Revealing Us (Inside Out #3)(10)

“I love you, too, Sara. More than I’ve let you see, but I’m going to ix that.” He brushes the hair from my eyes. “You take a hot bath while I make a few phone calls, then we’ll get some rest.”

“Yes, okay,” I say and he stands there a moment, and I can’t read him, but I think he wants to say something, or he expects me to say something. There is so much, too much, unsaid between us, but I’m unsure where to begin or even if now is the right time. He turns away, and the moment is lost. He walks to the tub, the epitome of grace and hotness, and bends over to start the water, but it’s the act of doing something so tender and caring that truly makes Chris the man I love. He’s both the man I found tied up and screaming for a harder beating, and the gentle, protective man he is right now, and the contrast sets me on ire and warms my heart.

I curl my ingers around the edge of the counter and glance around the bathroom, which is the size of a small bedroom.

It has the same white tile as our San Francisco apartment, but there are gray accents and silver ixtures. It’s luxurious, and so is the scent tickling my nose—musky and male, with a hint of spice.

Chris holds up a bottle. “My shampoo. It’s the only way I can give you the bubble bath you like, until you can stock up on what you want.”

“I like smelling like you,” I say, remembering a time I’d worn his cologne and said the same thing.

He saunters over to me, all loose-legged sex appeal in his faded jeans and a blue AC/DC T-shirt, and settles his hands on my knees. You’re mine, the touch says, and it is a welcome branding. Yes. Yes, I am his. “I like you smelling like me,” he replies, his voice a velvety-smooth caress.

It’s exactly what he’d said once before, and I react just as I had the irst time. I’m out of my head and into the moment with him, my body alive, tingling all over. He’s washed away the bad and left me deeply absorbed in him and all that he is. All that we have become together.

He brushes a knuckle down my cheek and I sense the shift in his mood. I can almost feel the dark, dangerously wicked side of Chris, ready to come out to play. My belly quivers with this knowledge and something raw and female begins to awaken inside of me, burning for satisfaction. I once denied how much I understood this part of Chris, and how much I am like him, but those times are past. I am who I am, even if I don’t fully understand that person yet. But the idea that I will, and that Chris will accept nothing less of me, is downright arousing.

Chris steps back out of reach, and I’m cold where I was warm before. His ingers curl into his palms and the muscles in his arms are tight steel bands. My gaze lifts to his and his expression is hard, his jaw harder. But the storm erupting in his eyes speaks volumes.

He’s carrying the world on his shoulders, including me. Despite every efort possible to save him, he lost Dylan to cancer.

He and I had then almost lost each other. And now Rebecca is gone, after he tried to warn her to stay away from the club.

My stomach clenches with the possibility that he’s blaming himself for her death; thinking he should have done more.

I know he blames himself for his father’s death, and maybe his mother’s, too.

He needs me. Screw the police and Ava, and every piece of hell trying to shake me. I start to get of the sink and he takes another step backward.

“I’m going to walk through the house and make sure it’s in order,” he says and turns away, disappearing out of the bathroom and leaving the door open.

I stare after him, darn near twitching to follow him, but I ight the urge. And why am I ighting it? I wouldn’t have fought it before.

My teeth worry my bottom lip. I know why. A piece of the darkness I’ve been ighting during our travel is all that’s unspoken and undone between us. We’d only begun to ind ourselves when losing Dylan, such a young, sweet child, to cancer had stirred the demons of Chris’s past and nearly destroyed us. But I came here to ight for Chris, and for us.

My decision is made. I slide of the counter and go to the tub to turn of the water, then rush through the giant bedroom, catching lashes of brown leather and a balcony. I exit into a long hallway with shiny black wood loors that fork in several directions, but there’s no sign of Chris.

My gaze latches on to the two lights of modern steel-and-wood stairs, one going up and one going down. Down seems the logical place for a kitchen and living area, and I head in that direction.

The steps twist and turn, and even open to another set of stairs that lead up. I continue down. When I’m nearly at the bottom I hear Chris’s voice, a low, rough, displeased tone as he talks to someone. I anxiously follow where it leads. I all but vault the rest of the way down the stairs and into a breathtaking living room shaped like a circle, with modern leather furniture and sleek tables that match the stairs and loors.

I don’t see Chris or hear him now, and my gaze goes to the stairs that go up to what appears to be the kitchen. As I start in that direction cool air washes over me, drawing me to the slight opening I’d missed in the balcony door. He must have stepped outside while I was on my way down the stairs.

I am at the door in a few seconds, and peek out to ind Chris’s back to me. “All I can say is, f*cking make this go away for Sara. She doesn’t deserve this crap. And if they need money and resources to ind Rebecca and give her a proper burial, make it happen.”

Air lodges in my throat and I know we are already in full swing, facing his demons. I have no intention of letting them get an upper hand. All the weakness and fear I’ve let control me these past few hours evaporates.