Page 59 of Corrupt Me

I wasn’t much help, but Tristan didn’t seem to need assistance removing my clothes, a thought I didn’t want to think too deeply into.

His fingers skimmed the inside of my thigh. “God, your skin is freezing.”

A deeper shiver went through me. I stared at him as he practically kneeled before me, inching my pants down my calves. He peered up, our eyes connecting. The man stole my breath with a single glance.

The darkness in his eyes morphed into a black flame. “Are you trying to make yourself sick?”

“Why are you mad?”

Snatching a towel off the couch, he wrapped it around me. “Because you frustrate me. You need to start thinking more of yourself than everyone else.”

“If you’re infuriating me on purpose to get my blood flowing, it’s working.”

“Good.” When I was wrapped up like a burrito, Tristan scooped me off my feet for what had to be a record. Three times in one night.

“Will you stop manhandling me?” I gritted out. “I’m not a child to be carried off for misbehaving.”

“Can I trust you to listen to me for five fucking minutes?” he asked once we were in the bathroom.

I stuck out my bottom lip.

“That’s what I thought,” he retorted smugly.

Before I could satisfyingly tell Tristan to screw off, the asshole dumped me into the bathtub brimming with bubblesand water so warm every inch of me felt like it was being stabbed with millions of needles.

I gasped at the pain, also internally sighing at the shocking heat tearing through my bones.

He leaned against the sink. “You’re not to get out of that tub until your damn skin is red.”

I wasn’t sure that was a healthy alternative to the pale blue it was.

Tristan gave me a hard, scolding look and then turned and left, leaving the bathroom door wide open.

The prickles took a few minutes to subside, but the bubble bath became enjoyable once they did. After being in the rain for so long, it surprised me how much I didn’t mind being in the water. It was a different kind of wet, one that thawed my bones instead of froze them.

Time seemed to stop as I soaked in the tub. Tristan might have only been gone a few minutes, or it could have been thirty. I’d lost track of time, but just as I slipped off my bra and underwear, tossing them over the side to dry out, he appeared holding a cup.

Sitting on the tub’s ledge, he offered me the steaming mug. “Drink this.”

“What is it?” I asked, taking the cup cautiously. The bubbles shielded most of my nakedness although they slowly started to pop and disintegrate.

“Just some tea my mom likes.” He looked so damn relaxed lounging on the tub as if he belonged in the bathroom with me, watching me warm up. Too comfortable. Unlike me.

My cheeks flushed under his gaze.

He reached out, swiping away at a bubble that managed to find its way onto my cheek. “Finally, you’re starting to not look like death.”

Batting his hand away should have been my move, but I didn’t want to disrupt the bubbles covering me. “I can’t say the same for you.”

He chuckled. “Then you won’t mind if I use the shower.”

Before I could tell him I indeed would mind, he stood, dropped his pants and had the shirt over his head, leaving me gaping at his backside as he stepped into the shower.

My eyes lingered on him even when all I could see was his shadow through the frosted glass. His body never failed to leave me breathless, gawking, and impressed.

That wouldn’t do. Not when my heart teetered on a cliff, vulnerable, conflicted, and broken.

Being in the bathroom with Tristan while he showered was nothing short of too damn intimate. I had to get out of here. My blood was plenty warm now.

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