Tall, Silent & Lethal (Pyte/Sentinel #4)(68)

“Stopping you from your next attack, you sick bastard!” she snarled, more than ready to attack him again if he so much as looked in the direction of that comb.

“Next attack?” he murmured, looking adorably confused. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“You are not scalping me!” she snarled, the shades of red sharpening as she felt the tip of one fang scratch her tongue, and for the first time since she’d woken up to discover that he’d turned her into a monster, she welcomed the creepy changes, hoping that she could use them to her advantage.

“Scalping you?” he repeated back as he shot a questioning glace at the comb before looking back up at her. “I’m not trying to scalp you.”

She snorted at that, shaking her head in disgust. “Just like you weren’t trying to strangle me when you helped me take off my clothes? Or you weren’t trying to drown me when you dunked my head under water? Or blind me when you kept pouring soapy water in my eyes? Or suffocate me when you-”

“I was trying to help you relax!” he snapped, looking so damn disgruntled that she was surprised to find herself fighting back a smile.

But, then his words sank in and she couldn’t help but frown as she asked, “Relax? How in the hell was being mauled relaxing?”

“I wasn’t mauling you!”

“Yes, you were!” she snapped back, tightening the towel around herself as she climbed off the bed, careful not to give him a peepshow, not that he hadn’t already seen everything.

“I was giving you a relaxing bath!”

She snorted at that as she stomped over to his bags and without bothering to ask for permission, tore through them until she found a grey tee shirt and a pair of plaid boxers that she could pull on. Once she was dressed, she stomped past him, picked up the comb off the floor and sat back down on the bed. She set to work on carefully combing the snarls out of her hair all while glaring at the bastard that was glaring right back at her.

For several minutes they continued like that, her combing her hair while they glared, until with a muttered, “Marta never complained,” Christofer turned his back on her, picked up her discarded towel and threw it in the bathroom. When he turned back around and found her gaping at him, her mouth wide open as she looked at him with unmitigated horror, he asked, “What?”

“You…,” she started to say, only to pause so that she could swallow back the revulsion that was sending her already queasy stomach into turmoil, “you did that to Marta?” she finally managed to get out, horrified at the thought of Marta being forced to suffer through that kind of torture. She’d barely survived it and couldn’t imagine a woman in her eighties surviving such an ordeal.

“Of course,” he said with a frown as though there was nothing wrong with what he was admitting to doing.

“Y-you sick bastard!” she snarled, horrified on Marta’s behalf.

“What?” he asked with a puzzled expression on his otherwise handsome face, which did nothing but make her shake her head in disgust.

“How could you do that to an eighty year old woman?” she demanded, wondering how she’d missed Marta’s screams for help those times that Christofer had helped his sister with her shower routine, the one thing that Marta had refused to allow Cloe to help her with.

Now she wished that she had ignored Marta’s wishes and taken over that chore. It would have added another hour or two to her day, but at least Marta would have been able to enjoy a pain free bath for at least a little while.

“Eighty?” Christofer repeated back, looking as though he had no idea what she was talking about. Then with a sigh and a shake of his head, he explained, “I haven’t bathed Marta since she turned twelve.”

“You helped bathe her every morning,” Cloe pointed out even as her brain struggled to register what he’d just said and what that meant.

“No, I just helped her get in and out of the shower,” Christofer explained just as she realized what he’d said only a few seconds ago. “She needed help, but she was embarrassed about…..some marks on her body,” he said, shifting his gaze away.

“You bathed Marta until she was twelve?” she asked, wishing that she’d misheard him, but she had a sneaking suspicion that she hadn’t.

Which meant……

“How old are you exactly?” she asked, swallowing back dread as she looked him over, really looked him over as though she was seeing him for the first time.

The man was utterly perfect. There wasn’t a single flaw marring his face or body. There didn’t seem to be a single ounce of fat on his body. His hair was a healthy golden blonde, his eyes crystal clear blue, and his skin perfectly tanned. He didn’t look a day over twenty-five, but could probably pass for a thirty year old with the right clothes. But if he’d been able to bathe Marta when she was twelve, that meant that he was-

“I’m ninety-nine years old,” he announced with a shrug as though it was no big deal and to him it probably wasn’t.

Unfortunately for her, she couldn’t just shrug it off, not when the realization that she’d made out with a senior citizen had her running for the nearest toilet.

Chapter 29

“Cloe,” he said with a heavy sigh as he hunched down in front of her and moved to push a strand of damp hair out of her face.