping my eyes on your face.”
“Yes, you are, and that’s fabulous, but you could have been gentlemanly and never come into the bathroom in the first place. Or, once in…and once you saw that I was not up to some wicked deed, you could have left.”
His lips thinned. “Feels fucking wicked.” A mumble.
“Um. Also, we are on a higher floor. Not like I was going to open the bathroom window and scale down the building.” She’d considered it but tossed the idea after looking outside. Just not really feasible. The odds of her breaking a bone had been too high. “But back to you leaving.”
He swallowed.
“You have not left the bathroom yet.”
“No.”
“If you’re not leaving, then why not just jump in the shower? Fair is fair.”
“Excuse me?” His hands fisted at his sides.
Maybe it was her imagination, but his breathing seemed to have become decidedly more ragged. “Fair is fair,” Simone repeated because that seemed to have been the part he missed. “I’m naked. You’re getting the full show.”
“I am not getting the full show.”
Again, only because he was making that intense eye-contact. “I should get the same treatment. The same show. Strip. Shower.” A slight pause. “I could even promise not to look.” She could promise. She would not.
“Fair is fair.” Gritted.
Ah, now that was the spirit. She nodded.
He turned away from her.
Her breath left her in a fast rush. She did not normally hold full conversations with men while she was naked in a bathtub. In fact, this had been a jarring first for her. She started to grab for a nearby towel.
Except…
