Page 9 of Reaper and Ruin
“Sleep,” Whip argued back.
Worry coursed through me. If he was so exhausted he was willing to sleep in wet clothes, that couldn’t be good. Though his cough had eased up a bit, each one sounding drier than the last, so I was less worried he still had lungs full of water.
I hauled him into the shower, both of us still fully clothed. though he was missing his shoes. I hadn’t even noticed until I’d kicked mine off and turned on the water.
A cold stream ran over us, and we both winced until the hot water kicked in and warmed it up.
His gaze caught mine.
“Take your clothes off.” The words came out gruffer and more demanding than I’d meant them to.
Whip raised his head slowly. “I don’t think I can,” he said honestly, though it was clearly killing him to admit it.
I didn’t make a big deal of it. Just grasped the bottom hem of his shirt for him and lifted it up his body.
That’s when I knew exactly how exhausted he was. Because he just let me. He allowed himself to be vulnerable and accepted my help.
I unbuckled his belt and then the fly on his jeans and pulled them down his trembling body until there was a pile of wet clothes on the floor.
He groaned, leaning back against the tiles, his knees buckling.
I caught him. “Stay on your feet. If you end up on the floor, I don’t know if I’ll be able to get you back up.”
But a full-body tremor racked him, and I used my body weight to press him into the wall, keeping him upright.
I angled the spray so it was covering us both, but my wet clothes weren’t helping any. I got my shirt off without lettinggo of him. Then reached between us, undoing my pants, and managed to get them halfway down my legs before he wobbled again.
I pushed him up against the tiles, my chest and stomach to his, a surge of heat passing between our bodies.
He closed his eyes, leaning against me heavily, and I found myself wrapping my arms around him, not just to keep him up, but because I wanted him there.
“You fucking scared me tonight,” I whispered, water falling down around us. “You jumped off that fucking cliff like you didn’t matter.”
“I don’t.”
I shook my head. “You do.”
We fell silent, the words too honest, too raw, too fucking traumatizing to even process.
We just breathed in time with each other, letting the water warm through aching muscles and joints until he could lift a little of his weight off me.
I reached for the simple bar of soap I kept in my shower and dragged it across his chest.
He watched me. “You wash your balls with that?”
I snorted, glad to see some of his dry sense of humor returning. “Yeah, and my ass crack. Be thankful I started with washing your chest and not your face.”
Whip let out a noise that was probably supposed to be of annoyance but sounded more like a half laugh. He closed his eyes again, letting me glide soaped-up fingers over his chest in much the same way I had done to Violet a few nights earlier.
But where Violet was soft, Whip was hard. His chest had none of the gentle curves that Violet’s had. He was all defined lines and coarse hair and strong muscle. I couldn’t stop touching him, even when the soap fell from my fingers, leaving behind only its scent on his skin.
“I smell like you now,” he said quietly with a deep exhale.
I pulled back to look at him. The instinct to make some sort of joke, to tell him he could smell like me every day if he got rid of his fancy bodywash and just bought the cheap dollar bars of soap like I did. And yet the words that came out were, “I thought he was going to drown you tonight.”
Whip’s breath stuttered. But then he answered honestly as well, “So did I.”
I squeezed my eyes shut tight, trying to keep out the memories of X fighting for his life, his base instinct to survive in full gear. I couldn’t be angry at him for what clearly hadn’t been conscious thought.
