Fever (Breathless #2)(46)

And the bubble bath. She’d been positively gleeful when she’d found it in one of the bathroom drawers. It too was expensive. A name brand she recognized. At first she’d hesitated to use it, but the temptation had been too great and she’d delightedly dumped it into her bath as it was drawing.

She cupped a handful of the suds and then blew them across the water, laughing as they scattered and drifted like leaves in autumn.

“You’re so f**king beautiful, you make my chest hurt.”

She gasped and automatically sunk lower in the water, her gaze jerking to the doorway where Jace leaned, his eyes on her. His hands were shoved in his pockets and his lazy gaze drifted up and down the bathtub.

“When did you get here?” she squeaked. “I didn’t expect you for another hour, at least.”

He grinned and pushed off the doorframe to saunter across the bathroom until he stood next to the tub, looking down at her.

“Are you saying you wouldn’t have been in the tub soaking if you’d known I was going to be here this soon?”

“N-no,” she stammered.

“Pity,” he murmured. “I could get used to finding you this way.”

He sat on the edge of the tub and reached out to touch her cheek, rubbing his fingers over the curve and then down to her jaw.

“Everything go okay here?”

She nodded, still unsettled by his presence in the bathroom. She was in a vulnerable position and it made her uneasy.

“Kaden and Trevor give you any issues? Are you comfortable with them?”

She shook her head and then nodded, answering both questions before sinking lower in the tub. So maybe she wasn’t completely comfortable with having two hulks in her living room, but they hadn’t been a bother and they’d tried hard to be as obscure as possible. Or as obscure as two mountains could be anyway. And she didn’t want to come across as ungrateful. That Jace was going to such lengths to make her feel safe overwhelmed her. People just didn’t do things like Jace did. Nothing in her experience with the human race had ever led her to believe that white knights like Jace existed.

Jace chuckled. “Baby, if you go any lower, you’re going to drown.”

He dropped his hand down, delving into the water. She sucked in her breath when he curved his fingers underneath her breast and then thumbed over her nipple. It responded immediately, puckering as a delicious thrill coiled in her belly, spreading lower to the juncture of her thighs.

Her clit pulsed and ached. All the man had to do was touch her and she was a wreck. Her breaths hiccupped erratically from her mouth and the warm water suddenly seemed unbearably hot.

“Is there room enough in there for two?” he murmured.

Her eyes widened and she stared up at him, unsure of whether she’d heard him correctly. Guys like Jace didn’t crawl into girly baths complete with suds and candles. Did they? And did she want him to?

Because guys also did not crawl into a tub with a woman unless they expected a lot more than a bath.

It was a loaded question.

She licked her suddenly dry lips and eyed him nervously.

“Was it that hard of a question?”

Flushing, she shook her head and then shocked herself by saying, “You can come in.”

She was acting positively wanton. But she felt . . . bolder around him. Which was laughable because he still sent butterflies winging into her belly with one look. He definitely made her nervous—and she was still grappling with what his expectations were. This entire situation just seemed . . . insane, for lack of a better word. But somehow he managed to make her feel confident, and that was saying a lot because confident was never a word she would have used to describe herself before.

Cautious, yes. Wary? Definitely. She’d learned to weigh every situation, every person. Always look at underlying intent, because no one did anything without wanting something in return, and so far? The only thing she’d been able to figure out he wanted was . . . her. She certainly had nothing else to offer.

His gaze was gentle and he stroked his thumb over her nipple again. “But do you want me to?”

“Y-yes,” she said huskily. More confident this time. Yes, it was a word she was coming to terms with. She liked it. Liked the sensation of being sure of herself.

Satisfaction gleamed in his eyes. He rose from the edge of the bathtub and stripped out of his clothing, tossing it toward the counter. She couldn’t help but stare at his naked physique. He was so damn beautiful. She soaked him in, memorizing every detail.

The tight coil of muscles that marked his arms, his legs, his chest . . . The dark smattering of hair that lined an enticing path from his chest down his midline to his groin. And the lazy, kind of messy wash of dark hair that fell over his forehead and flipped out at his ears to fall inches below his neck. Her fingers itched to dive into the silky locks, twine them around her hands, just as she’d done the night he and Ash had sex with her.

It was strange that she remembered every aspect of him from that night in stark detail and yet Ash kind of blurred in her memory. It was Jace’s mouth, his hands, his cock, the feel of his body over hers, hard and demanding, that played over and over in her mind.

And now he advanced on her, bristling with an air of dominance. Lust and authority swirled in those delicious brown eyes, the color so dark that it was hard to separate his pupils from the irises. Yet, there was tenderness in his gaze, almost as if he tried to hide the demanding look that was second nature to him.