Wearing a suit in a hot bathroom was fucking hell, but I didn’t bother removing my jacket.
It was my first time touching Stella for such an extended length of time, and I was going to savor every second.
It wasn’t sexual, but the simple glide of her hair against my palms slowed my pulse to a torturous crawl before kicking it into overdrive.
Touching her killed me, then brought me back to life again.
The quiet roar of my heart thrummed in my ears. I rinsed out the shampoo and worked the conditioner into her strands.
The irony of me cleaning Stella wasn’t lost on me. She was the purest soul I knew, and I was neck-deep in blood.
The angel and the sinner.
Two oppositional forces with nothing binding us except a sheet of paper and the unquenchable need in my soul.
I didn’t deserve to touch her, but I wanted her too much to care.
After I finished washing her hair, I picked up her loofah, dipped it in the water, and lathered it up.
The gentle lap of the water against the tub tightened low in my gut.
“Lean forward.” Restraint roughened the edge of my voice.
Stella obliged.
I ran the loofah over her back, my eyes tracking every inch of its slow journey down her smooth, bare skin.
The air pulsed with tangible energy as I dragged it up over her shoulder and across her front. Low enough to skim the tops of her breasts, but high enough to keep things appropriate.
Stella’s body went taut when my arm brushed her neck. I paused, picking up on the renewed rapidness of her breaths.
Its rhythm was different this time—heavier, more weighted.
Heat sparked in my gut, and I stood so abruptly she jumped at the movement. “We’re done.”
There was something fucked up about lusting over someone who was traumatized, even for me.
I yanked a bathrobe off where it hung on the wall and held it open, my eyes averted and my jaw tight.
After a beat of hesitation, Stella climbed out of the tub and slipped into it.
I cinched the belt so tight it elicited a small gasp, but at least the oversized robe covered her from her neck to her calves.
I dried her hair briskly and was about to push her through the bedroom and into the hall when her earlier request resurfaced in my mind.
Can you stay with me? Just for tonight.
A new set of curses scorched my tongue before I swallowed them.
“Do you want to stay here for the night?” I asked gruffly.
She hugged her arms around her waist and, after another moment of hesitation, nodded.
Fuck my life.
Still, I pulled back my covers and nodded at the bed. “Get some rest. We’ll deal with everything in the morning.”
It was early in the evening, but exhaustion lined her face and cast shadows beneath her eyes.
I left the room to grab her nightclothes so she could change into something more sleep-friendly, but by the time I returned, Stella was already fast asleep. It was the most at peace I’d seen her in weeks.
I’d never let another person sleep in my bed before. I thought the sight of her nestled amongst the black and gray silks would be strange, but it felt right.
I placed the clothes on the nightstand next to her and tried to catch up on work, but my brain couldn’t focus.
With my building security compromised, the incompetent but annoying shits at Sentinel breathing down my neck, and a thousand emails to wade through, all I could think about was the woman sleeping a few feet away.
She’d been in my house for less than two hours, and she was already wreaking havoc on my life.
I rubbed a hand over my jaw, my aggravation at war with my desire to protect her at all costs.
I’d been wrong.
Stella wasn’t a distraction. She was a danger—not only to my business but to myself and the parts of me I hadn’t known still existed.