Page 23 of Crushing Clover

The house had been silent when Lucky and I entered, but as soon as Saint and Rush got home behind us, the argument from Cygnet rekindled.

Apparently, Rush hadn’t been done berating Lucky when the latter had stomped out the restaurant’s back door, dragging me behind him.

“Seriously, Lucky. What the fuck was that about?”

“Shut the fuck up. I don’t see what the big deal is. So, I had one off night. Big deal.”

I wasn’t sure who was the most tired and cranky, but it seemed to be a competition tonight.

“The difference is that you can’t let the girl affect your work. If you can’t do both then you won’t be allowed to do both.”

“ Allowed? What the fuck? You do realize that being your submissive doesn’t mean you’re my daddy, right? What are you going to do next? Ground me? Take away my phone? Give me a time out?”

I paused in straightening the shoes by the door and watched in concern as Lucky and Rush got into each other’s faces.

What the fuck? They never argued. The amount of anger rolling off them made me uncomfortable.

I followed them into the main room, but hung back, convincing myself it was best if I stayed out of it, even though I was desperate to intervene.

“Leave them to it,” Saint said from behind me. He tugged my hair almost playfully as he passed me. The other two were still arguing, and it felt wrong.

“Like you two never have an off night?”

“If we had off nights the way you did tonight, the restaurant wouldn’t have any regulars.”

“Stop being such a cunty bitch.”

I glanced at Saint to see what he thought about that, and he grimaced. Lucky never said stuff like that—especially not to Rush.

“I understand that the girl has interfered with our pecking order, but you don’t get to speak to me that way.”

“No? And why the hell not? Just because things have always been this way doesn’t mean they have to stay this way. Maybe I’m tired of everyone treating me like I’m stupid.”

“Stupid?” Rush jerked back his head as if he had been slapped. “Things between us are like this because it’s what works for us. It’s what has always worked for us. No one thinks you’re stupid.”

“Then why are you treating me like a child for getting a few orders confused for once in my life. What the fuck do you know about front of house? You spend all of your time playing with knives and doing what Saint tells you to do.”

I doubted that was true.

“Go shower.” Saint gestured me out of the room with his signature, casual imperiousness.

I glanced to him and back at the guys, worried.

“Go. They don’t need an audience.”

They’d been together for a long time and probably didn’t need my help to work through whatever they were mad about, but apparently, I was part of the problem. I got the impression Lucky didn’t like when they embarrassed him in front of me.

I turned to head for Lucky’s room, but Saint grabbed my arm. “This way, trouble.” He towed me to his own room, which made me feel strangely shy. He wasn’t going to bring me in the shower with him, was he?

“What does Lucky usually do for you?”

“What do you mean?”

“Does he wash your back or something?”

“I can bathe myself, if that’s what you’re concerned about.” I wrinkled my nose at him, and he frowned in irritation.

“I’m sure you can.” He strode off, leaving me in his bathroom, feeling like an interloper.

I glanced out the door, wondering where he’d gone, then realized he planned to wait for the shower until I was out.

Feeling silly, I stripped off my dress and cum-sodden panties and got into the shower.

As I stepped in and turned on the water, Saint came back in, startling me.

We froze that way, with him staring at my body while I wished I could melt into the tiles.

“Like I haven’t seen you naked before,” he said with a nonchalance that didn’t reach his eyes. It looked like he was experiencing the most reluctant desire in the history of civilization.

Rather than respond, I turned on the water and adjusted it to the right temperature. He didn’t have the same products as Lucky, though, and I wasn’t sure how he would feel about me using his things.

I stood there for a moment, frozen with indecision. As I reached for a bottle, Saint brought his hand down on mine. I was so startled I almost screamed. I hadn’t heard him enter the shower.

“Don’t you think you should wash your hair before you condition it?”

“Conditioner?”

“Yeah, conditioner. Are you familiar with the concept?”

“I know what conditioner is. I wasn’t expecting there to be any in your bathroom.”

He snorted. “Do I strike you as the type of man who uses two-in-one?”

I could feel his body heat, and his naked proximity was so unexpected I felt myself blushing.

Dammit, Clover—why are you freaking out about the possibility of some accidental skin-to-skin contact in the shower?

“Don’t worry. You’re not as irresistible as you seem to think.”

With the tips of my ears burning, I pumped a handful of what seem to be body wash into my hand.

Saint grabbed my hand again and rinsed the glistening puddle from my palm. It had seemed like the wrong consistency, but he had me all flustered.

“Maybe read a bottle first or ask for what you need?” he said tightly. “You don’t need lube in here—not with me.”

Oh god. Was that really what I’d grabbed? I took a better look at the bottle, and sure enough, that’s what it was.

“Who the fuck keeps lube in the shower?”

“People who use lube in the fucking shower.” He sounded exasperated.

Right.

He put my hand under a different spigot and pumped a substance into my palm. “This is body wash. I assume that’s what you were looking for.”

I scrubbed at myself, trying not to pay attention to the large, naked man in the shower with me, but it wasn’t the kind of space that made it possible to ignore him. The two of us moved around each other in brooding silence. Why had he made me come in here if he didn’t want me in here?

The man was confusing and impossible.

We bumped into each other more than once, and I could sense his growing animosity at my back. What was I supposed to do?

“You’re doing that on purpose!” he growled in my ear.

I couldn’t help but shiver at the intensity in his voice, even though the man irritated the hell out of me.

I might even say that I hated him, but hate was a strong word, and I’d had people do far worse to me than his brand of offhanded bullying.

