My words falter as he reaches for my sponge and the bottle of shower gel on the side.
“Cleaning you up.”
“I thought you liked me dirty,” I quip.
His eyes flare with heat, but he doesn’t stop what he’s doing.
After lathering up the sponge, he moves closer, getting farther under the spray of the shower, and lifts it to my shoulder. He meticulously cleans every inch of me. The soothing circles he rubs against my skin are at complete odds with his brutal touch not so long ago, and just like everything with this enigma of a man before me, it makes my head spin.
Inch by inch, he washes away the blood he marked my body with.
His touch is hypnotic, but when he pulls his hand away and I catch a glance at the wound across his palm, everything comes crashing down around me.
I reach for him and pull his hand between us so I can look.
“We need to clean this up,” I say softly.
In a move that makes my heart tumble, he snatches it back and curls it into a fist.
“It’s fine.”
His eyes hold mine and the dark resignation within them tells me all I need to know about what’s going to happen next.
“Don’t, please.” The words fall from my lips without instruction from my brain as I take a step toward him.
But it’s pointless. He’s slipped his cold, hard mask back into place, and I already know that there will be nothing I can say to change the decision he’s made.
“I’m sorry.”