“I’ll go get her some of my clothes,” Eedie said. “And leave them on the bed.”
“Thanks, honey,” Webber murmured.
I heard the difference in the acoustics and decided we must be in the bathroom.
I was proved right when he sat me delicately on the vanity and said, “Sit here. I’ll help you undress once I get the shower hot.”
I sat and only let out a small groan when my butt hit the hard surface.
“Based on your bruising pattern, I’m guessing you were curled up into a ball, and she was only able to hit your left side,” he offered as he moved away.
“Yeah,” I replied.
“Tell me from start to finish what happened,” he urged.
The shower turned on, and then he was back, helping me undress.
He took the IV out of my hand and then replaced it with a Band-Aid before I started explaining.
“I don’t really know what happened with my dad. He was spouting all this crap about my mother, and I must’ve said or done something to really make him mad, because he punched me in the face,” I said. “I’ve never been hit like that before. I was stunned, and it hurt so bad that it took me a couple of minutes to orient myself. By then he was leaving, but he left the door open to my apartment.”
I explained the rest while Webber gently helped me into the shower.
He washed my hair while I told him about how Cadence Moran entered my apartment.
He rinsed my hair out while I told him about how Moran had taken advantage of my vulnerable position.
He applied conditioner while I told him about how I feared for my life.
He ran his soap over my body, and the scent of man filled my nostrils as I told him what she’d had to say when I’d heard her break my chair—by that point, she’d hit me in the face on the other side of my eye, and I hadn’t been able to see.
“She told me that I needed to tell you that if I didn’t get her brother to her by the end of the week, she’d kill me. My sister. My nephew. And your daughter. She said we had four more days, and she was going to start picking them off one by one, saving me for last so I could witness it all and hopefully convince you to find her brother.”
Since I couldn’t see Webber, I couldn’t tell how mad he was by the end of my explanation.
His touch had never gotten any rougher than a whisper across my skin.
His voice remained even.
His soothing sounds remained just that—soothing.
However, I didn’t need to be able to see or hear his anger to know that he was angry.
Who wouldn’t be after what I’d just told him about his daughter?
He helped me out of the shower, and his hands were so achingly soft as he toweled me dry.
He helped me into one of his shirts and then handed me a toothbrush with some toothpaste on it before saying, “Sink’s right here.”
I brushed my teeth and used the bathroom, achingly aware that he was close by.
When I was finished, I felt around for the door that would lead me out of the bathroom and nearly lost my life when my foot hit a wet patch on the ground.
I was caught by a hard, overwhelmingly welcoming body.
“Careful,” he said quietly.
I pressed my forehead against his chest and couldn’t stop the moan that left me. “That hurt.”