Page 62 of Blackmail
“They only had a two-bedroom suite left. More than we needed, but it’s nice.”
“Wait a minute. If this place has two bedrooms, why were you squished in with me?”
He turns with a grin. “I wanted to know when you were awake. Here. Get in. I’ll get your medication. Try not to pass out until I get back.”
“The flu is highly contagious, you idiot.”
He waves me off. “I never get sick. Now get in the shower.”
Part of me wants not to do what he says just to show him he’s not the boss of me, but the part of me that feels achy and cold wants desperately to be underneath the hot spray. So I get in, and when he steps inside with me a few minutes later, I’m too tired to fight much.
“I’m a big boy, Sebastian. I can handle showering all by myself.”
Except a taunting voice in my brain is calling me a liar. The entire time Sebastian was gone, I stayed hunched over, letting the hot water beat on my aching back while most of my energy went to holding myself up.
“You look like shit,” he says as he pulls me against him. He pumps some bodywash from a dispenser on the wall and lathers me far too gently for the Sebastian Pierce I know.
“That’s super rich coming from a guy who left me looking like an abuse victim after sex.”
He huffs a quiet breath in my ear. “I did get an earful from the emergency doctor earlier.”
A fuzzy memory floats up. The doc asking about my broken bones. “Ugh. Yeah. Sorry.”
“If I’d shown more restraint with you, things might not have seemed so suspicious.”
“I didn’t want you to show restraint,” I admit. Immediately, though, I wish I could call the words back. He doesn’t need to know how much I liked what we did. Asshole’s got a big enough ego, and I prefer not to acknowledge what it might say about me.
I clear my throat and change the subject. “So why did you kidnap me and bring me to an overpriced hotel suite with a lake view?”
“While you were busy working yourself into a coma, Belle Argo issued a mandatory evacuation notice. You wanted to go home to your rickety apartment, where you would have been sick, alone, with nobody able to come for you if you needed help. I was coming here anyway, so I brought you along.”
“Oh. Sure. Why the fuck not?”
The smile he gives me is downright predatory. It doesn’t help that he’s currently lathering my upper body. “You know, I’m generally very against kidnapping. I was taken once as a teenager. It’s why I’ve worked so hard to help the clients of my company who have gone missing. But in the end, you didn’t want to stay at the hospital any more than I wanted to leave you there, and I wasn’t about to leave you alone. Besides, you fell asleep in the car, and I don’t know where you live.”
“You could’ve woken me up and asked.”
“If you have further questions, please review my previous points.”
“Ugh. You are a bastard.”
Still, when he pulls me against him and steps under the spray to help rinse me off, I can’t deny how much I love the contact. I’m far too sick to even think about sex, but simply having someone close to take care of me feels…honestly, way too good. Comforting. Nobody’s cared for me in ages. Not since I was a young child.
I blink against the pressure behind my eyes and pretend the droplets trailing down my face are from the shower. It’s fine. I’m fine.
“Since you’ve already decided I’m a bastard—no surprise since you’re not the first person to call me that—I’ll also tell you that your boyfriend experience for next week has been canceled.”
What the fuck? “Canceled? How do you even know about that?”
“More accurately, I suppose you could say it’s been reallocated.”
“Reallocated?”
“You really must not be feeling well,” Sebastian murmurs. “You’ve gone from only being able to use four-letter words to only being able to repeat what I say. Maybe I should’ve left you at the hospital after all.”
“Fucker.” I may be exhausted, but I pinch a piece of skin on his back.
“Do that again and I’ll punish you for it later.”
