She shivered, eyes darting between us as if suddenly aware of how much bigger than her we both were, looming over her small body.
“We ain’t gonna force you,” I said again, a little softer this time. “But Johanna? We allhaveto do this. Now take those off,” I said evenly, nodding at her lingerie.
She sucked that bottom lip between her teeth, anddamndid it make me want to kiss her harder than I’d ever kissed anyone in my life.
“Will you look away?”
“No.”
She swallowed, shivering slightly.
“We need to get you ready,” Roman muttered. “We have to get you washed up, shaved, all of it.”
Her eyes went wide. “Shaved?”
I nodded at the hair between her legs and she went bright red.
“Oh.”
She dropped her eyes to the ground, fingers toying with each other in a way that made me want to bring her close and protect her against all of this shit. But I couldn’t. This girl might have had some sort ofinsanedraw on me, but I didn’t know her. I might have been unable to tear my eyes away from her, or stop my fucking head from thinking of her every damn second since I’d seen her, but Ihadto remember the debt.
Wehad to remember that, I thought, seeing my own torn look mirrored across from me on Roman’s face.
“I can wash myself,” Johanna finally said in a quiet voice. “I can wash myself and — you know, that.”
I glanced at Roman. Protocol was never to leave a new addition to the academy alone with anything they could use to hurt themselves if they suddenly regretted their choice in coming here.
Or in her case, if the reality of the situation got too much.
“You’re not going to do anything stupid if we leave you alone, are you?”
She frowned and I nodded at the straight razor sitting on the edge of the marbled bathroom sink.
Her eyes went wide. “Oh,God, no.” She shook her head quickly. “No of course not.”
I kept my face neutral, but I was grinning on the inside. “Good. We’ll be downstairs. Take your time, we’ll come check on you in a bit.”
* * *
We gaveher an hour before we knocked on the door to her quarters.
“Okay, I’m done,” she said softly.
Roman shrugged at me and I nodded as he opened the door. We stepped inside to see Johanna wrapped in a big fluffy white robe, her hair still damp and pulled back over one shoulder.
“Everything okay?”
She nodded quickly. “Mhmm, yep.”
Roman and I glanced at each other.
“Let’s see.”
Johanna’s face went a little pale. “Excuse me?”
“Let’s see,” Roman said evenly. “Show us.”
Her hands tightened on the robe.