Luca’s hands are soft and warm as the pads of his fingers lift my blood-soaked shirt up and over my head. I wince as the wet crimson grazes my cheek. It’s cold. I wipe my face, willing it away, my fingers clawing at the spot that must have smudged.
My back is to the mirror but I still feel as though I’m covered in blood, my cheek wet and cold, and it burns right through me.
I swipe at my skin, rubbing to remove it, glancing down at my hands, smeared in crimson.
I wipe them on my pants and run my hand against my cheek.
Luca grabs my arm, pulling it away. “Undress and get under the shower. I’ll clean you.”
It’s hard to meet his stare, to look at him while I strip down to nothing. I avoid his gaze, worried I’ll see pity or disappointment for what I did tonight.
I step under the heat of the spray and wince.
Luca is right there with me, naked, pulling me under the waterfall, his arms around my waist. I shut my eyes and let it cascade down my face in rivulets, praying it cleans all of me.
My hands move up to my face, scrubbing at my cheeks, my nose, my forehead, all of it.
His hands loosen from my hips, and he gently caresses the spot under my eyes, his finger soft, featherlight against the harsh scouring that I had been doing to get clean.
A heavy sigh escapes my lips, and I pull back from the spray, just enough to stare up at him. “How did you do it?”
“Do what?” he asks, guiding me back under the spray as he washes my hair for me. His fingers tease through my tresses and there’s a calmness he exudes that gives me strength to get through this ordeal.
“Live with the guilt,” I ask as he opens the bottle of shampoo and pours a dollop onto his palms, lathering it through my hair.
“You have no reason to feel guilty, Harper. You protected Zeke, Nova, and yourself.”
I still feel like a failure. “How long was he outside Zeke’s room?” I whisper. “I read my boy a bedtime story. I didn’t check outside his windows.”
“Why would you?” Luca asks. “You can’t blame yourself for what happened.” He rinses the shampoo from my hair and then lathers on conditioner. His touch is soothing, offering me comfort in this tempestuous storm.
He grabs a washcloth and the body wash and lathers my arms, legs, across my chest. His movements are methodical, determined to clean any lasting remnants of blood away from my skin. He works all the way down to my fingers and then my nails, rubbing with the cloth to clean away all traces of evidence.
Washing it away makes me look guilty.
It makes me feel guilty, like I did something bad.
I stare off at the wall, my mind replaying the night’s events in my head on repeat.
Luca kisses my neck, his lips warm, and his arms wrap around me from behind when I realize I’m leaning into his body. His breath and kisses help ground me back to the present, as his fingers graze my hip with one hand and the other hand holds my jaw, tilting my neck higher.
My body melts into him, and his hand on my hip moves up to my breast, caressing my peak, his thumb grazing over my nipple.
I lean my head back on his shoulder, let my eyes glide shut, and his other hand moves from my jaw down across my stomach and between the juncture of my thighs.
A heavy sigh spills past my lips, and for a moment, the tension, the pain, the torment that rained down on me all but disappears.
The moment is short and fleeting, but it’s fueled only with desire, warmth, comfort.
I want more, crave the disconnect from reality, and want his body tangled with mine. “Luca,” I murmur, grinding back against him.
I spread my legs farther, and he teases my folds, his finger grazing around my clit but not quite touching it. He lets his finger caress over my labia, warming my body, making me claw at his arms, needing more.
My hips move in rhythm with his fingers, growing all the more restless with each passing second.
His touch soothes the storm inside of me, and Luca spins me around to face him. I whimper from the loss of contact, his fingers on my hips and no longer between my thighs.
He nips at my mouth, and I lean in, wanting a kiss, just as he pulls slightly back, a wicked smile playing on his lips.
