AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I shut off the shower and grab a towel, patting my tender skin. It’s now neon red and feels like I was just scalded, sunburned, road-rashed, and put through the very fires of hell. Which I suppose I was—razor hell. There’s a bottle of lotion that Granny must have put in the bathroom on one of her visits. It looks benign and states it’s for dry skin. I pump a few pumps into my hand and sniff it. It has no scent. I realize Azalea is out there and has been for a very long time, and I’m already murdering this straight up before I can even get out there. I quickly slap the lotion on.
It must have some kind of perfume in it because if I thought I was in the throes of the fires of hell before, I was very, very wrong. I didn’t know what hellfire was until this very moment. I let out a shriek and raced around the bathroom, swatting at my chest, windmilling my arms, and trying to fan air onto the horrible burning inferno that is my body. I guess I knock over the lotion at some point, which breaks open and spills everywhere, but I’m too preoccupied with my hellfire chest to notice. Until, until I back straight onto the spill and go skating across the tiled floor as though I’ve just hit black ice.
I yelp, clutching the towel bar to try and keep myself from going over, but the thing rips off the wall as my hand closes around it, and suddenly, I’m down on my back, and a sharp pain shoots up my spine, my chest still blazing like someone’s sewn hot coals and blazing needles under my skin as I stare up at the bright lights on the ceiling.
And that’s when the door creaks open, and Azalea peeks around it, a very worried expression wrinkling her nose and brow. She gasps, and I gasp as I hastily cover my junk with my hands. God, I seriously hope I’m not bleeding anywhere. That was a hard fall. I’ve destroyed the bathroom, clogged the sink up with hair, tossed my wet clothes into the shower, and my chest looks like a flashing neon open sign and feels like a screaming demon. Could it get any worse?
“I heard a yell and some thumps, then more yelling, the sound of something breaking, and that was after a good long stretch of silence, then the shower, and uh…a really loud crash. Not in that order. I needed to make sure you were okay. But…”
“Please,” I beg. “Just leave me to wallow in my humiliation.”
She rolls her eyes at me and grabs the wadded-up towel from on top of the toilet, where I guess I tossed it. “Not a chance, Alden. Not a chance.”
CHAPTER 11
Azalea
Yes, I wanted him to be punished. I wanted him to have a taste of his own medicine, but this…this is punishment enough. I’m also in practical librarian mode, and the practical librarian in me is worried that Alden broke something or cracked his head open when he fell. And how does a man his size fall onto the floor in a bathroom this small? He had to have hit something on the way down. I don’t know what’s redder. His face or his poor chest. I don’t know what he’s done in here, but I think whatever it was, he was attempting to do it for me, and honestly, I’m kind of flattered.
My chest burns as red and painful on the inside as Alden’s chest looks, which is where I firmly keep my eyes until I snatch the towel off the sink and drape it over his manly bits—bits I totally did not look at. I freaking swear.
So, a few minutes ago—well, really twenty or so minutes ago now—my body got a few wires crossed, something primal and hormonal took over my mind, and it sizzled and fizzled my rational response system and short-circuited it until I was willing to do some insane things.
Yeah.
It’s probably better this way. My brain registered a naked man, and that was it. My eyes locked firmly on his face and stayed there until everything was under wraps. I mean cover.
“What on earth were you doing in here?” The bathroom looks like a wreck. I kind of get it, based on the amount of fluffy black hair all over the sink, the discarded razor, and the neon-red chest that’s so bright it nearly hurts to look at it, but I have to ask anyway.
“I…I was…manscaping.” Alden clutches the towel to himself and slowly arches up into a sitting position.
There’s just a glass shower in here, a toilet, and a sink. As I said, it’s small. He sits up with his own strength and doesn’t need to lean on anything, so I guess that’s a good sign. I want to check him over for bumps and cuts, but I don’t think he’d appreciate that. I do vow to keep an eye on him to make sure he’s not concussed, though.
