Page 213 of Forbidden Lessons

I tilt my head up. Stare at the big shower with its black tiles and black floor and black ceiling. Take an involuntary step back.

“It’s so dark in there.” I turn around, shaking my head, but Bastian catches me in his arm as I try to duck out and herds me all the way inside.

“Well you’re not getting any more paint on my things,” he says. “It looks like I killed Roger Rabbit out there.”

“You killed Roger Rabbit?”

“You have no idea who that is, do you?”

I shake my head.

He cups my face in his hand. “Haven, do I have your permission to clean you up?”

Clean sounds nice. All I can smell is grass and mud and the chemical stench of paint.

I nod fervently. “Yessir.”

“Okay.” Bastian drops his gaze, eyes unfocused for a moment, and then he nods. “Turn around. Face the wall.”

I shuffle around and put my hands on the wall, spreading my legs a little.

When Bastian bursts out laughing, I look at him over my shoulder, frowning. “What?”

“Are you expecting me to frisk you?”

“Oh.” I drop my hands. “Sorry.”

He drags a hand down his face, shaking his head. “This is so fucked. Okay, face the wall.” He snaps his fingers, pointing, and I quickly look ahead.

The black marble is exquisite. Feint lines of white and gray weave through the glossy, midnight-black stone. I put my hand out to trace one of those lines, clothes rustling behind me.

“This needs to come off,” Bastian says, tugging gently at the trash bag stuck to my skin.

I hesitate and then push my fingers through the plastic just below my throat. Every time I move, the leash attached to the collar around my throat clinks, but I try to ignore it. Bastian said he was going to cut it off.

At least I don’t feel like I’m being strangled anymore.

Bastian rips the plastic off my back, and I shiver as the cool bathroom air touches my skin in new places.

The small of my back.

Between my breasts.

Over my belly.

“Good,” Bastian murmurs, reaching past me to turn on the faucet. “Tell me when it’s the right temperature.”

Water hits the top of my head, and I gasp and step back in a rush so my head is out of the spray.

Right into Bastian.

He catches me, stops me. But our bodies are fused together, and I can feel he’s not wearing a shirt.

“Whoops.”

“It’s okay,” he says in a tight voice that suggests it’s anything but. He steps back, distancing himself, and immediately cool air swirls over my skin where his warmth used to be.

Fuck, I miss it.

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