Page 45 of Crossed By the Stars
“Dax just wants to see me naked. It’s okay. We can let him have his little voyeuristic moment,” Jada told Cara with a wink.
Cara left the closet and headed toward the door. “Okay, anything else?”
Jada shook her head and entered the bathroom, closing the door behind her.
Cara was almost at the front door when I caught up.
“She’ll need suitcases for tomorrow,” I told Cara quietly. “I don’t think we’ll fit her stuff in with mine.”
“Right. I’ll have someone bring them by,” she said.
“Thank you, Cara. I truly appreciate it.”
She looked back at me, her normally professional exterior disappearing into sadness for a moment. “I was glad to help. I can’t imagine…” Then, she was back to her normal business-like self. “Let me know what else you need.”
She left, and I turned back to my bedroom.
The shower was running already, and my heart lunged at the thought of her trying to wash her hair and losing her balance, slipping on the smooth marble. I knocked and then cracked the door open. “Can I come in?”
Jada huffed, “If you insist.”
She was standing with her back to me, completely naked. She was looking at herself in the mirror, and the image there cut into my chest like a knife. Her entire back was covered in bruises all the way down to the pale-white cheeks that normally had me hard in two seconds flat. She’d always been a beautiful mix of white and black, dark and light. But this…seeing her with purple and gray coating her skin mixed in with cuts and scrapes. I wasn’t sure what to do with the image. To do with her.
Jada had long since given up being shy about her body. I’d seen her in bikinis and dresses so small they showed more skin than they hid, but when her eyes met mine in the reflection, they held a vulnerability that continued to undo me.
I stepped closer, pulling off my shirt and toeing off my shoes. Her eyes widened a hair, nostrils flaring as she took in my bare chest. In a voice that was hoarse and gravelly, she asked, “What are you doing?”
“Helping you,” I said, voice falling an octave as if to match hers.
“You don’t need to be naked to do that,” she said.
I did the only thing I could to lighten the mood. “Afraid you won’t be able to keep your hands off me,mon amour?”
Her eyes narrowed at the tease and the endearment she disliked.
“Even if I hadn’t almost been blown up, you wouldn’t tempt me that much, Armaud.”
“I’d love to make a bet about this, but I feel like it would just delay you getting in the shower and then back into bed so you can rest.”
She turned away from me, stepping into the walk-in shower. I followed, keeping my eyes anywhere but on her body as she washed. She inhaled in sharp, quiet breaths every time she hit a cut, holding back more pained sounds by biting her lower lip. When she tried to wash her hair, lifting her arms caused her to list sideways, and she gasped at what I could only imagine was agony inside her chest.
I reached in to steady her and then said, “Let me do it.”
I shed my jeans and stepped into the shower in my underwear. She tilted her head back, and I ran the water through her hair before filling my palm with the spearmint-scented shampoo I used. My fingers caressed her scalp, lathering the strands gently, stabilizing her whenever she wavered. Her eyes were closed, dark lashes against pale cheeks, exposing the dark hollows under her eyes from days of no sleep. Those were almost as painful to me as the bruises on her back.
I wished I could fix it all for her. I wished I could filter through her life like I was doing with the locks of her hair. I wished I could take every awful moment and leave behind only the good. Cleanse her memories and her past.
I turned her toward the showerhead, shifting my fingers through the black web as I rinsed the suds from them. Both of us were breathing hard with a tension in the air that was all sexual. It was a natural reaction to naked bodies tucked so closely together, but it was also the reaction I’d always had to her. Desire. Longing.A need I’d never been able to fill no matter the women who’d passed through my bed. The need I had for Jada went far deeper than the relief a beautiful orgasm could provide.
As we ignored the electricity in the air, I repeated my motions with the conditioner. It was silent, but we were both listening to the unspoken messages, listening to the pounding of our hearts, the panting of our breaths, and the water as it splashed around us.
When I was done, I turned the water off and ran my fingers over her face to remove the water and a stray bubble before bringing her palm to my lips. I kissed it softly, and her eyes flew open. She stared at my lips on her hand, then her eyes traveled upward to meet my gaze with one that was still vulnerable. Almost as if she was scared. As if the tenderness I showed her was more terrifying than the gun she’d had pointed in her direction once upon a time.
She jerked her hand from mine, and I let it go. I grabbed her wrists and placed them on the shower wall. “Stay there for a second, please.”
I didn’t give her time to argue. I stepped out, grabbing one of the large, soft towels from the shelf. I dried myself off and slung it around my hips before turning back to the shower with a second one for her. I rubbed her skin from top to bottom, taking care to be as gentle as possible with the bruises and cuts.
Then, I helped her out onto the bathroom rug. A gasp went through her as she raised her arms to put on the nightgown, and she used the counter and my arm as she slid the underwear Cara had bought her into place. I pulled a stool out from under the vanity.
