Saint (A Dark Mafia Romance)(27)

“Thanks.”

I place the clothes on the sink counter before I turn back, swallowing as I drag my eyes up to his.

God, he’s built.

“Um, does the door have to stay open this time?”

My voice feels small.

Connor gives me a long look. “Depends. You going to run?”

“In your bathroom?”

“It’s a five story drop out that window. How spry are you feeling?”

I smile quietly. “I think I’ll just shower and save suicidal jumps for later.”

“Then the door can stay shut.” He nods brusquely. “I’ll be in the kitchen.”

He steps away from the bathroom door, and it’s not until I shut it after him that I let the breath out I’ve been holding in a thin stream.

I strip quickly, hanging my clothes on a hook on the back of a door. I quickly wrap the towel around myself and look up to catch my reflection in the mirror.

I shiver, realizing I’m standing naked and wrapped in a towel about twenty feet from the man who kidnapped me. The man who shot people in front of me, dragged me here, and tied me to his bed.

…And the man who saved me from the nightmare tonight could have been. The man who says here is the safest place I can be right now. And somehow, I believe him.

Part of me realizes I should probably be more scared of him than I am, but there’s something about him. Well, no, he does scare me, but it’s more a feeling of adrenaline that shivers down my spine. I don’t feel endangered around him, I just feel on edge - nervous anticipation, for what I’m not sure.

And he saved me.

He came for me.

It’s a weird juxtaposition of kidnapper and hero.

I glance at the door, biting my lip and weighing the chances of him walking back in. Finally, I peel my towel off and hang it on the back of the door.

I gasp at the scalding hotness of the water, shying away from it and feeling it prickle my skin at first, but then quickly adjusting to it. It’s insanely hot - hotter than I’d ever have it myself, but right now, it actually feels heavenly.

Slowly, I feel the soreness in my muscles relax as the water and the steam drapes over me, washing the madness and the fear of the past two days from my skin.

So, this is being a prisoner.

I glance around the lavish, masculine bathroom - the steaming hot water pouring from three different luxury massage-head sprayers, the silver fixtures, the gorgeous vanity counter.

Yeah, could be worse.

I could still be floundering drunk in my apartment, furious that my shitty boyfriend was obviously cheating on me and that I was too much of a pussy to do anything to confront him. I could still be ignoring the calls from my student advisor, the messages getting increasingly more frantic about the state of my grades.

I could be much worse at Jayson’s place if Connor hadn’t have come and pulled me out of there.

I shiver. No, instead, I’m quite safe, and quite oddly content here with him.

Once again, I think of him as that strange mix of kidnapper and hero.

It’s a very conflicting feeling.

I reach for the shampoo, sudsing and then rinsing under the water before reaching for the soap. I lather my skin, wincing at the bruises and the cuts from the other night, from when he took me.

I shiver thinking of that look in his eyes when he strode toward me in that back room of that bar and grabbed me. I remember how he yanked me against him, his hands tight on my skin - somehow both terrifying and electrifying.

My pulse beats beneath my skin as I remember the way he tossed me over his shoulder - the way he just manhandled me to where he needed me. The way he just took me, like I was his to take. Like some sort of Viking stealing a village girl away as a conquest.

And goddamnit if my body doesn’t respond to that thought.

Damnit if I don’t feel the illicit tingle of want creeping through my body. There’s an ache aside of me, one that comes teasing out through places it shouldn’t. I bite my lip under the spray of the water, squeezing my legs together as the forbidden temptation and desire I shouldn’t have come flooding through me.

The roughness of his touch.

The hard look in his eyes.

The way his lips felt against mine, the room spinning and my feet leaving the ground as I melted into that moment.

I think of the way he tossed me onto his bed - the way my pulse had skipped as he’d loomed above me. The way the fear and the adrenaline had pulsed through me at the thought of him just doing whatever he wanted to me.

The way the arousal tingles through my pussy, thinking of him doing exactly what he wants to me.

My breath comes heavy, and my soapy hand lingers on my belly. I pant as it slides up to the slope of my breasts, letting a finger trace over my nipple.

I squeeze my eyes shut as if trying to shove away the feeling that thinking of him like that brings up inside. I’m trying to tell myself how wrong it is to think these sort of thoughts about the man who stole me away - the man who put a gun to my head and tied me up.