In the shower, I jumped away from a stream of hot water, trying to collect my thoughts. Through the mosaic-print sliding glass doors, I saw a silhouette. With the water drops hitting the shower doors and the steam in the bathroom, I blinked in disbelief, swiped a hand over my eyes, and didn’t move. I didn’t even breathe. I froze in place because, after all, this was the sacred home of a beast man who would dislike it very much if someone desecrated the things he’d bought for his mate. Like the sneakers I wore, two sizes too big for me, or the tights that looked like loose pants on me. Was the Mayhem dude here? Or it could be another human, dumb enough to loot.
A purple towel draped over the glass door.
I jumped away from the towel, then thought better of it. I was naked, and he was a man. I snatched the soft towel and held it against my chest. The mosaic-covered glass door left everything to my imagination and his, so that worked for me. What didn’t really work for me was that he was looking right at me. I didn’t want to open the door, a shield between this stranger and me. How the hell did he get in here? I squeezed my eyes and remembered stumbling, tired, into the house and not commanding it to engage the alarms. Stupid, stupid, stupid.
Minutes passed, and he didn’t speak.
“I just needed to freshen up,” I said. “I’m an owned pair. My collar’s on the sink. You’ll be sorry if you hurt me.”
When he didn’t peep a sound, I ground my teeth and—very slowly—picked up a shampoo bottle. With my poison darts inside the pocket of the dirty pants on the floor, I didn’t have anything but my bare hands. Hm. There were pens in the nightstand. Maybe I could stab him in the eye if I got out of the bathroom, because I didn’t stand a chance against him. He was simply too big to handle. And up three flights of stairs with the large window at my back, if I jumped from this floor, I’d break something.
The man took a step forward and opened the sliding door near the showerhead. I scooted, squeezed into the right corner, cold tile at my back. Shivers came, my knees threatened to fold, my teeth chattered, a combination of fear-induced adrenaline and a body disconnected from a very tired brain.
He said something and turned up his palm.
“Wha…what do you want? I can’t hear you.” The water pounded the tub. I didn’t dare move to shut it off. Just as well. A large hand attached to a tattooed forearm lowered the spigot. Now I heard the silence. When the water was hitting the tiles, it felt like a companion. Or maybe it was another shield, something to focus on and keep us apart. Silence wasn’t golden. They were wrong. Silence was deadly.
Bare, wet, my feet set on the slippery bathtub floor, I squeezed the half-full coconut shampoo bottle when his hand closed on the handle of the door in front of me. Swiping my wet hair away from my face, I widened my stance, bent slightly at the knees. All right.
He slid open the door.
I squirted shampoo in his face and aimed a kick at his balls. White shampoo goo splattered the wall. He cursed, stepped away, and wiped his eyes. His red eyes.
Oh hell.
“Motherfuck, Vice. You scared the shit out of me!” I threw the bottle at his chest. “What? How…how did you find me?” Heart in my throat, I didn’t know if I should hug him for not being anyone else, or hurt him for being Vice. Caught once more, I thought. But at least I’d live to run away again.
“Your things are packed, which makes all this easier,” he said and picked up a hand towel. He wiped the shampoo off his face and arms. “All I need you to do is come home with me. You’ve five seconds to decide if you want to walk out or get carried out in my arms, naked as the day you were born. You know which one I’d prefer.” Vice winked, his eyes a pale shade of red, which told me he didn’t feel as cool as he sounded. “Five,” he counted.
“I’m not going with you.”
“Two.”
“How did you find me?”
“Time’s up.” He took a step forward.
I kicked out again.
One hand caught my ankle, the other gripped my waist, and he jabbed his shoulder into my middle. I slipped on the tile, but he caught me and threw me over his shoulder. When I reached over, aiming for his eyes, he said, “Don’t make me hurt you. Calm your tits.”
He back-walked out of the bathroom to the bedroom, then dropped me on the carpet inside the walk-in closet. I scooted away, back against the far wall, and looked in the left corner, where I’d stashed another blowgun. No gun. He must’ve taken it along with the unused jumping equipment. “You packed everything,” I said. “When?”
“You’ve been in the shower for almost an hour. I packed, could’ve packed this entire house, and you wouldn’t even know. Finally, I just had to take a piss.”