Page 54 of Knot So Fast
The house, the flowers, the perfect touches everywhere—someone who knew me intimately designed this space.
And I'm starting to suspect that someone was me…
The water is cooling now, the bubbles dissipating to reveal more of my body than I'm comfortable with even alone. I should get out, get dressed in whatever clothes Lachlan brought, go downstairs and eat whatever he's cooking. Should pretend this is all normal and fine and not the kind of situation that could explode my carefully controlled life into pieces.
But as I sit up in the tub, water streaming off my skin, I make a decision.
I'm done being passive in my own story.
Done letting other people decide what I can handle.
If there are answers to be found in this house, with this man, then I'm going to find them.
The question is whether those answers will be worth the shot.
VIRTUAL REALITY BLEEDS INTO TRUTH
~LACHLAN~
I walk backinto the kitchen with my mind still reeling from the sight of Auren in that bathtub, water cascading over every curve of her naked body like liquid silk.
It's all I can see.
The way the steam gilded her skin in a golden veil, how a constellation of droplets mapped the slopes and valleys of her gorgeous body, each bead of water tracing a path I’d longed to follow with my tongue.
Her hair—jet, slick, shot through with shades of magenta—fanned over her bare shoulders and spilled down her back. Every inch of her glistened, luminous and perilous, the curve of her hip emerging from the bubbles as she shifted, the taper of her thigh, the line of her calf stretching out until her perfectly painted toes curled against the tub’s far rim. I nearly forgot how to breathe.
Even now, in a sterile kitchen under the flat glow of LED can lights, I can smell her—sugar and summer, ozone and wildflowers—beneath the persistent sting of bleach and tile cleaner.
The memory of her scent worms its way into my brain and detonates there, a feral, desperate need coiled tight as a race car’s clutch at the starting line.
I grip the edge of the countertop and force myself to focus on the work ahead. Tomato basil: she loves it. Garlic bread, heavy on the herbs, cheese melting into the crags of the crust. Cooking is the only act that gives my hands something else to do besides shaking or betraying me with their longing. But I can still feel the phantom touch of her gaze, the way she looked at me for that split second when she realized she wasn’t alone. She didn’t flinch—not really. She just straightened up, arching her back, shifting her arms enough to give me a perfect, devastating view. It was calculated, competitive, a move straight off the track.
Daring me to react…to break first.
I stare down at the bread dough, knuckles white as I knead it against the cold marble, and try to banish the image before it does any more damage to my self-control. But it’s impossible. Her body is a fever behind my eyelids, the memory of her curves and how they used to fit against mine, the knowledge that every scar, every freckle, every callus from a decade behind the wheel is mapped into my muscle memory.
There’s a million things I’d do for her, and a million more I’d give up just for a taste—one more night, one more hour, hell, one more minute with her pressed up against me.
But she’s not mine.
Not anymore.
She’s not even supposed to remember me.
I force a slow breath through my nose and count to five.
I’m supposed to be the fucking adult here. I’m supposed to keep her safe from the world and from herself—especially from me.
Every detail is now permanently etched into my memory, joining the collection of moments I've been hoarding like precious gems over the past year of forced separation.
I try to ignore how painfully hard I am at the sight, discreetly adjusting my sweatpants before taking a deep breath and reminding myself that she's supposed to be off limits.
That we all made a pact to stay away from her, to let her heal without the complications our presence would bring. That involving ourselves in her recovery would only cause more damage to a mind that's already been through enough trauma.
But the rational part of my brain is being drowned out by the primal satisfaction of having her back here for the night, unexpectedly, after it's been over a year since I've been able to exist anywhere near her orbit. For months now, I've only been able to interact with her through our virtual gaming sessions, carefully maintaining the fiction that I'm just some stranger from Croatia while secretly helping to keep that burning competitive flame alive in whatever way I could manage.
I know damn well she can destroy any track in real life—I've witnessed her talent firsthand more times than I can count.But watching her dominate those simulation races, hearing the joy in her voice when she wins, seeing flashes of the fearless driver she used to be... it's been both a blessing and a torture that I've inflicted on myself week after week.
