Chapter 58 58
AESON'S POV
Fuck. I jerked my head back under the spray, letting out another low groan that was half frustration, half pure, unadulterated need. I lowered my other hand, not to turn off the water, but to wrap my fingers around the hard, aching length of myself, a desperate, instinctive move to ease the fierce pressure. A rough stroke did nothing but send a jolt of electric pleasure rippling through me, making it worse. It was a biological demand, not just physical want, and it was centered entirely on the girl standing in my bedroom.
‘I think we need to see her,’ Tyson snickered in my mind, his tone thick with smug amusement. ‘Have her eyes do the magic. One look might just fix this... or make it wonderfully worse.’
Damn it.
I looked toward the bathroom door as if I could see through it. I was panting, my breaths shallow. I forced myself to inhale deeply, deliberately drawing her scent into my lungs through the steam. Jasmine, fear-sweet, and that underlying, maddeningly unique essence that was just her. For a paradoxical moment, it calmed the raging storm inside me. It wasn’t a fix; it was a promise of what could soothe it.
I snatched that fragile moment of clarity. I turned off the scalding water and shoved the shower door open, stepping out onto the cool tile. Water dripped from me in rivulets. I grabbed the first thing I saw—a pair of dark sweatpants and a plain grey t-shirt I must have left draped over a chair days or weeks ago. I didn’t care if they were clean. I dried myself with a rough, hurried drag of a towel and yanked the clothes on. The soft fabric of the pants was an immediate, torturous friction.
I ran my palms over my damp hair, pushing it back from my forehead. I inhaled once more, a deliberate, steadying breath that did little to steady me, and made my steps silent as I moved to the bathroom door.
I cracked it open. She was there. Her back was to me, standing before the broken window like some fucking amateur detective examining a crime scene. Her posture was serious, tense. She was looking at the shards of glass scattered across my rug.
A thought, cold and stifled, slipped into my fevered mind. If I stepped out now, she’d think I’d just arrived, that I hadn’t been in here the whole time, fighting a losing battle against a biological imperative triggered by her mere presence. She wouldn’t know I’d been seconds away from losing all control just from the smell of her.
Taking the chance, I pushed the door fully open and slipped into the bedroom, making sure my expression was one of icy fury, not desperate hunger. I let my voice slice through the quiet.
“What the hell are you doing here?”
She spun around, those aqua eyes wide. For a beautiful, fleeting moment, pure fright flashed across her face. It was a good look on her. Then, just as quickly, it was gone, replaced by that familiar, stubborn defiance. She recovered fast.
I kept my expression granite-hard as I took a few steps closer. My eyes wouldn’t leave her. I couldn’t make them. They drank in the sight of her—the slight disarray of her dark hair, the defiant set of her jaw, the rapid pulse I could see jumping at the base of her throat.
“I heard a noise,” she started, her voice admirably steady. “And I—”
“And you thought it gave you the right to invade my privacy?” I cut her off, my tone dripping with contempt I only half-felt.
“I...” She trailed off, her gaze darting around the room before landing back on me. “I had no idea this was your room.”
“Really?” The word was a low sneer. My feet moved of their own accord, carrying me another step closer. The distance between us shrank, and with it, her scent wrapped around me anew, a perfumed chokehold. It fucked with my nerves, sending another hot wave of desire straight to my groin. I felt the fabric of my pants strain.
“You shouldn’t have come in here,” I whispered, and my voice came out huskier, thicker than I intended. I was losing my composure, the words slipping out raw and unfiltered. “Why you? It was a plea and an accusation aimed at the universe.
She blinked, genuine confusion clouding her features. “Huh?”
I gulped, the sound audible in the quiet room. I forced myself to lock away the eye contact that felt like a live wire. I took in a deep, shuddering breath, calling on decades of mastered self-control to wall off the riot inside me.
“Why did you come into the house?” I demanded, my voice back under icy control, my eyes fixed on a point over her shoulder.
“Well, I came to see the house. I mean, the apartment you’re giving me,” she explained, a hint of frustration coloring her words.“The Gamma at the gate asked you to wait for you inside. He said you were around, and that’s why I entered the house. I was just waiting downstairs.”
I shut my eyes briefly. Idiot Gamma. When I flicked them open, the girl was dragged back to her like a magnet. I couldn’t keep it anywhere else.
She was looking at me, really looking, and then her eyes flicked past my shoulder toward the still-open bathroom door. Steam was still curling out into the cooler bedroom air. “I waited for a while,” she said slowly, her detective mode activating again. “Were you... the one in the bathroom?”
I tightened my fist at my side, my knuckles going white. My eyes trailed down her face of their own volition—the curve of her cheek, the stubborn line of her mouth. I wanted to touch it. To feel if her skin was as soft as it looked. My gaze fixed on her lips for a heart-stopping second before I wrenched it back up to meet her eyes.
“Do I look like someone who just came out of the bathroom?” I asked, gesturing vaguely at my dry hair and fully clothed body. The lie was smooth, a product of long practice.
She shrugged, a tiny, noncommittal movement. “Not... entirely” But her eyes went back to the bathroom door, suspicion hardening in them. “But I heard a groan from in there. And you are here... I think someone else is in there.”
Those careless, tiny movements—the shrug, the shift of her eyes—sent another jolt through me. The strong urge was rising again, a tide I was barely holding back.