“Um… I do want you to be able to sleep well.”
“Good. That’s what I wanted to hear. Are you ready for bed?”
“Y-yes. Yeah. Uh-huh.” God, listen to me. I was making a bad situation worse. But Helena was clearly enjoying it, her smile spreading wider.
“You’re cute when you’re flustered,” she said, and she took my wrist, tugging me towards the bedroom. I gasped, letting myself be pulled along, through the doorway, into a small but luxurious room with a massive four-poster bed, and the low lights in here cast Helena in this inviting glow that tangled me up in knots.
She let go of my wrist, dropping on the foot of the bed, and she looked up at me with that devilish look in her eyes, gleaming.
“Close the door,” she said.
“Um. I thought I was going to, like… sleep on the couch, or…”
She smiled wider. “Not now,” she said. “I have to figure out what to do with you.Youbroke one of my bottles.”
“Oh, god. I am really sorry. I just…” I had a devastating blush. Was I supposed to try to lie about what happened? When she knew what happened?
“Are you ready to make it up to me?”
“Huh?” My voice squeaked. She smiled wider.
“Close the door. And we’ll make sure you make it up to me.”
Oh, shit. I don’t think she wanted me to buy her a new one. Wordlessly, wide-eyed, my breath short, I closed the door.
Chapter 15
Helena
There was the little voice in the back of my head telling me not to do this, but I ignored it. Ever since I found out she and her husband were separated so long he had his own settled relationship, I’d been making excuses for why that meant I could do everything I’d been thinking with Cassandra, and I was already halfway to convincing myself when I got back and heard hermoaningin my bathroom.
And now here she was, blushing and wide-eyed in front of my bed, making it very clear what she wanted. And what do you know? It was exactly what I wanted, too.
“So,” I said, drawing out the word, tasting the edges of it like sucking on a candy. “Do you want to explain how you broke it?”
Cassandra swallowed hard, and she shivered, edging away from me. “I was just… I slipped and bumped into it…”
I leaned forward and hooked a finger through the belt loop on her pants, pulling her towards me. “Could you possibly be lying to me right now?”
“No! I just… um…” She wrung her hands at her waist, swaying and looking at everything in the room except me.
I tugged again. “You’re not as quiet as I think you think you are.”
She buried her face in her hands, groaning. “How did you even go anywhere that quickly?”
“The shop isn’t far. And I knew what I was looking for.”
“I am so sorry,” she mumbled, muffled against her hands. “I just… it was…”
“Oh, youshouldbe sorry,” I teased, and I looped an arm around her waist, pushing her. She fumbled with a gasp, bumping into the bed and falling onto the mattress, and I pushed her down onto her back, where she looked up at me like she might have died right there. Damn, I liked the way she looked at me. “You broke one of my favorite bottles.”
“I thought you had another just like it.”
“Forget I said that. Go with me here.”
She laughed nervously. “Should I beg for forgiveness?”
“I like the sound of that.” I tugged her shirt up, just a little, enough to see the peek of white lace. As I thought, it looked good on her. I chose well, to nobody’s surprise. “Not only did you break it, butthenI had to listen to your cute little moans through the wall, and what do you think that did to me?”
