Page 220 of The Rules

Toward the bathroom.

Toward something that, for tonight, hurt a little less than being alone.

Katherine turned the shower on, watching as warm water spilled from the nozzle. Steam rose instantly, wrapping the bathroom in something soft, unclear, safe. The night seemed to blur around the edges as the mist thickened, creating a world separate from everything else.

Ben stepped under the stream, still fully clothed. He didn't move—just stood there, letting the water cascade over him, darkening his bloodstained shirt further. His eyes remained fixed, distant, like he was somewhere else entirely.

She followed him in without hesitation. The water soaked through her shirt and short immediately, clinging cold and tight against her skin. She shivered, but it didn't matter. None of it mattered.

She reached for him slowly, her fingers brushing over the bloodied shirt. The fabric was stiff in places, tacky with someone else's pain. She found the first button and worked it free. Then the next. And the next. Each movement deliberate, careful, as if she were disarming something dangerous.

Katherine peeled the fabric away, slow and steady. The blood had seeped through in places, dark and stiff against his skin.

She slid the ruined shirt from his shoulders, letting it fall to the corner of the shower where it lay forgotten, a crumpled reminder of lines crossed.

"Hold still," she murmured, her voice barely audible above the rush of water.

He did. His body remained perfectly motionless, only his chest rising and falling with each measured breath.

She unbuckled his belt, the metal slick under her fingers.

She loosened his pants, and he kicked them off without a word, the sodden fabric joining his shirt on the shower floor.

Through it all, he never stopped watching her. His eyes tracked her every movement, intense and unreadable.

Katherine watched as Ben lowered himself to his knees before her, the water cascading over his shoulders, washing away the remnants of violence. Her breath stuttered, caught between surprise and something she didn't have a name for—something that felt too tender, too vulnerable for what they were supposed to be.

Ben didn't touch her. He just looked up, eyes open and waiting. Letting her choose.

Her fingers slipped into his hair, wet now, clinging in dark strands against his scalp. She massaged gently, loosening the blood that had dried there, watching as it dissolved into pink rivulets that swirled down the drain like ghosts of what he'd done.

"You don't have to do this," he murmured, his voice rough beneath the steady rush of water.

"I know," she said.

And kept going.

Her touch was soft, careful. Not to arouse—but to soothe.

Toundosomething that hurt. She worked her fingers through his hair, along his temples, across the tense muscles at the base of his skull. She could feel him yielding beneath her hands, surrendering something he never gave to anyone.

His eyes fluttered closed.

He exhaled—slow, shaking. Letting her hold him in this small, simple way. The man who controlled everything, whonever bent, never broke, was allowing himself to be cared for. By her.

Then, finally, he rose.

Water streamed between them as he reached for her with slow, unhurried hands. His fingers found the hem of her soaked shirt and lifted it gently over her head. The fabric, heavy with water, landed on the shower floor with a soft, wet slap.

She reached behind her back to unclasp her bra, the clasp slippery beneath her fingers. When it fell, she shivered—not from cold, but from the way his gaze moved over her skin.

Together, they stepped free of what little remained between them, standing bare under the cascade.

Stripped of fabric. Stripped of pretense.

Nothing between them now but water and heat and breath.

And something unspoken.