This time my what is higher in cadence. I shrink into the wall some more. Although I don’t think I’m going anywhere.
Zach puts his other arm out and splays it wide on the wall. Leaning toward me, he says in a raspy tone, “Rubbing one out. Haven’t you ever done that in a shower?”
“Of course I have.”
Oh man.
Wrong thing to say. So completely, utterly wrong.
The tightness of his face melts away and his eyes shine with mirth. Before he can comment over my slipped-out careless reply, I almost shout, “Don’t. Don’t say a word. I don’t want to hear it, okay?”
His jet-black eyes flick back and forth over my face. “Kind of uptight, aren’t you? For someone hiding in my bathtub.” Throwing me a lopsided smile, he rasps in a low voice, “Tell you what. I’ll turn around and you can do whatever you do to make yourself…” One final sweep of my features and then, “Loose.”
Loose.
Right.
Can I murder him? I mean, how bad can prison be, really? They give you free food and a bed to sleep on.
Puffing out an angry breath that widens his smirk, I snap, “Real classy. I’m here to do my job, you idiot. Taking out your trash and changing your bedsheets. My life goals, remember?”
His smirk is replaced by a sharpened edge of his jaw. I guess he’s still angry about the fact that I work here.
Join the club, asshole.
“And yet, my sheets aren’t changed and the trash is still in the trashcan.”
I narrow my eyes at him. Well, because he’s right. I didn’t clean. I snooped.
“I don’t remember letting you in,” he goes on.
“I knocked. You didn’t open.”
“That still doesn’t explain how you got in.”
I have this grave urge to shift from one foot to another as if I did something wrong, which I kinda did. “I had the key.”
“I want it back.”
“What?”
“The key. I don’t want you in my space.”
He’s right. He really doesn’t. I’m a snoop. But hello? After everything he’s done to me over the years, I have the freaking right to look through his stuff.
“Trust me, being in your space is the last thing I want. Who knows what prank you’ll play on me?”
“Prank.”
That word in my mouth didn’t sound nearly as dangerous as it does in his. It’s the way his lips and his tongue molded around the word and gave it a life. A dangerous kind of life, and suddenly, I’m bombarded with all these ideas. Of what he can do to me.
Swallowing, I look at the curl of his biceps. They are huge.
He could crush me, if he wanted. He could wrap his large arms around me, restrain me with his body, cover me and hide me under him. And it would take days for someone to find me.
“Yes.” I clear my throat, my eyes still stuck to his rippling muscles, as my lungs are running out of air. “If you’re thinking of locking me up in here, I’ll have you know that they’re looking for me. My friend, she knows I’m up here and if I don’t show up for lunch, she’s going to call 911.”
“Good to know.”