Page 69 of Web of Lies
I gently let her down and take my hands off of her when she's steady on her feet. “It's alright, Larken. I wouldn't hurt you. You know that.”
She wraps her arms around her middle and shakes her head, but she won't look at me. “That's not it,” she says hoarsely.
“What's wrong? Tell me.”
“He,” she starts, but closes her eyes against the word.
“It's okay. Tell me so I can fix it.”
“You can't.”
All the worst scenarios start spinning through my mind. Every single horrible thing that could have happened to her. All of them. “I can try.”
She takes a shaky breath. “He sat in front of the cage and … when I was sleeping … he … I didn't want any of it to get on you.”
It.
It.
A few seconds drag on while I work out what it probably is and then other, more violent thoughts start cycling until everything quiets into a dangerous calm. I'm going to hurt him. It will be violent. Brutal. Messy. He is going to suffer.
I grab her wrist and pull her behind me to the bathroom. I turn on the water, making it just a little hotter than I like and turn back around to pull her shirt off. She doesn't fight me, with the shirt or the panties, and she lets me put her into the shower without saying anything else. Then I yank my shirt over my head and toe off my shoes.
“I'm getting in with you,” I tell her, forcing every ounce of calm I can into my words. “I don't want you to fall, and I'm going to help you. It's going to be okay, Larken.”
I quickly kick off my jeans and boxers. It doesn't matter that I'm naked. The only thing that matters right now is scrubbing her down until she feels clean. All I've got is the generic hotel soap and shampoo, but it's better than nothing.
I set to work scrubbing her with the rough, white washcloth. The soap is supposed to smell like chamomile and honey, but it mostly just smells like soap. She stands there, holding onto the safety bar while I make my first pass with the soapy cloth. I wash every inch of her skin, scrubbing vigorously without really seeing what I'm doing. I'm focusing so hard on getting her clean that she is less Larken and more human body. She doesn't need me to see her right now. I can see her another time if she wants that, but right now this is what needs to happen.
“Okay, rinse.” I turn her around under the spray of water. I will never understand why they don't put detachable shower heads in hotel rooms. It would make things so much easier.
“Lean your head back,” I say softly, but she loses her balance when she does it and her hands scrabble along the shower wall and curtain. I put her hands on my waist and hold them there firmly, pressing her fingertips into my hips. “Hold onto me, Larken. I won't let you fall. We need to get your hair washed. It will help.”
She does as I say and tips her head back under the water. After her hair is wet, I turn her back so that the hot water is hitting the front of her. The shampoo is supposed to smell like chamomile and honey, too, but again, it mostly smells like shampoo. I wash her hair twice, making sure every strand is clean by the time I finish with the second rinsing. I reach outside the curtain to grab another washcloth and wet it to wash her face, scrubbing carefully around the goddamned bruising until her skin is flushed a nice rosy pink. Then I soap it up again with the bar and switch places with her so that the hot water is beating down on my back while I make my second pass over her body.
She starts shivering again when I'm working the soapy rag over her thighs. I know it isn't from cold, the water coming from the shower is almost too hot to tolerate and the air in the bathroom is more steam than it is oxygen. I finally notice the pink, almost red tint her skin has become and it occurs to me that maybe I've been too rough. “Is it too much?”
She doesn't answer, and I glance up at her. She's got a death grip on the safety bar, but her eyes are closed.
“Larken,” I say, a little sharply. “Am I going too hard? Am I hurting you? You have to tell me.”
She doesn't open her eyes, but she does answer in a quiet, faraway tone. “I can't feel anything.”
“What do you mean?” Between the water temperature and the intense scrubbing, her skin is hot to the touch.
“I don't feel anything,” she says through chattering teeth.
I stand up and rub my hands up and down her upper arms. “You can't feel me touching you?”
She leans forward to rest her head on my shoulder. “I just feel cold.”
That's shock. I know it is. I should take her to a hospital and leave her in the care of the staff so I can splatter her husband’s skull all over the pristine, sanitary, white floor of the waiting room. I should. But I won't. Maybe I'm too paranoid. Maybe I'm too distrustful of the system. Maybe I'm a lot of things. I'm definitely too selfish because all I can seem to think about is how terrible it is that she feels so cold and that I need to fix it right now.
Without weighing any consequences or having a plan in case it blows up in my face, I wrap my arms around her and pull her into the heat of my body. Her hot skin slides slickly against mine but the way her body clenches and trembles hurts my heart. She will never feel this way again. I won't allow it.
I let my hands slide across her back, down her sides, even around her ass. The only thing she does, no matter where I touch her, is lean into me, pressing closer to me. My hands climb back up her torso to wrap around the back of her neck and tangle in her wet hair. She makes the smallest sound, a mix between a sigh and a whimper, and it undoes me. I keep my fingers laced in her hair and angle her to face me so that I can brush my lips against hers. It isn't quite a kiss, but I do it again and again until it turns into one. It's been a while since I kissed someone, really kissed them. Larken's trembling lips are so soft against mine. This is a mistake. I'll never want to stop kissing her now.
Her hands lightly slide up my ribs to settle on my chest, her fingers spreading through the coarse hair as she opens her mouth against mine. It's difficult to give her the easy, sweet kiss I know she needs when I want nothing more than to tighten my fist in her hair and devour her lips, but somehow, and with great effort, I manage. She lets me kiss her while I touch her. Her muscles are still giving small involuntary jerks, but nothing like before. She needs something to anchor her. I can give her that.
