“You're just so angry all the time!” Missy laughed, forming Cain's hair into a pair of horns. “What makes you so full of rage? Could it be...Satan?”
Cain's laughter bubbled to the surface in spite of him. “Stop! That's not funny!”
“It was a little funny,” Missy said, rinsing the shampoo out of his hair.
“Okay, fine, maybe just a little,” Cain admitted grudgingly. “So are you done?”
“Nope, still got the conditioner.”
“You don't have to do that,” Cain said dismissively. “I don't even really use it.”
“Oh?” she asked. “Then why do you have a bottle of it next to the shampoo, and why is two-thirds of it gone? Have you been drinking it?”
“No, but...”
“Then shut up and let me finish, big guy,” Missy chided, taking the bottle of conditioner from the hanging rack under the shower head. “This won't take long.”
Missy worked the conditioner into Cain's hair. As she did, she found herself rubbing his scalp again, massaging it slowly and deliberately. Her fingers worked in smooth circles, and she realized she was bringing them lower, lower, until she was kneading Cain's temples.
Suddenly, she remembered that he'd been kicked in the head multiple times. “Does this hurt?” she asked.
“No, it's fine,” Cain said quietly.
Missy's hands kept working slowly, sensually, burying themselves in Cain's hair. Missy felt a series of tingles ripple through her body, from the nape of her neck to somewhere just below her waist. She told herself that the conditioner was certainly rubbed in thoroughly enough, and that it was time to stop touching him.
But she couldn't.
Instead, her fingers ventured below his hair, caressing the nape of his neck. She pressed a little harder, working the muscles carefully and feeling them loosen at her touch. A faint groan escaped Cain's lips, and she was sure that what she heard in it was pleasure, not pain.
The tingling in her body intensified, like a chain reaction blossoming through her.
The towel around Cain's waist shifted slightly, and Missy felt her eyes yanked down toward it before she could stop herself.
A sizeable bulge had appeared along Cain's left leg. He had an erection.
Missy's hands paused for a moment, and she heard a growl of annoyance escape Cain's lips. He pulled himself to his feet quickly with a snarl of pain, almost knocking Missy backward in the process. She knocked over the conditioner and it hit the floor, spilling out creamy liquid.
“I told you I didn't want any fucking conditioner!” Cain screamed. “Now get out of here and let me finish.” Below the anger in his voice, Missy heard a quaver of something that sounded like embarrassment.
“Fine,” Missy answered in a thin voice. All of the breath had suddenly left her body. “Leave the conditioner, I'll clean it up later...”
“Just fucking go!”
Missy ran out, slamming the door behind her. Her heart was thumping in her chest, and the moisture in the bathroom had given her skin a thin sheen of perspiration. She went to the kitchen and finished the dishes, listening for more curses from Cain.
There weren't any. Just silence.
Chapter 14
Cain
Cain ran his head under the shower spray for a long time, trying to use one hand to vigorously rub out the conditioner. When he'd done his best, he shut off the water and carefully stepped out, making sure to avoid the pearly white puddle on the floor. The way it looked under the yellowed light of the bathroom reminded him of semen, and he felt a fresh surge of anger. His erection was still pointing like an accusing finger, and its steady throb traveled deep into the pit of his stomach.
Goddamn it, why had she massaged his head like that? So…sensually. Hadn't he acted shitty enough to her to make sure she didn't get any fucking ideas?
Cain never had any trouble satisfying his libido when he needed to. There were always plenty of pretty, friendly, uncomplicated girls willing to drop their panties for a night or two and explore their wild sides with a biker like him. He always made sure it never went past that, though. He never wanted to have a real relationship—nothing that could drift toward commitment or marriage, nothing that could even come within spitting distance of words like “love” or “trust.”
He knew why he lived this way, and he was comfortable enough with himself to accept it. He'd spent three years in a juvenile detention center from ages 14 to 17, and while he was there, his court-appointed shrink had gravely expressed her worries that Cain would never be able to “normalize” when in a real relationship, due to “the unfortunate failings of his parental figures” and his “deep-seated phobias based on the poor example they'd set for him.”