“Trying to wash away the guilt along with the smell of him are you, Charlie?”
I twisted blindly in the direction of the sound, gasping into the humid air, but the combination of wet hair and water in my eyes meant I could hear but not see him. All I knew was he was somewhere close.
It seemed a long time since Sean had wanted to see me naked to the point where he’d deliberately invaded my space like this. We still shared the apartment but very much separately. We hadn’t shared a bedroom — never mind a bed — for months. It never occurred to me to lock the bathroom door because he hadn’t shown the least inclination to walk in on me.
After the shock of his arrival, it took longer for the words themselves to penetrate.
“Trying to wash away the guilt along with the smell of him…”
What the—?
Furious, I swiped a hand across the glass at head-height and glared out. Sean was leaning in the doorway still dressed for the office. As a nod to being off duty he’d discarded his tie and the jacket of his dark grey suit, and rolled back his shirtsleeves. With his arms folded across his chest the action showed off the muscle bulk he’d worked so hard to regain after the coma.
He couldn’t have made me feel more trapped if he’d set his mind to it.
I prayed that was not the case.
“I didn’t realise you were here,” I said, struggling to keep my voice neutral, as if nothing unusual or unsettling was taking place. There was no way I wanted to start an argument from this kind of disadvantaged position. “I’ll be out shortly. Can you give me a few minutes?”
Instead he levered away from the doorframe and stalked forwards, letting his arms drop. I resisted the urge to cover my body from his gaze. Even with all its wounds and scars, it was nothing he hadn’t seen before.
But not like this.
Even so, I didn’t expect him to yank open the cubicle door heedless of the pounding spray. The steam roiled out, sucking a billowing waft of cold air in over my skin which goose bumped instantly.
“Sean!” I protested, low and shaky. “Get out!”
But he just stood there, subjecting me to a long scrutiny while his hair and clothing absorbed the sodden heat.
I felt my chin lift, my shoulders square. I met his gaze with defiance despite the colour flaring in my cheeks.
“What I asked,” he repeated with deadly precision, “was—”
“I know what you damn well asked,” I threw back, not bothering to waste my breath on questions when it was only too obvious what he’d been asking. “But if you think I’m going to discuss that kind of wild accusation in here like this—”
“What better time?” he demanded. “And where better place?”
And before I knew it he’d swung the door wide and stepped fully dressed into the shower with me.
The water beat his hair flat to his skull and ran from his brows, pushing his eyes into shadow behind the flow. The shirt turned transparent in a moment, the dry-clean-only suit trousers ruined.
The shower cubicle was a generous size. We’d shared it in the past but back then we’d been more than happy to occupy the same footprint, the same heartbeat. Now, when I was trying to keep him from touching me, it seemed impossibly small.
Sean bunched me back into the tiled wall, grabbed both wrists and wrenched my hands above my head, holding them there bracketed in his left. He was right-handed, but the gunshot wound to his left temple had affected his right side and he was still building back the strength of his grip. The fact he’d deliberately chosen to use the hand currently stronger, going against natural dominance, sent alarm bells clanging inside my head.
“I wasn’t ‘here’ when you arrived, but I was close by all right,” he said then in a savage whisper. “Close enough to see your fond farewell to Parker. The man you work for. The man I’m in partnership with. The man I’m supposed to trust.”
I jerked my hands but he tightened his grip, stretching my arms a little more taut overhead until my muscles began to quiver. He leaned in, right hand fisted into the wall alongside me for balance. And all the time the water lashed down on the pair of us like a tropical typhoon.
“So how long’s it been going on between the two of you, Charlie? Were you using him as a substitute for me all those months when I wasn’t around to… satisfy you? Just how long did you wait before you and he—”
“Enough!” I snapped, my voice vibrating with anger. “Think the worst of me if you want, Sean. Why not? You always did before. But leave Parker out of this!”
“How can I?” he demanded, “when I saw the way you went to him out there, and I saw the way he kissed you. Got it bad, hasn’t he?” He leaned in closer still, so the water splashed from his face down onto mine. I told myself that was the reason I shut my eyes. “So I think I have a right to know — does he touch you like this?”
I began, “You have no rights—”
Sean’s free slicked up my ribcage to cup my breast, tormenting with fingers that knew how to cause both intimate pleasure and pain. Too long denied, I responded in spite of myself. Heat blossomed low in my belly, flushing the surface of my skin.
Sean sensed it and gave a mirthless laugh.
“Or this?”
He claimed my mouth in punishment while his hands balanced me teetering between restraint and caress.
I gasped onto his tongue and he swallowed the little mewl as if stealing my voice and my soul. From the first, Sean had seemed to know all my body’s secrets. Hell, he had created most of them. I tore my mouth free.
“I’ve never slept with Parker!” I cried wildly. “Yes, I know how he feels about me. But he knows I can’t give him what he truly wants and he would never force me to try.”
I don’t know what finally got to him. Maybe it was the word “force” that did it. That and the fact that Parker — his friend, even his mentor — would not stoop so low.
Sean’s head lifted. I felt the shift in his balance, braced my right arm and jerked down hard with my left, rotating my fist against the joint between his forefinger and thumb — the weakest part of his grip. Pulled in opposite directions, his hand sprang open.
I let my knees sag until I was almost squatting in the shower tray, then drove my heels downwards and surged up again. I kept my arms bent close to my chest and used the power from my legs instead. Both clenched fists landed in the fleshy vee beneath Sean’s ribs, angled sharply upwards, with enough force even in the confined space to paralyse his diaphragm.
He fell back, chest heaving as he tried to claw air into his lungs. Without bothering to shut off the water I looped my arm through his from the front and kept him going. Before he knew it I’d marched him backwards out of the shower cubicle, stumbling through the bathroom and into the hallway.
The punch was an improvised close-quarter technique that came from the necessity of fighting in an enclosed space. The arm lock was standard for neutralising and removing troublemakers from a crowd. I wondered if Sean would find it ironic that he was the one who’d taught it to me.
In the living area I manoeuvred him around my open travel bag and sent him sprawling over the arm of the sofa. He landed heavy on the cushions, still shuddering for breath and now shivering in his drenched clothes.
The suit was past repair in any case, so I wasn’t careful how I stripped him of his trousers and everything beneath. Why should I be the only one naked?
He didn’t help but I didn’t need him to. About half the shirt buttons remained attached. The rest were scattered to the four corners.
At least his Breitling wristwatch was waterproof to greater depths than we’d just plumbed. I was unfastening the strap by the time he had the breath to speak.