She wasn’t sure what he felt about that. She wasn’t sure where to go from here.
“I’m going to go run a bath,” he said.
His decisiveness, yet again, saved them.
She lay there on her back, staring at the ceiling. She was supposed to be here with Asher.
That made her laugh. Because not a single part of her felt like that was true. Not a single part of her felt like that was actually meant to be.
No.
This, Justice, felt a whole lot more meant to be than anything else could. She didn’t know what was going to happen next, but she knew that he was going to take care of her. And that was no small certainty. In her life, the certainty that somebody would take care of her was the biggest thing she could think of.
Chapter Twenty
The water was running, and had been for several minutes before Justice came back into the room.
“You good?” he asked.
She realized she was still lying on the bed like a starfish, breathing heavily. Her heart rate still hadn’t returned to normal.
“I mean, I think you might’ve killed me.”
“Don’t be dead, Rue. I’m not finished with you yet.”
“I know. That’s what scares me.
He came over to the bed, still completely naked, and every last brain cell went dormant as she took in the sight of all that perfect male flesh.
Then he bent down and scooped her up. “You have to be careful,” she said. “I’m going to get used to this.” She had meant for it to sound funny and lighthearted, but she was afraid it had sounded a whole lot more loaded. She was afraid that it actually might be.
He carried her easily into the bathroom, where the tub was three-quarters full. And then he set her down slowly into the warmth.
She sighed, suddenly becoming aware of some muscles that were sore. She had been tensing up more than usual. Then Justice got into the tub with her, andit was just so... strange and terrifying and sort of wonderful, to be naked in a bathtub looking at him.
“Do you still think orgasms are overrated?” he asked, with no small amount of smug amusement in his voice.
“I... I don’t even know how you did that.”
“Youdid it.”
“But I...” She scrunched up her face. “It is really silly to be embarrassed after we did all that, isn’t it?”
“Nothing is silly,” he said. “You can feel however you want to feel.”
“Well, I don’t want to feel embarrassed.”
She chose right then to just stop. To stop being embarrassed. There was freedom in this. In being able to actually talk to him, talk to somebody about the way she felt about all this. She had never been able to talk to Asher about it.
That was a problem.
“I’ve always been afraid to let go. But with you it felt easy. But no one’s ever... no one’s ever actually...”
“He never went down on you.”
“No,” she said. “I didn’t want to ask, because I accepted a long time ago that stuff with sex wasmyissue. I think right at first when I slept with him I was a little bit frustrated. I wanted something more out of it. Something different. Well, at first, I was just glad that I felt the same after the first time we slept together.”
“How do you mean?”
