AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“The bath's ready, princess,” he says gently, stroking a hand down my back. “Take however long you need, okay? I'll be right outside.”
“No.” It's the first word I've spoken since Cole said what happened to me was sexual assault and it burns in my throat. “Don't leave me.”
The hand on my back freezes and I feel his body tense. “Thea.” The word is drawn out and reluctant.
“Please.”
He sighs, a long breath tickling through the wild strands of my hair. “I guess I could just face the door.”
I feel him start to set me down and my feet don't even touch the floor before panic starts to rise like a seismic wave.
“No. No. No.” It's a hysterical, whispered chant I repeat over and over again until I feel his arms tighten back around me.
“Christ, okay.” He takes a hand off my back to swipe it down his face. “Want me to sit on the floor next to the tub?”
I shake my head.
“Then tell me what you want.”
“Bathe with me?” I ask meekly.
“Princess, I can't do that.” He plants my ass down firmly onto the bathroom counter, standing back to look at my tear-stained face with his hands cupping my cheeks. “It wouldn't be right.”
My heart plummets. Every time I imagined telling Cole what happened, I imagined his disgust at my betrayal. I pictured him yelling and calling me names, saying things even worse than my father did. And maybe it was my mistake, but it didn't cross my mind that even if he didn't hate me for it, he'd still be appalled. He'd see me as nothing more than damaged goods. Somehow, his soft but assertive rejection hurts more than any cruel words he could have screamed at me instead.
“Oh, okay, yeah,” I say, trying desperately to keep the pain out of my voice. “I get it.”
With stinging eyes, I nudge him gently to the side and slip off the counter.
“Whoa, princess.” He catches my wrist with long fingers. “What the fuck just happened?”
“What?” I sniff as the first tear falls.
He dives around me to look at me with wide and stricken eyes. “You're gonna have to help me out here, baby. Why are you crying again?”
Shaking my head, I stare down at the cracked tile floor. “Do I disgust you?”
He rears back. “What?”
“I understand if I do.”
“Okay, you're gonna need to stop talking right the fuck now.”
He looks mad. His eyes are dark, yet burning with a raging fire and there's a tick to his jaw that wasn't there a minute ago.
“It's kind of insulting that you'd think I would be disgusted or whatever because you were sexually assaulted. But you can stop that fucked-up line of thought immediately.”
He strokes the back of his hand across my cheek, his lips tilting with the smallest of smiles when I lean into the touch.
“You are still the most mesmerizing woman in the whole world, Thea. What happened to you has no bearing on that.”
“You think I'm mesmerizing?” I ask breathlessly, my face blushing under his heated gaze.
“Dumbest fucking question I've ever heard.”
Though I'm feeling notably better than I was before, the sting of his rejection hasn't eased at all. He must see it in my expression because he tilts my chin up, clasping it between his thumb and forefinger.
“Princess, look at me. You have no idea how hard it is to turn you down. Feeling you wet and naked against me? Fuck, it's everything I've dreamt about since I hit puberty. But it ain't fair to Aiden, no matter how much I hate that Hollywood prick for getting to touch you when I don't.”
