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“Let me guess. He found you.” Nathan’s gaze remained fixed on the road in front of them.
“Yes. And after only a few months, too. I came out of my super shitty job one afternoon, got into my car, and there was a pine tree freshener dangling from my rearview mirror.” She physically shuddered at the memory. “I had a bad feeling, and when I looked out my side window, he was right outside my car.” She shook her head, trying to dispel the memory and the accompanying fear.
“I yelled at him regarding the distance of the restraining order, but he only smiled and said that it didn’t apply in this new city. And then the act of following me in the new place started all over again. It was like it was his job to find me. I moved again, and again. But so did he. Each and every time, as his special way of letting me know he’d found me, he placed the dreaded pine tree freshener in my car.” She hung her head in memory of all those horrible times. Just as she would begin to believe she’d gotten away from him, that stupid pine tree would send her running in panic and fear.
“How many times did you move?”
“Eleven times in two years.”
He shook his head and made a sympathetic noise. “Harsh. What made him stop?”
She didn’t say anything for quite a long while, finally whispering, “He died.” She didn’t explain. Didn’t elaborate. Maybe the horror of that day shown on her face and kept his curiosity at bay.
“I see. So how did the current ass wipe you’re hiding from discover your aversion to the decorative air freshener?”
“One day he came to pick me up for a date and there was one dangling from the rearview mirror in his car. Through clenched teeth, I asked him to please remove it. He asked why, but I didn’t want to explain. He refused to take it out of his car because I wouldn’t tell him why it needed to go. Actually that was the first off feeling I got about him. He was so insistent that I explain myself. Practically crazed at the time. Although, perhaps my feelings about it made his perseverance worse than it was.” She shook her head at the memory.
They’d arrived at the gate to their compound. Nothing made her feel safer than entering and watching the gate slide shut behind them.
Inside their home, she went to the basement apartment.
Seeing her computer still plugged into the wall charger made her roll her eyes at herself.
Nathan said, “I knew you’d be upset if you forgot your computer.”
“I wouldn’t have gotten far without it.”
She heard water running. Heading for the lavish bathroom, she soon discovered Gabriel running a bath for her in the oval marble tub next to the room she’d claimed as her own.
He held up two plastic squeeze bottles. “So do you want jasmine- or orange-blossom-scented bubbly water?”
Suzanna smiled. “Jasmine.”
He squeezed a bit of pinkish, thick liquid under the faucet stream, and a flurry of bubbles cascaded across the surface with the ferocity of the pounding water.
She couldn’t think of the last time someone had run her a bath. And a bubble bath? Never.
Nathan helped her slip out of her clothing. Gabriel kissed her once gently, and then helped her step into the tub.
The warmth of the water seeped into her body at mid-calf, as the bubbles surrounded her lower legs. She held on to Gabriel’s hand until she lowered herself completely into the relaxing bath. Dunking her head underwater felt amazing. The scent of jasmine cleansed her lungs of the reviled odor previously residing there. She inhaled deeply several times and allowed the comforting warmth of the water to ease her tense muscles.
“Want some alone time?” Gabriel asked. He was squatted next to the tub. Nathan towered above her, watching with a penetrating stare like she was his next morsel of food. She liked it.
“No. I don’t want to be alone.” She cast a gaze around the size of the tub. It was big enough for four people. “In fact, why don’t you join me in here?” She laughed. “Unless the jasmine scent is too girly for you to endure.”
“Not hardly,” Gabriel said and stood up quickly. They both started peeling their clothing off like it was a race to the death.
Gabriel sidled up next to her, slipping an arm beneath her back. Nathan slid into the opposite end of the tub, tangling his long legs with hers. She felt secure once more. Maybe for the first time in a long time. Nothing bad would happen if they were with her.