At least with him, it didn’t feel personal—it still felt like it was about Arabella.

“Doing what on purpose?” I asked sharply. I shouldn’t be mouthing off, but it was hard not to react to his perpetual bad mood. The two of us went together like orange juice and toothpaste.

“Stopped acting innocent. I know what you’re after.”

“What on earth are you talking about? I’m trying to hurry up and get clean, which is what people normally do in showers.”

“Sliding your hands all over your body like that—I know you’re unbearably attracted to me, but please try to contain yourself. It’s so embarrassing for you.”

Angrily, I whirled on him. He had turned his back to me, and it was unfortunately beautiful with its wet sheen. I couldn’t deny he was attractive, but if he thought I was throwing myself at him or trying to be seductive, he was completely delusional.

“I don’t have a washcloth in here, so the only thing I can wash with is my hands. Do you have a different suggestion?”

My gaze slid down his back to his narrow waist and hips, to his hot ass—muscular, with the dents on the sides that made me feel too warm in the steamy enclosure.

He snapped his head around and caught me staring at his ass. “Yeah, that’s what I thought.”

“Just because you’re good to look at doesn’t mean I want anything else from you. I prefer my partners to have a personality. You don’t meet the basic criteria for humanity, so you have no reason to worry about your virtue, where I’m concerned.”

I turned away from him to rinse off and as water began to sluice down my body again, he grabbed me by the back of the neck and pushed me face first against the impeccably clean tiles. The porcelain was smooth against my cheek.

“What the fuck are you doing? Let me go!”

“I despise having you living under our roof. If you survive the entire six months until I pay off the restaurant it will be a goddamn miracle.”

“It’s a big house. You could ignore me, but you choose not to.” I tried to shake him off. He didn’t allow it, and his breath was hot against the back of my neck, almost as though he were leaning in far more closely than he needed to.

“What the hell are you talking about?” His quiet, venom-filled words made me quiver with a mix of fear and excitement.

“You don’t need to tie me to the foot of the bed, or supervise me in the shower, or bring me to work. You could lock me in one of the bedrooms—hell, you could even lock me in the basement, and yet you’re choosing to drag me around like a little kid with his favorite blankie.”

He buried his free hand in my hair, pressing me even more firmly against the tiles.

I tried to hold the rest of my body away from the chilly dampness, but there was no way to keep my nipples from the cold.

I arched back, wanting to get away from the unpleasant sensation and ended up with his hard dick sliding against my spine.

I sucked in a breath. Was he angry at me, or was he horny? Was it possible to be both this intensely?

“I can’t wait to give you back so Warren can sell you to one of his friends,” he hissed. “If I ever think of you after that, it’ll be as I smile myself to sleep knowing you’re being fucked to death in some dark, squalid little room.”

Fear and desperation prickled behind my eyes, making them swim with unshed tears.

“Why are you so hateful? What did I ever do to you?”

“Sweetheart, I was hateful long before we ever met, but it doesn’t stop me from daydreaming about you being murdered.”

Frankly, being murdered sounded a hell of a lot better than being sold to some monster.

“If you were as bad as you think you are, you would murder me yourself instead of being a coward.”

I’d rather die here and now than be scared for the rest of my life.

He crushed me against the tiles, his big body covering mine, touching at every point. His cock felt like a hot brand against my lower back, scalding its imprint into my flesh.

“I don’t care about you enough to go to jail for what I want to do to you.

” He trembled against my back, seeming barely in control.

“I lie in bed fantasizing about taking one of Rush’s knives and plunging it into this soft little body over and over again—fucking you in every hole I make until you’re screaming and begging me for mercy, then slitting your throat and watching the life drain from your beautiful eyes.

” He was breathing hard, and his cock twitched where it was pressed between us.

A little more, and he might lose his fucking mind and kill me right here on the spot.

“That’s a lot of emotion for a man who pretends he doesn’t care.”

“You fucking bitch,” he snarled then bit the spot between my neck and shoulder hard enough that the pain made stars burst behind my eyes. I’d never felt pain like this—sharp, sensual, and personal.

Fuck, he hated me. Was it because of Arabella, or was it because Warren had transplanted me here and not given him a choice?

Saint shuddered and warmth bloomed up my back only to slide back down again to drip and plop at our feet.

Had he come on me while talking about murdering me? Holy shit, this guy was fucked up.

I whimpered, my mind having latched on to the visual of him stabbing me and fucking the hole. The subtle slide of his cock against my spine as it finished emptying made me grit my teeth in revulsion, but worse—so much worse—I was weirdly, humiliatingly, turned on.

What the fuck was wrong with me?

What the fuck was wrong with us?

He pulled away from me and let go of my hair. I couldn’t say when he had let go of my neck, but his hand wasn’t there anymore. I felt like I should speak, but both of us had gone silent. Maybe that was for the best. The last thing I wanted to do was acknowledge what had just happened between us.

If I ever got to go back to the real world, I was going to need a decade of therapy.

Humiliated, I washed and conditioned my hair and got out. He wasn’t far behind me, and didn’t say a word as we toweled off.

“Go find Lucky and stay out of trouble.”

He shoved me out of the bathroom and shut the door so quickly I almost fell. What the fuck? Irritable and upset, I padded through the hall to the living room.

I hated that man. He’d been talking about murdering me and we’d both gotten off on it? What in the actual fuck? I couldn’t believe he was so unfazed by what had happened that he was going to ignore the whole thing and move his bowels. Men and their stupid regular bodily functions.