Page 95 of Riff

By the time I made it upstairs, Vienna was placing Vernon onto his tree stand, pressing a kiss to his head as she kicked out of her sneakers, then started to unbutton her jacket.

“V?” I called, feeling completely fucking clueless as to what to say.

“I want to take a bath,” she told me as the jacket fell to the floor, and she moved over to the dresser to find a change of clothes. “I need to… wash that away,” she added.

“Okay,” I agreed. “Do you want me to get it ready for you?”

“Sure,” she agreed, voice small.

With that, I rushed across the hall, giving the tub a quick scrub, then filling it with water the exact level of hell she liked it at, then dropping in soap and a bath bomb, watching the colors spread and the bubbles build.

The door opened behind me, and Vienna moved in, placing her clothes on the sink, then methodically gathering her towels and a luffa.

“Wait,” she called as I silently started to back out of the bathroom to give her privacy.

She was setting her phone on the sink counter, selecting one of her playlists full of calming music, and turning it up before facing me.

“Stay,” she demanded.

I didn’t want to make her ask again, so I closed the door behind me, locked it, and leaned against it.

“Okay,” I agreed.

“Come in with me,” she added, hands already going for her pants, working the button and zipper free, then pushing them down her legs.

We silently undressed together, and it was maybe the first time since knowing her that her being nude didn’t immediately make my cock hard.

This wasn’t about that, though, and the tension in her body seemed to seep into mine as well.

When she paused by the tub, seeming to wait for something, I moved to step in first, lying back against the tub.

And then she was sliding in with me, curled up into herself, hugging her knees for a moment. Then slowly lowering back against me.

Only then did I wrap my arms around her, one arm around her center, the other over the top of her chest.

It was like all of the tension that was coiled in her body released in a wave at the contact, leaving her lax against me.

“How are you doing?” I asked, at a loss of what else to say.

“I’m okay,” she said, sucking in a deep breath. “I feel like I should be… less okay than I am.”

“It might still come,” I said, shrugging. “But that’s okay. We can take a trip to see Dr. Swift tomorrow, if you need.”

“I saw her today,” she admitted.

“Yeah, I may have barged in there when I couldn’t find you. Did it go okay?”

“I think I owe you a bit of an apology.”

“No, you don’t.”

“I kind of do.”

“You have every right to be mad at me. Or to feel distrustful of me. I shouldn’t have kept that from you.”

“It’s not just that,” she said. “That’s part of it, feeling like you’ve been lying,” she said, making my guts twist even if, at the time, I felt like I’d been doing the right thing.

Clearly, I shouldn’t have trusted my gut on that one. First, because she was hurt by the dishonesty. But second, because had she known we went there and that the men were gone, she might have been more aware of the potential for them to show up. Maybe all of this could have been avoided.

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