Page 12

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Tovah

O h.

My.

God.

I stood under the hot water in Isaac’s shower, letting it soak my hair and body and hopefully wash away the past hour.

My whole body was ice-hot, cold flashes and heat rushes making me tremble and sweat. I felt feverish, insane, my skin too tight, my heart racing. And I ached everywhere, especially my pussy. My clit was sore, pulsing weakly between my legs. The fact that my clit even had a pulse was a whole new worry I didn’t have room for right now.

No man had ever given me an orgasm before.

No man had ever even touched me between my legs, much less attached his mouth to my vagina like he was a demonic vacuum trying to suck out my soul. I wasn’t just a virgin—I had never let a guy get that close to me. I didn’t trust men. Well, I didn’t really trust anyone, but men especially.

Guess that didn’t matter to Isaac. But then why would it? He assumed I’d been with a ton of guys, and as far as I was concerned, he could keep assuming that.

But god.

God.

That had felt like nothing I could have ever imagined feeling. Amazing and terrifying, shocking and perfect, surreal and raw. I’d been overcome, overtaken, overwhelmed…over- everything.

I hated that Isaac Silver had been the one to give me my first non-self-induced orgasm—but part of me, the part that had swooned over him as a little girl—loved it.

I groaned, sliding down against the warm shower tiles until I was sitting on the floor, the water pelting over my head.

What was I doing here? Yes, I had a plan: snoop, eavesdrop, get evidence, expose the Silvers, finally make it so my mom and I were safe and free. But no part of that plan included “get your rocks off courtesy of your enemy’s firstborn son’s tongue.”

At least, not last I checked.

I couldn’t let that happen again. I knew better than to let some hockey star with a chip on his shoulder the size of Australia distract me from my goals—even if when we were children, he’d called me his destiny.

The only thing we were destined for was to ruin each other’s lives.

With that depressing thought, I turned off the water and stepped out of the shower, wrapping a big, fluffy white towel around my body and hunting down another one for my hair. I really needed my stuff: my hair towel, my diffuser, my gel and mousse.

Make a list of what you want and I’ll make sure to order it for you. Or we can just go pick it up from your apartment tomorrow.

Like what I wanted mattered to him. Like we were dating, like there was a we at all. I didn’t know why Isaac was pretending to care about what sort of toiletries I wanted, when he didn’t give a shit about me. But I’d make sure to get my hair stuff…and whatever else I could use against him. I’d hide my interview recorder in my shampoo bottle, if that’s what it took.

Locating an unused toothbrush, and hating that he had an unused toothbrush, and then hating myself for hating it, I spread some toothpaste on it and brushed my teeth, staring at myself in the mirror. My skin was flushed, and I could pretend it was only from the shower, but I knew better. My eyes were big and dark and confused. Scared.

Who would I be when I finally got out of this madhouse?

“Tovah,” he called from outside the bathroom, his voice annoyingly, enticingly husky. “You done?”

I froze.

I wasn’t ready to see him yet. I’d basically ran out of the kitchen after yelling at him for making me come without my consent.

I should be angrier about that. Should be fucking livid that he’d taken my choice away from me.

So why wasn’t I?

“Tovah,” he called again.

You’re strong, Tovah Lewis. Smart and clever and tough. More than even he realizes. You can do this.

With that short silent pep talk, I blew myself a kiss in the mirror and opened the bathroom door, letting the steam out and facing Isaac.

And then immediately regretted it when I spotted him there, framed in the door in grey cutoff sweats and no shirt, his delectable abs on full display.

But when I went to slam the bathroom door back shut, he stopped me, putting out a hand and catching it.

“Hiding?” he commented.

I straightened my shoulders, aware that they were bare, that there was nothing separating him and my naked body but the towel. His towel. Pretending I had no such awareness, or just didn’t give a shit, I tossed my wet hair. “No, but your bedroom is cold. Can I borrow some clothes?”

He stared at me in his towel, his throat working.

“Fuck no,” he muttered.

“Excuse me?” I raised an eyebrow, trying to control my breathing. “There’s no way I’m sleeping naked with you. So I can either go sleep in another room or you can give me clothes.”

