I blinked against the water misting in my face. It was coming off of Luka as the shower beat against him, but he didn’t pay any attention. It ran in rivulets over his shoulders and down his chest, and I wanted to watch the path it carved, but didn’t dare take my gaze off of his onyx-colored eyes.
“Not a word,” he repeated, every syllable weighted.
“Okay,” I whispered. His intense stare made me uncomfortable, and my awkwardness couldn’t be contained. “How does you being in my way in the shower save time?”
The muscle along his jaw flexed.
Since it was his only response, I pushed further. “Or did you mean we didn’t have time to play ‘Let’s drown Addison in the bathtub’ again?”
Uh oh. The eyebrow arrowed upward and a scowl threatened. “I wasn’t going to drown you. That was a lesson so you’d understand who’s in charge.”
“Oh. Not me,” I said, my words bitter. “Got it.”
His cold façade snapped back into place. “I told you, these first few days will be hard. You can make it easier on yourself by not fighting. It just wastes energy. I’m going to win every time.”
I swallowed down the rising anger. Let him believe that, I thought. The faster he got comfortable in his position on top, the sooner he’d make a mistake. Plus, he couldn’t be around me twenty-four seven. He had a job.
I took a page from his book and let my face go blank. I didn’t say anything. I grabbed my shampoo bottle, turned away from him, and lathered my hair as quickly as possible. But Luka was standing under the water. To rinse off, he’d have to move out of the way. Why did he have to make everything so difficult?
It must have been clear I was waiting to get under the shower. He pulled me to him until my back was pressed against his hard chest and we shared the water cascading from the huge, fancy-looking showerhead. This wasn’t saving time at all. Was he . . . using this as an excuse to put his arms around me? I rinsed the last of the suds from my hair, and stayed in his unexpected embrace. What the hell was wrong with me? Why did I keep having to remind myself that I hated him?
While I refused to admit I liked his strong arms around me, I could not get myself to step away.
“What about your mother?” I asked.
His tone was guarded. “What about her?”
He’d only mentioned his father, so I assumed his parents were divorced. “Where is she?”
“She died when I was nine.”
There was a stab of pain in my heart. “Oh.” Good lord, what was I supposed to say? Something sympathetic? I was ill-equipped to offer him any words of comfort.
Luka’s arms eased away, and painful awkwardness descended on us. I stepped into the corner out of the water and stared blankly at the pattern in the tile while he showered. It was cold, and I crossed my arms over my chest to hold in my shiver.
“Okay,” he said dryly, “the shy girl routine has got to go. Turn around.”
I frowned. “I can’t just shut that off.”
“You will, because I like looking at you. You’re fucking gorgeous.”
His words were a sucker punch to my center. Gorgeous? I was average at best. No one noticed mousy, proper Addison.
No one but Luka, apparently. I closed my eyes and turned in a slow circle until I faced him.
“Eyes open,” he said. “Stop hiding from me.”
I opened my eyes to glare at him, but he wasn’t looking at my face. His gaze swept appreciatively over my body, lingering on my breasts, before it finally settling on my eyes. There wasn’t a hint of a lie in his expression. Only desire. I had no idea how to feel about it.
Bottles and other shower accessories were shoved to one side of the ledge, and when Luka stood back up, he pointed to the bench. “Sit.”
I had to remind myself of the end goal. I would play my part as the obedient captive until the time was right. I lowered to sit and cringed at the cold tile against my bare skin.
“Good,” he said softly.
His all-seeing gaze was fixed on me, so I focused on the water swirling down the drain at his feet. The direction of the shower shifted away from us. He must have moved the showerhead. He sank down onto his knees before me, setting his dripping hands on my knees that were pinched together. His palms pried my legs apart, shoving me wide even as I began to resist. “Open.”
He was so much stronger than I was, and it forced my full attention on him. His hair was black when wet, and it only made him look more dangerous. More sinister and seductive. He edged closer between my legs so I couldn’t shut them, and his palms pressed me wide until I was entirely exposed.