Page 8 of Sapphires and Snakes

She shrugs off the compliment. “That’s baseline, princess.”

“It should be… but it’s not.” I reach for her wrist, tugging her gently away from the door and toward the shower. “Please? I want you to join me.”

Tamayo studies my face for a long moment. Not once does her gaze travel any lower, and it’s so small, barely significant, but tonight, it means everything. That she would recognize that even the sight of my body needs to be given by me. And it’s exactly why I want her to stay.

She must see it on my face, because she finally relents and releases the doorknob with a small smile. “Okay.”

I return the same smile as I pull her closer. “Okay.”

TAMAYO

Ishrug off my jacket at the same moment Zarina reaches for the buttons of my shirt. Soft and quiet, she undoes my belt, pulls my shirt out from my waistband, helps my sleeves fall down my arms. My eyes trace over each inch of her skin, searching for signs of hesitation or pain. The marks on her neck and jaw from Marcus’s hands are darkening with bruises, and the sight ignites frigid anger. But I hold it inside. Those feelings are for later, when Zarina’s not half-naked in front of me.

When she’s not asking me to stay.

We stand in our underwear, neither fully naked. And on the outside, it might not seem different than when we fucked, but this isn’t a mad dash of desperation or barely disguised sexual tension. We aren’t fumbling into bed with hardly a thought for anything but pleasure. We’re not simply seeing each other naked—we’re about to see each otherbare. This is slow, steady reality and all the vulnerability that goes with it.

Zarina reaches around her back, unhooking her bra and letting it fall to the pile of clothes around us. I do the same. Together, we pull down our underwear and step out of them. Without a word, I open the shower door and offer a hand tosteady Zarina as she steps over the threshold and under the rainfall spray. I follow after her.

I try not to think about it as I squeeze shampoo into my palm and ask Zarina if I can touch her, but it’s glaring at me with every drop that wets my skin: I’ve never been this bare with a woman. Not one partner, long term or casual, has set foot in my bedroom, and I have certainly never been intimate on a level as deep as this. Because whether we say it out loud or not, Zarina is asking for help. She needs me in a way that I’ve never shown up for anyone other than my chosen family, and here I am. Showing up.

If I think about it too hard, I have to consider what it means. Whether I can come back from this and continue on the path I set for myself. The one that ends with the Gallo family laid to ruin like I was in that alleyway a decade ago. Can I bare myself to Zarina, let her bare herself to me, and still do that? And what about Zarina and her goal that directly hinders my own?

I don’t know.

And right now, I can’t consider it. Because Marcus could have won tonight. I almost arrived a moment too late, almost let the fear paralyze me as I watched his hands tighten around Zarina’s throat. I almost lost the chance to be here, scratching her scalp and trying to ease the stress from her body with each press of my fingers and hoping it helps.

God, I hope it helps.

I keep asking Zarina if I can touch her before each task, trying my hardest to give her a semblance of power after it was so rudely taken. And each time, she answers, “Yes, please.” I massage soap into her skin, focusing on the knots in her shoulders, in her neck, down her back. I want to put her to bed, dig my knuckles into the pads of her feet and take on the weight of all that’s crushing her. I want to brush her hair free of tangles.I want to cradle her between my arms and keep her safe from anyone laying a harmful hand on her ever again.

Fuck, Iwanther.

Zarina turns, and my hands fall to my sides as her own rise to rest on my shoulders. She nudges me around and under the spray to perform the same ablutions on me, as if I’m the one who was traumatized and in need of comfort.

I try to capture her wrist. “You don’t have to?—”

“I want to,” she says.

So I let her.

And I try not to bask, but it’s difficult with her capable fingers pressing into my muscles, scratching over my scalp. I have to ball my fists to keep from turning around to touch her. I’m doing okay (barely holding myself back), when her touch trails down my arms to my waist and slips around me. Her breasts press up against my back, her forehead between my shoulder blades.

“Relax,” she says into my skin. I can feel each twitch of her lips. “You’re so tense.”

I stretch out my fingers. “Sorry.”

“What did I say before?”

A half-smile slips over my lips.Stop apologizing for things you’re not accountable for.I pull in a breath, relax my shoulders, and bring my hands up to wrap around hers at my waist. “Better?”

She hums in affirmation. I expect her to pull back and finish, but she stays like that, arms wrapped around my middle and forehead resting against my back, for a few minutes. We stand, both under the spray, and take comfort in the other. I try not to tense up again in anticipation of the end of the moment.

When she finally lifts her head, I look over my shoulder, brow raised in question.

“Kiss me?” she requests, face hopeful.

I frown. “Are you su?—”