Page 160 of Devious Obsession
I smile. My legs are weak, and my knees almost buckle when he puts me down. He keeps his arm around my waist and shuts off the water, then sets me on the edge of the tub. I watch him find us towels—two fluffy ones for me, and one that he wipes down his chest with and then ties around his waist. He barely seems focused on himself, though, instead kneeling on the bathmat in front of me.
He takes one of the towels and wraps it around my torso. The other he keeps in his hand. He lifts my foot and dries my leg. Then repeats with the other one. He spreads my legs and inches closer, wiping that towel up to the apex of my thighs. Not touching my pussy, though. I can feel his cum leaking out, and he stares at it for a long moment.
“So damn gorgeous,” he mutters, almost to himself.
Then he continues. Dries my arms, pats at my face. Takes special care around my cheek, the cloth barely touching it. He pulls out a shower caddy from under the sink, and I jerk.
It’s filled with all ofmystuff. My products.
“Replicas,” he murmurs. “They were delivered last night after you left, because I don’t want you feeling like you can’t get ready here. I didn’t steel your stuff, little viper.”
My heart skips. Surprisingly thoughtful of him—but he’s full of good intentions when he wants to be. I eye the hairbrush. Damn, he even got the brand of hairbrush right—and it’s my favorite color.
“I still want to know where you came up with that nickname,” I reply, trying not to focus on the stuff in front of me. And the way I’m reacting to him.Again.
He rips the tag off it and grins at me. “My dad called you Asp on the phone one time over the summer. A nickname he probably picked up from your sisters or mom. An asp is a viper. It felt appropriate.”
A laugh bubbles out of me.
With all the horrible things that happened in the past twenty-four hours… yeah, I’ve lost it.
I can’t stop laughing. Tears leak out of my eyes, and I can barely suck in a breath. He went off of my sisters’ nickname for me and created a whole new one.
Steele chuckles along with me, his hands on my thighs.
And once the laughter has subsided, he kisses me.
“I thought it would take some time for you to even smile,” he says against my lips.
Yeah, well…
All that, and I didn’t even see my father’s body. Not really. Not after Steele shot him—and even then, I was more focused on my protector. On the way his forearm muscles clenched and his hand kicked up a bit.
The ringing noise of the gunshots, the smell of burning gunpowder.
“I just can’t believe he’s gone.” All the time in the hospital, sitting on that bed while they did bloodwork and checked for a concussion, and whatever else they had to do, it felt like a dream. Or an echo.
Steele turns me at an angle and sits behind me. With slow, methodical movements, he brushes out my hair.
Something I’m totally capable of doing, but… it’s nice to not think about it. It actually feels kind of good, and I tip my head back to give him better access. He squeezes the extra water from my hair and repeats the process, and then his fingers are moving against my scalp.
I exhale and close my eyes.
“Do you want to talk about it?” His voice is… unsure. For maybe the first time ever.
“No.”
But then… well, I end up telling him about my dad, after all. The bad stuff doesn’t come to mind right away. Whatdoesis the good stuff. Walking hand in hand to get ice cream from the shop on the corner. Him swinging me around in our tiny backyard, and the weightlessness that came with it. The giggles I couldn’t contain.
Sitting with him and my mother, who was really pregnant and tired and sore all the time, at the dining room table and learning how to count cards in Blackjack. Just in case I ever found myself in a casino and down on my luck, even though I was only six going on sixteen.
Going to an amusement park when I was twelve, flinching away from him when he tried to hold my hand. But he always just held it tighter, until I stopped fighting.
Finding myself watching his gaze turn to Dakota, who was six when I was twelve, and getting violently sick at his contemplative expression.
It feels good to get them off my chest, and Steele absorbs all of it silently. He’s moved from massaging the memories out of my head to relieving the tension in my neck. Then lower, his fingers pressing firmly into the muscles in my shoulders.
“I miss who he could’ve been,” I say softly.
