Page 20 of The Next Lie

“Reva,” he says. My name is rough in his mouth. I hold his face between my hands. “Jesus H.”

His eyes stay on mine as he comes. That feels too intimate, which is stupid considering he is literally inside my body, but apparently I still have standards for emotional exposure. His mouth parts. His brow tightens. His hips jerk up hard one last time, and then he drags me down against him, face buried between my breasts, body pulsing inside mine. For once, Shiloh has no words. I run my fingers through his wet hair because I don’t know what else to do with tenderness when it lands in my lap breathing hard.

We stay that way until the water settles. My knees ache. My hair sticks to my neck. The tile floor is soaked. The air smells like steam, shampoo, sex, and the faint ghost of Noir Night still clinging to whatever the bath has not managed to strip off my skin. Then a tiny mew comes from the bathroom doorway.

Shiloh’s head lifts. Homer sits there, tail curled neatly around his paws, watching us with the solemn judgment of a tiny orange priest. For three full seconds, no one moves. Then Shiloh exhales.

“Fucking hairy creeper.”

A laugh jumps out of me before I can stop it. It sounds terrible. Cracked and wet and too close to crying. But it is a laugh. A real one. Small, but mine. Shiloh stares at me. Then his face changes, and I immediately point at him. “No.”

“I didn’t say anything.”

“You were about to get soft.”

“I am never soft.”

I look pointedly down between us. His mouth opens. Then closes.

“Too easy?” I ask.

“Far too easy.”

Homer mews again, louder this time, either scandalized or hungry. “Get out,” Shiloh tells him. The kitten blinks. “Useless,” Shiloh mutters.

The laugh fades from my chest, but it leaves a little space behind. Not peace. No one is handing out inner peace in Shiloh Lafitte’s sex tub. But space. Enough for one breath that doesn’t scrape all the way down. Shiloh looks back at me. “Still here?”

I nod. Then, because I know him, because he will ask again if I don’t give him what he needs, I say, “I’m here.”

His hand slides up my back. “Good.”

This time, the word doesn’t hook into anything ugly. A few minutes later, he helps me off him with more care than either of us probably deserves after flooding his bathroom. My body is loose and tired now, my brain a little fuzzy around the edges in a way I would usually distrust. Tonight, I take it as a gift and try not to look directly at it. He drains some of the water, then reaches for the shower attachment and rinses us both clean. There is nothing smooth about it now. We are awkward and wet and trying not to slip on porcelain while Homer continues supervising from the doorway like a pervert with whiskers.

Shiloh washes my shoulders, my arms, my back. His hands slow near my hips, asking without words. I let him because the tenderness is easier after the sex, and because I am too tired to fight a kindness that has already proved it knows when to stop. When he reaches for my hair again, I mutter, “If you try to condition my hair, I’m out.”

He laughs then. Quiet. Real. It does something to me I don’t have the energy to examine. Of course, the reprieve does not last. It never does. As soon as Shiloh wraps me in a towel and lifts me out of the tub, the weight of the night starts pressing back in. My knees wobble when my feet hit the floor. He notices because Shiloh notices everything he can use and too many things he can’t.

“Easy,” he says.

“I can stand.”

“I can see that.”

“You’re holding me.”

“I’m admiring your standing from very close range.”

I should roll my eyes. I don’t have the energy. He dries me off without making a production of it, then pulls one of his shirts over my head. It falls to my thighs and smells like him, clean cotton and expensive cologne and the faint bite of smoke that seems to live in all of them no matter how often they wash it away. He dries himself with another towel, pulls on a pair of black lounge pants, and steers me toward the bedroom.

The sheets are already turned down. I stop at the edge of the bed. The room beyond the bathroom looks different now. Dimmer. Quieter. His jacket still lies over the chair. My ruined dress hangs half-off the bathroom counter. Water glistens on the tile behind us. Evidence everywhere. Proof that things happened in a sequence. I need that. I need sequence because everything else keeps trying to fold in on itself.

I saw Delia. I panicked. They brought me here. They told me about the assignment. I climbed onto Shiloh because I wanted something that belonged to me. Now I am standing beside his bed in his shirt, trying to pretend my legs are completely functional. Those are facts. They do not explain anything, but they hold still when I look at them.

Shiloh pulls back the covers. “In.”

“I’m not a child.”

“No. Children are generally less terrifying.”