Lucca put a finger under her chin, lifting her head and making her look up at him. “What is it?”
“I-I-I still feel him,” she confessed. All over me.
He turned away from her then, and she didn’t know if her confession had broken him or if it had made him more furious.
Leaving her on the vanity, he went to the glass shower and turned the water on before he returned right back to her. Then he pulled her off the vanity and to her feet, telling her, “You’re going to let me help you.”
“W-What?” She grew nervous, which made her body shake. She had felt like her frozen skin was finally beginning to warm, only to go back to feeling doused in ice.
“I will not touch your skin, nor will I join you, even though it kills me not to.” There was slight pain in his commanding voice. “But you will let me help you undress and dress. I can’t leave your side right now, Chloe. I just can’t.”
I don’t want you to leave. She couldn’t take not being with him, either, not after what had just happened. Slowly, she nodded her head.
When Lucca grabbed the hem of her sweater, gently removing it from her body, his eyes went directly to the scars on her arms. Then he gazed over the ones on her stomach he hadn’t seen before.
Even though she wasn’t able to look in his eyes, she could feel how hungry he was.
When he went to unsnap the back of her black bra, she became increasingly nervous. The scars on her body weren’t her only insecurity. She had grown into her body early, having a womanly figure at a young age that she had never been able to hide. Her short stature didn’t help; it only exaggerated her already overstated hips and breasts.
As soon as the bra fell away, she covered her heavy breasts with her arms, becoming embarrassed. Why am I doing this? The old part of her wanted to run, while the new side wouldn’t let her.
Lucca could see her second-guessing and didn’t waste any more time. He went to the hem of the black jeans around her hips, removing them and her thin underwear altogether.
“Shower,” he gruffly ordered.
She ran to the safety of the shower as she held herself, trying not to die of embarrassment. When she closed the shower door behind her, the steamy warmth of the air gave her more privacy.
The second the water hit her skin, she felt like she could melt away. It was so warm, heating up her body that had been frozen for hours.
Lucca hadn’t moved an inch from his spot, his eyes never leaving her silhouette behind the glass shower door. “Clean your wrists.”
Listening to his command, she held her wrists under the water, watching the blood wash away and how the water turned slightly red before it cleared. Then she picked up the soap bottle and squirted some into her hands, lathering it over her body and trying to be careful not to get it on her sores.
Turning around to let the water run down her back and hair, she saw Lucca through the glass and froze in place. It was evident through his starving, fully blue eyes that he was in agony. Chloe could see how badly he hated that he had said he wouldn’t touch her or join her. It was so bad that it looked like he was about to jump in here at any second.
Suddenly frightened that he would, Chloe quickly tried to finish, putting some shampoo into her hair and rinsing it out. Then she poured just a bit more soap into her hand and scrubbed at her face where Lucifer had touched her the most.
Get off, get off, get off. The feeling of him licking her still lingered, but with each scrub of Lucca’s soap, the lingering feeling disappeared, replacing the devil’s touch with Lucca’s intoxicating clean mint smell.
When she was sure the devil’s germs were no longer on her, she turned off the hot water and opened the shower door to grab the towel hanging outside of it. Then she hurriedly wrapped it around her body.
Lucca still hadn’t moved.
“Come here,” he ordered.
Hugging the towel around her, she shakily walked back over to him, her chest heavily rising and falling.
When he reached out, she didn’t know what to expect; all she knew was that she completely and undoubtedly trusted him.
Lucca picked her up, placing her back on the vanity. Then he started pulling things out from under the sink, getting supplies to bandage her wrists.
While he began the process of taking care of her wrists, it was hard for Chloe to look at him. The pain of fighting the darkness back was so visible on him. And by the time he had fully bandaged her up, it was now killing her to see him like this.