Taste (Take It Off #9)(35)
Author: Cambria Hebert

He was still holding the small duffle of clothes that I packed, and he pointed to the room off the living room. “How about that shower?”

I nodded and followed along behind him into the single bedroom in this apartment. The walls were the same gray, the trim the same white, and the bed was huge. It was definitely a king size and the headboard and footboard were padded leather. All the blankets were white.

“Nice,” I said.

“You seem surprised.” He grinned and tossed my bag on the bed.

“I gotta say, I thought it would be more… bachelor-ish?”

He laughed. “For a long time, I didn’t really have much of anything. I moved around a lot and deployed with the Marines. When I got out and moved here, I wanted something more… permanent. Something that felt like mine, you know?”

I nodded.

“So I bought furniture.” He shrugged.

“I like it a lot.”

“Wait ‘til you see the inside of my shower,” he said, coming up and wrapping his arms around me.

“And what is so special about your shower?” I asked.

“I’m going to be naked in it.”

“Hmm,” I purred. “Well, that’s definitely special.”

Spence laughed and dropped a kiss on my lips while yanking off my shirt. Then he kissed me again. He stepped back and unfastened his jeans, revealing the short, wiry curls at the apex of his hips.

When he held out his hand, I took it, allowing him to lead me into the all-white bathroom and turn on the shower.

What was supposed to be a get clean and get out activity turned into a slow exploration of every body part we both had. The suds were slippery, his hands were hot… and his mouth was even better.

By the time both of us were thoroughly “clean,” the water had long gone cold, and I was shivering.

Spence reached around me to shut off the spray and palm my ass one last time. “You’re fucking sexy.”

“You’re not so bad yourself.”

He grinned and opened the shower door. I stepped out ahead of him, reaching for a fluffy white towel. I ran it over my face and head, then wrapped it around my shoulders.

The silence in the room seemed a little off, so I glanced over my shoulder. Spencer was still standing in the shower, dripping wet, with an angry expression.

“Spencer?”

“Why didn’t you say anything,” he ground out.

“About what?” I asked, confused.

His muscles flexed and bunched as he stepped out of the shower and pulled the towel off my shoulder, exposing my back.

“This,” he growled, turning me toward the mirror. I had to look over my shoulder and into the reflection to see what he was talking about.

There was a blotchy purple bruise low on my back. “It’s no big deal,” I said, my gaze briefly touching on all the other bruises that marred my skin from the first attack my body endured. I tried to pull the towel back up, but Spencer wouldn’t release his hold on the material.

“That wasn’t there before,” he growled. I watched as a stricken look came into his eyes. “Did I do this?”

“Of course not!” I hurried to say. “You couldn’t be that rough with me if you tried.”

“I didn’t notice it,” he murmured, brushing his open palm against it.

It was sore, but in truth, I hadn’t noticed it either. I’d been too busy enjoying his body. “At the house earlier,” I said, remembering. “The intruder, he punched me around that area.”

Spencer’s eyes went flat. It made my stomach hurt, so I tugged the towel out of his grip and pulled it up around my shoulders. “It doesn’t hurt,” I said, wanting to take away the look on his face.

He reached up and grabbed the ends of the towel that met at my chest. Gently, he tugged it closer, and I was momentarily distracted by the way his damp skin glistened under the lights.

“I’m going to get this son of a bitch,” he vowed. “He put his hands on you. For that I will kill him.”

“Spence.” I covered his hands with mine. “I don’t want you to kill him. Because if you do, he’ll successfully take away something that I’m pretty sure I can’t live without.”

“If he’s dead, he can’t hurt Jack either.”

I shook my head. “I didn’t mean Jack. Not this time.”

“Then?”

“If you kill him, they’ll put you in jail, and I’ll have to live without you.”

Emotion passed behind his eyes, and he pulled me against his chest. I curled in close against him, letting the moment absorb into my skin.

“I’m gonna keep you, too,” I whispered.

He groaned and held me tighter. “I’m not going to let anything happen to you,” he vowed.

After several minutes in his arms, I pulled back and gave him a smile. “As soon as the president is dead, the threat to me and Jack will be, too.”

The same look from before, the dark, angry one he displayed at my house earlier tonight, resurfaced.

“Why do you keep looking at me like that?” I demanded. “What aren’t you saying?”

“Get dressed. Then we’ll talk.”

I thought about protesting and making him lay it all out here and now. But some conversations were better held while wearing pants. This was probably one of them.

I left him in the bathroom to dry and get changed and wandered out into the bedroom to dig through my duffle. I pulled out a pair of navy leggings and a loose A-line tank top that was the same color of the walls.

Quickly, I brushed my damp hair and decided to braid it in pigtails again so it would be wavy in the morning for work.

Spencer put on a pair of tight black boxer briefs that totally stole all my attention until he pulled on a pair of low-riding dark-gray Nike sweatpants. When he pulled a T-shirt out of the dresser, I shook my head and he tossed it aside with a grin.

Shirts were not required for this conversation.

“You want something to eat?” he asked.

I shook my head. “I want you to talk.”

He sighed.

“Why do you keep getting this look… this angry, shadowed look, whenever I say anything about your plan?”

He scrubbed hand over his face. “Elle…”

“Just say it, Spencer. I’m a big girl.”

“The threat to your life isn’t going to just go away when everyone thinks the president is dead.” He rushed the words out like he couldn’t bear to speak them.