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“Come on, let’s get you into the tub.” Storm is all business again, and he drags me to my feet. I go down the three steps. It’s a Jacuzzi rather than a tub, with all the nozzles for the water built in, but they aren’t on, and the water is slightly too hot on my skin.
Feels good though, and as I slide down, sinking up to my chin in the water, I sigh in relief. Clouds of dirt immediately waft off me, from my skin, from my beard, from the ends of my hair.
“You’ll be okay here, buddy?” Storm kneels on the edge of the tub, wetting his pants and looking satisfied. “Layla will take good care of you.”
“She was…” Finally warm and relaxed, I hunt for the words. “You should’ve seen her, dude. She never once believed I was the bad guy, not even when I fucking told her I was. Not even when she heard me tell Sandivar I was taking his deal. She believed in me, and she fought for me. She’s… fierce.”
Storm grins. “Well, well. Not just crushing on her, are you? This sounds like more.”
“Fuck you,” I say without heat and lean my head back again. “She was kinda sick, too, from the stress and everything. She said it was hard for her, seeing me getting beaten up all the time. No girl should ever have to witness anything like that, but she never changed her mind about staying and helping me get out.”
Storm nods, his face serious again. “I’m damn glad, man. Glad you survived your moronic plan. You’re never doing anything like this again, are we clear?”
“Shouldn’t you be with your girl, junior?”
“She’s here. You’ll see her later.” Storm gets up, rakes a hand through his wild hair. “And then we’ll talk.”
I bet we will. So much we need to plan.
So of course the only thing filling up my mind from end to end is Layla and the fact she’s going to take a bath with me, gorgeously naked and up close and personal.
Of course.
Chapter Fourteen
Layla
I’m nervous.
Ridiculous, I know. Nervous about taking a bath with Hawk, the guy I’ve been having wild sex with for months and months. The guy I had sex with only yesterday. The guy I’m supposed to take care of in the bath so he won’t drown on his own.
But lots has changed in the last couple of days, at least for me. I’m not the same girl I was before the nightmare at the warehouse.
My feelings for Hawk are not the same. They are burning me from the inside out; they are eating up my heart.
Because I gave my heart to him, and he obviously doesn’t want it.
Touching him isn’t the same anymore. Every touch, every sensation has taken on new meaning for me. It pierces me through and through, it changes me.
And it hurts me because for him obviously nothing had changed. Oh, I saved him. He likes me. He’s proud of me. But it’s just sex to him. We’re just friends with benefits. Nothing has changed.
Of course nothing has changed—only now he doesn’t need to worry about knocking me up and having to do something about it. Not that he ever had any
long-term plans for me.
I mean, who am I anyway? Just a girl he saved one horrible night from humiliation and kept fucking ever since.
Deliciously fucking, true, dirtily fucking, oh God, but that doesn’t change the fundamental truth of the shallowness of our relationship.
Yet, when I open the bedroom door and stand there, looking at him where he’s slumped inside the sunken tub, his beautiful body bared, the dark tattoos of roses climbing his chest like a briar, the thorns leaving bloody trails… I don’t know if I can accept it.
Accept we’re back where we started. Ignore my feelings for him.
It doesn’t matter. He needs my help—just like he did in the warehouse. Those brutal friends of his would probably hurt him worse if they tried to help him clean himself, and frankly the thought of another woman helping him makes me stomach roil.
Help him. Make sure he’s okay. And then see what to do next. We’re in hiding right now, and I don’t even want to think about where we go from here.
Besides, I’m dead on my feet, and I stink. I also need to clean up, and eat, and rest.
