At the bathroom door, he paused and turned to me again.
“Something wrong?” I asked, still smiling at him.
“No. Of course not. It is just…” He shrugged. “You look…pleased.”
“Pleased, huh?” I took a page from Queen Lieja’s book and feigned a pout. “And here I was thinking you were going to say beautiful.”
Apex laughed. “You need to be assured of many things here, Atlanta, but your beauty—I do not believe I need to remind you of that in the least. It is in every move you make and every word you speak. You do not need to be told you are beautiful. You already know.”
He slipped into the bathroom without another word and closed the door behind him. I heard the shower hiss to life a few moments later. I knew what he was doing in there. Stripping his shirt off, kicking off his boots, loosening his belt and dropping his pants. Naked, handsome, bathed in steam…
And he thought I was beautiful.
So beautiful that he didn’t even think it needed to be said.
I probably should have hated him. Somewhere in me, I probably did. Liar, murderer and worse—everything about him was utterly deplorable. He didn’t even make himself hard to hate.
But as I lay back on the bed, it wasn’t hate that was on my mind. Instead, I thought of that first kiss, the one he’d laid on my knuckles in the dungeons. How it’d burned my skin, even long after he’d pulled his lips away. I thought about the way he’d looked at me when I’d stepped out of the bath, his eyes crawling all over my body, not even bothering to pretend he didn’t want to bend me over the tub and make a woman of me then and there. And that kiss last night—I couldn’t stop thinking about that.
He was right. I’d wanted that kiss, no matter how much I tried to tell myself or anyone else that I hadn’t.
If I hadn’t wanted it, I wouldn’t have kissed him back.
As I sat up on the bed, I knew that this might be a bad idea. As I stood up, I knew I was probably playing right into his big, strong, dastardly hands. Was this all part of his plan? Telling me to trust him, promising he’d set me free, and doing everything he could to push me into wanting him? Probably.
But as I moved toward the bathroom, I didn’t really care.
He was the one with all the power in this. He was the one with all the secrets and all the lies and all the schemes.
What he didn’t know was that I knew he was up to something.
Which meant that for once, I had a little power.
And if he wanted me to want him…
Well, who was I to spoil all his best laid plans?
I waved my hand over the door to open it. It slipped back silently, so quiet that it actually reminded me of him.
After all his sneaking around, it would serve him right to be the one being sneaked up on for once.
Maybe he’d even like it.
I guessed we’d just have to see.
A billow of steam rose up to greet me as I stepped inside. The sound of the shower was louder now. The water was so hot, and the room was so cool, there was so much fog hanging in the air that I couldn’t even see him. At least, I couldn’t until the steam parted, like something out of a fairy tale, a dream—
And then, there he was. His dark hair dripped with water. The white streak at his temple was slicked back over his head, stark and bright. The blades of his muscled shoulders jutted out as he shifted beneath the water pouring down over his nude body. He was that same gorgeous color all over, muted orange with no tan lines, except for the places where he was striped and spotted a little pale. For a second, I thought they might have been markings, like a leopard or a tiger has, but then I noticed the way the flesh around them was raised sometimes, puckered others.
They weren’t stripes and spots. They were scars. Dozens of them—but none of them, it excited me to realize, looked fresh. Whatever losses Apex had taken in the past were over. Now, he looked like someone who had lost enough times long ago that he simply didn’t lose any more.
“Atlanta,” he growled, deep and breathy, and I stiffened immediately. I thought I’d been quiet enough to avoid his attention, but now… had he really noticed me already? I hadn’t even made a sound.
But then my gaze trailed lower, to the firm, round curve of his ass and the way his arm crossed over his thick, hard thigh. His fist pumped up and down over his pelvis in long, slow strokes. I caught a glimpse of his cock—just as huge as I knew it would be—clenched tight in his hand. The tip was flat and angled, a darker orange than the rest of him. It glistened, not with water, but with something shiny and sticky that clung to his thumb every time he moved his hand up over his glans.
He hadn’t seen me. He had no idea I was even there at all.
He’d said my name because he was stroking his cock—to the thought of me.
I’d never gotten so wet so fast before in my entire life.
I bit my lip, suddenly unsure about what I should do next. The cautious part of me was so overwhelmed by the sight of him that I almost wanted to slip back out into the bedroom and pretend that this had never happened. Getting the jump on Apex was one thing. Walking in on him masturbating and
