Chapter 205: Reid
Steam follows me out of the bathroom, towel slung low on my hips, another raking through my hair. I’m halfway to her when she looks up—and for a second there’s heat in her eyes that hits me like a fist. Then the color drains out of her face so fast it scares me.
I stop. Tilt my head. Her fingers are trembling against the duvet. Her phone’s on the carpet, facedown, like she dropped it and forgot.
“Mad—”
The door clicks. Jake steps in, boots creaking, cool air riding his shoulder. She jolts like she’s been caught and blurts, “I’m gonna shower,” and darts past me into the bathroom. The lock snicks. Water hammers on tile a heartbeat later.
Jake toes off his boots and looks up at me, brow drawn. “Why do you look like someone moved the horizon?”
“She almost looked like one of the panic times,” I say, still watching the bathroom door. “White as a ghost. Shaking. Her phone’s on the floor.”
He frowns. “Shit.”
We both glance at the phone. It’s just… there. A small black square holding something I don’t like the shape of.
“We should…” Jake starts, then stops. His jaw flexes. “Not our place.”
“Invasion of her privacy,” I agree, even though every muscle in me is keyed to hunt whatever put that look on her face. I bend, pick the phone up, and set it on the nightstand by her pillow without turning it over. Face down. Out of reach of my own worst instincts.
The shower keeps roaring. The room smells like lemon and steam and something cold I don’t want to name.
Jake drops into the chair by the window, elbows on his knees. “We wait,” he says. “We don’t pry. Things are evolving between us and soon she'll feel comfortable enough to tell us.”
“Yeah.” I scrub a hand over my face, water still dripping from my hair to my shoulders. “But if she’s in it again…”
“Then we handle it,” he says, eyes gone dark and clear. “With her. Not for her.”
Jake’s right—we wait, we ask—but I’m not leaving her alone with whatever just turned her to ice.
“I’m going to check on her,” I say.
He nods once. “Go.”
I knock twice, then ease the door shut behind me. Steam hits like a wall; the mirror is a sheet of fog. “It’s me,” I say, low.
Her breath hitches. The shower curtain rustles; she peeks her head around it, damp wisps of copper stuck to her cheeks. “What are you doing?”
“I didn’t wash my hair well enough,” I lie, shrug lazy on purpose. “Need a redo.”
She knows it’s a lie. She still smiles and steps aside.
I drop the towel, step into the heat. Her mouth opens a little—every time, like it’s the first time—and something in me that was strung tight loosens by a notch.
“Where were you at?” I ask, voice steady.
“Body,” she says. “I was going to—”
“Let me.”
I pump soap into my hand and start slow. Shoulders first, then arms—long, careful passes that don’t ask anything of her except to be here. The shower is too small for two, so I anchor her with my chest, one palm braced against the tile by her ear, the other mapping her with open, steady heat. Vanilla wakes under the steam. Her breathing staggers, then catches the rhythm I’m setting.
“Color,” I murmur, because rules are the floor. I need to know how she feels.
“Yellow,” she says, honest.
“Good.” I ease the pressure down one shade, keep the cadence. “With me.”
I wash her forearms the way a tide would—down, up, rinse—then the slope of her back, thumb skimming the knobs of her spine like I’m counting them, reminding her how her body lives under her skin. When I get to her hands, I lace our fingers, press our palms flat, and breathe with her until her grip stops shaking.
“Look at me,” I say, and she does, eyes big and blown and trying not to say anything.
“We don’t have to talk,” I tell her, reading it. “Not now. Just breathe. In for four.” I draw it with her—one, two, three, four—“hold for two”—her lungs go still under my palm—“out for six.” I feel the tremor leave as she empties. “Again.”
We stack a few breaths like that. The pipes thrum. Steam beads on her lashes. I keep my hands moving: collarbone to shoulder to the curve where neck meets jaw, then down along the ribs with enough pressure to ground, not take.
She swallows. “I’m okay.”
“I know,” I say, and I believe her and also I don’t, not enough to stop. I splay my hand over her sternum—broad, warm—and press a quiet anchor there. “You don’t have to be, either.”
A laugh punches out of her, small and broken. “You see everything.”
“I see you.” I rinse her shoulders, skim water over her hairline, thumb away a bead caught at the corner of her mouth. “And I’m not going anywhere.”
Her eyes shine in the steam. She leans into me on instinct, forehead to my throat, and the want that’s always a live wire around her snaps bright. I hold the line. I slide my palm down her side, soap-slick, and wash the length of her thigh with the same reverence I’d give a breakable thing—not because she’s fragile, but because she’s mine.
“Color,” I ask again when I feel her chest loosen under my hand.
“Green,” she breathes, steadier now. “Green.”
“Good.” I kiss her hairline—quick, sealed—and keep it slow. “You dropped your phone,” I say, because leaving it unspoken turns it into a shadow. “If you want to tell me why later, I’m here.”
Her fingers curl at my ribs. “Later,” she says. “Please.”
“Later,” I echo. “Your tempo.”
I finish what I started: soap down, rinse, new cloth to chase the last of the suds the way we did last night—careful, thorough, nothing rushed. When I step back to shut the water, she catches my wrist and looks up at me. There’s color in her face again. Heat, too, but it’s the kind I want.
“Better?” I ask.
She nods, breath unspooling. “Better.”
I snag a towel, hold it open. “Step in,” I say, and when she does, I wrap her up and pull her close, pressing a kiss to damp hair.