She whips the shower door open to flip me the bird. I give her a hard look even though her brat act is totally growing on me. She slides the door closed again, but not before I get an eyeful of her wet body, even more glorious with droplets of water dripping down, begging to be licked.
Damn.
She’s in there forever. I think about telling her to hurry the fuck up, but what does it matter, really? This is the only chance she’ll get to be free of the zip ties, I might as well let her enjoy it.
“Who is Nadia?” she demands after a stretch. I hear the accusation in her voice.
Suddenly, the hurt in her eyes and voice makes more sense.
Fuck.
That means she’s already attached to me. Attached enough to be jealous of a girl who calls me on the phone.
Why did I have to get sexual with her last night?
I don’t need this complication.
She doesn’t need this complication. Or does it make it easier? No, that was my thinking last night. Get her to my place consensually to avoid further trauma. But it’s really more of a delayed trauma.
Because ultimately, there’s one way this ends: with her father dead by my hand.
How’s she going to feel about that if she thinks we’re friends? Lovers?
I don’t answer, turning the angles over in my mind. I’m not practiced yet at making split-second decisions. I’m the cleaner. The one who thinks through things after they happen. I take time to chew over a situation.
Suddenly, she flies out of the still-running shower, the handle of my razor clutched like a weapon. She leaps on me, straddling my waist, and tries to drive the handle of the razor into my eye. I catch her wrist, which is slippery and wet and storm forward into the shower, where I pin her back against the tile wall. Water soaks through my clothes, fills my boots. I bang the wrist of the hand holding the razor against the tile to make her drop it.
“Who is she?” she screams. “Why did you fuck with me? Why–” Her voice breaks.
“She’s my sister,” I say, all my reasoning out the window now. “I shouldn’t have fucked with you. I shouldn’t have. It was wrong. I’m sorry, malysh.”
“Why did you?” she croaks.
“I didn’t plan on grabbing you last night, all right? I was just following you. Learning your habits. But you noticed me. And then those mudaks tried to rape you.”
“You raped me!” She tries to head butt me again, but I move my head to the side. My nose feels slightly swollen and bruised from her earlier attack. “Why didn’t you just…why did you?”
Her confusion guts me. “I’m sorry. You were tripping. I didn’t want the drugs to enhance the trauma. So I waited.”
She stares at me, soaking it in. “You didn’t want… you were saving me from a bad trip?” Water droplets bead on her lashes. Her black eyeliner from last night has been washed clean, and she’s even lovelier this way.
I nod.
“And Nadia is your sister?”
I ease back and let her slide to the shower floor now that the fight’s gone out of her.
“Da. She’s…” I stop myself. I don’t want to tell Kateryna the details of what her father did. It’s bad enough I will be taking him from her. I don’t have to ruin her image of him, too.
“Your father ruined her.” I leave it at that, backing away and closing the shower door.
Kat
I stand under the spray of water, trembling. Stunned by the new information revealed by my captor.
This is revenge for Nadia. His sister.
Whom my father ruined.
Ruined how? I squeeze my eyes shut. I don’t think I want to know. Just like I don’t want to know for certain what happened to my mother. Whether she’s still out there somewhere or if my father ruined her, too.
I open the shower door and find Adrian’s still at his same post against the door. He’s dripping wet, his clothing soaked through, his dark hair sticking flat to his forehead.
“Do you want to come in?” My throat is scratchy from screaming. “The water is still warm.”
He shakes his head. “No. I shouldn’t have mixed things for us. It was wrong. It only makes things harder.”
I nod, suddenly deeply sad. It’s probably just the let down from last night’s ecstasy. My brain’s chemicals have to be completely out of whack.
“Stay in there as long as you like. We have nowhere to be today.”
Damn.
He’s…kind. As I’d suspected last night, under the rough, grumpy exterior is a worthy man.
I keep the shower door open but back into the spray of water. I don’t know if I’m trying to tempt him or just needing to stay connected. “Last night was a job?” I lift my hands to my hair, tracking Adrian’s gaze when it falls to my lifted breasts. “You had sex with me to keep me from having a bad trip. That’s all?”
“I didn’t have sex with you.”
“Yeah, keep telling yourself that. I had your dick in my mouth, and you had your tongue between my legs. That’s pretty damn sexual.”
He grasps the ends of the towel and pushes me against the wall. “I’m sorry, Kateryna. It was a mistake. It won’t happen again.”
He’s saying the wrong thing. I don’t want him to apologize and tell me it was a mistake. I want him to say it rocked his world the way it rocked mine. I want him to tell me he’s the guy I thought he was last night. The sexy grumpy bear capable of everything, fulfilling all my deepest, darkest sexual fantasies. The guy who explicitly asked for and waited for consent but then took charge in the most deliciously dommy world.