He sauntered over to his armoire, pulling out a big t-shirt that said Reina Kings on it and tossed it to me. “You can sleep in that.”

I rolled my eyes. “I need underwear.”

“No, you don’t.”

“Isaac.” My voice broke.

His eyes narrowed, and whatever else he was going to say got cut off with a snarl. A pair of man’s boxer-briefs sailed toward me, and I caught them.

“I need the bathroom,” he muttered, walking toward me, grabbing me around the waist, and moving me out of the way like I was an annoying piece of furniture. The bathroom door slammed behind him.

I heard the water turn on.

Hell, now was the perfect time to snoop.

Keeping my eyes on the bathroom door, I pulled on the huge shirt and boxer-briefs. I walked around the bedroom, opening the drawers on the right nightstand, but other than a huge box of condoms and a pair of metal handcuffs I dropped immediately back into the drawer like they’d burned me, I found nothing.

The door opened and I turned toward it like I hadn’t been doing anything sketchy.

Isaac came out, a towel wrapped around his waist. His dark hair was wet, droplets trickling down his face, his neck, one sliding between his clavicles to make its way between his pecs…

“See something you like?” he said wryly.

I jerked my head up, hiding my embarrassment by glaring at him.

“Says the guy who had his head locked between my thighs only half an hour ago,” I taunted.

He shrugged. “Not denying that I like looking at you. I can hate you and still know you’re the fucking hottest thing I’ve ever seen in my goddamned fucking life.”

Oh. My. God.

I gaped at him.

He smiled, dimples appearing for the first time since the bar, and for a moment he became Isaac Jones, charmer.

“Time for bed,” he said, taking a step toward me.

“I’ll just go sleep in another room.”

“You will not,” he told me. “Like I said, I don’t trust you alone. You’re spending the night in bed—with me. You’re spending every night in bed with me for the foreseeable future, so get used to it.”

“I’m not fucking you,” I said immediately.

He raised an eyebrow. “Who said anything about fucking? You have to earn my cock, little snoop. So far, you haven’t come close to it.”

I snorted. “I’m never going to want your cock, so you’re fine.”

“Whatever you say,” he hummed, pulling down the bedding. “Get in.”

“I really?—”

“Fuck this,” he muttered, and then he was picking me up again and depositing me on the bed. I bounced, and began to scramble off, but he was on me two seconds later, the pair of handcuffs dangling from his hand. He closed one around my left wrist, shocking me when he closed the other around his right wrist, before clipping them together.

“Did you just handcuff me to you?”

“Yup. This way you’re really not going anywhere. Now, go the fuck to sleep.”

And then we were both lying flat next to each other, nothing touching but our pinkies. He did something on his phone and then the lights were out and the room was dark.

“Do you snore?” I asked the dark room. Because what the fuck else was there to say? My childhood crush turned nemesis had become my sexual tormentor-slash-captor-slash-fake-boyfriend (maybe) so fast I had whiplash. And now I was literally handcuffed to the asshole.

I heard him laugh. “No, I don’t snore. Do you?”

I paused. I had no way of knowing. “I don’t know,” I admitted.

“What, none of your ex-boyfriends told you?” he asked dryly.

The truth was, I’d never spent the night with someone else other than my mom, and that had been years ago, but I wasn’t about to tell him that.

“What about you? Do the girls tell you if you snore?”

It was quiet for a moment before he admitted, “I’ve never spent the night with one of them, so I have no idea.”

A sweet feeling took hold of my chest. I shouldn’t care that Isaac hadn’t spent the night with a girl before. I couldn’t.

But I did.

“Well,” I finally said. “Don’t. Or I’ll kidney punch you.”

He laughed again, but didn’t say anything else.

And even though my mind and heart were both racing, even though I was somewhere strange and unfamiliar and deeply unsafe, even though there was a metal handcuff attached to my wrist and that couldn’t be fucking comfortable, my body somehow didn’t get the memo that we were in danger. Instead, I relaxed in the soft warmth of Isaac’s bed, liking the graze of his fingers against mine. As his breathing deepened and slowed, so did mine—until I was fast asleep.