Why keep one except to hear her sing?Chapter Twenty-SixMy hair is still wet.
I’ve only been in bed a few hours. Of course I showered as soon as we got home from the theater, the water scalding, scrubbing the place on my thighs where his come had been. There’s no trace of him, but I can still feel the warm spurts, the throb of intense pleasure that he triggered with his come.
Maybe I wouldn’t feel so dirty if he’d just taken my virginity the first night. Regular sex, right away. Even coming on me, as sharp and intimate as it is, I could have withstood.
It’s the orgasms he forces from my body that feel like a violation.
That’s how I find myself getting out of bed at two a.m., twisting the knob all the way to HOT. I stand under the spray for seconds, minute, hours. There’s no need for soap, not the physical kind. I just need to forget his fingers around my clit, his breath at the back of my neck.
The hot water heater in this massive house lasts a long time, but it eventually gives up on me. Or maybe it just doesn’t want to watch it go down the drain. This isn’t going to help, the cold water says, stinging my skin. I stand there for as long as I can take, until my teeth are chattering and every part of my skin has pebbled.
Eventually I step out of the shower onto the warm tile. God, even the bathroom tile has warmers. Everything in this place is perfectly modulated for the comfort of the master. For the comfort of Gabriel Miller.
I turn off the shower and dry myself off. A strange sound comes from the room. My hair prickles not from cold but from warning. Animal instinct, the opposite of Gabriel’s hands on my sides.
Wrapping the towel tight around me, I peek out the bathroom door.
Nothing.
Maybe I imagined it, just like I imagined the feel of Gabriel’s come on my thighs when it had already been washed off, just like I can still hear the whispers and feel the stares of the entire theater.
Then I hear it again, a knocking sound. Not from the door. From the other side of the room. The window. Pale face. Dark eyes. Someone looking inside my window.
I let out a shriek before recognition can slow my heartbeat. God.
Then I’m across the room, shoving open the window, whispering desperately, “Justin! What are you doing here?”
“I’m getting you out of here,” he says, his voice grim. He looks different than the last time I saw him. He was never fat, but he’d had the rounded cheeks of a boy who had never had to work very hard. Even sailing hadn’t made him lean.
Now he looks more gaunt, his eyes shadowed.
“Through the window? This is crazy.”
His eyes flash. “What’s crazy is putting yourself up for auction.”
His gaze flickers down my body, and I become painfully aware of how little the white towel covers. It hadn’t mattered when I thought I was alone in my room. Now he can see the tops of my breasts and most of my legs.
“Please,” I say, though I don’t know why I’m pleading. For him to leave? For him to understand? He’ll never understand. “I didn’t have a choice.”
He looks away for a moment, and I take in the fact that he’s on a ladder. A ladder. Where did he get it? Some kind of toolshed? Or maybe he brought it with him. This is some insane rescue attempt, except I don’t need rescuing.
No, that’s a lie. I need rescuing, but I need the money in that escrow account even more.
His nostrils flare. “God, Avery. Why didn’t you call me?”
“You broke up with me!”
“Still,” he says, seething. “Gabriel Miller! The man ruined your father.”
A flush steals over my cheeks, my chest. “I know. I didn’t have a choice in who won the auction.”
“I can’t believe you let him touch you. He turned over fake evidence to the state’s attorney. And then he had him attacked! He’s the reason your father even needs a nurse.”
My heart clenches. “No. He didn’t send those men.”
“Did you ask him?”
I did, but I’m not sure I believe him. And I’m afraid to push. Afraid to find out that he might have sent those men. Because he won the auction either way. We need the money either way. It’s sick and twisted, like the chili juice on my fingers. But sometimes we do sick and twisted things for the people we love.
“It doesn’t matter,” I say. “The auction is over. He won.”
“You’re leaving,” he says flatly.
“And give up a million dollars? Daddy needs that money.” And I needed the house more than ever. The only trace I had left of my mother. She would have known what to do, what to say, but I didn’t have her. All I had was the place that she’d lived. The place that she’d loved.