I flutter my eyelashes. “Just throwing that out there.”
“The brush is for the knots in your hair.”
“Lame.”
Or so I thought. The moment he crawls onto the bed and nudges me onto my belly, I realize something monumental is about to happen.
He reclines beside me, braced on an elbow with our bodies aligned. “Look the other way.”
I turn my head and hug the pillow beneath it as wonderment buzzes in my belly.
His fingers run through my waist-length hair, gathering the heavy strands down my back. When the wide brush replaces his hands, I can’t stop the sigh from billowing my lips.
He starts at the ends and works his way up gently, affectionately, taking care around the tangles like he knows what he’s doing.
“Thank you,” I mumble happily. “This is really nice.”
“You’re welcome.”
It’s the weirdest, most amazing feeling. I’ve never had man brush my hair. Especially not a pompous, well-to-do suit. Hell, I struggle to imagine him combing his own hair. Wealthy men with chauffeurs don’t do this. Serial killers do. The kind that rubs the lotion on its skin.
“Are you going to chop me up into little pieces when you’re finished?”
“Your mind is a scary place.”
“Sometimes. Have you ever done this before?”
The brush pauses mid-stroke. Then he resumes with careful strokes. “No.”
Big steps for Stodgy Savoy. Good for him.
“What else can you do with those hands?” I ask.
“I’m not answering that.”
“Chicken.”
He goes still. So fucking quiet and still. Then slowly, methodically, he sets the brush down on the mattress in my line of sight.
Worry tingles up my spine. I’m in for it now.
He wraps my hair around his fist, and with an eye-watering yank, he cranes my neck at an uncomfortable angle.
“Stop taunting me.” His mouth touches my ear, the gentle caress at odds with his tone. “You won’t like the consequence.”
“I want the consequence. Show me, Trace.”
His breath rushes out, harsh and ragged, and his hand tightens, stinging pain through the roots along my scalp. I squirm against his grip, hating and loving the anticipation.
“No.” He releases me, tempers his breaths, and calmly picks up the brush.
“Disappointing.” I wilt in defeat on the mattress.
“Get used to it.”
“No need.” I shift to my side, facing away from him. “I’m not going to pursue someone who doesn’t want me.”
I’ve gone without sex for three years, and now I’m starving for it. Trace triggered something inside me, something that awakened my libido. But there are a lot of men out there. Plenty of hard long dicks who would be more than willing to give me a night to remember.
So for the next twenty minutes, I simply savor the pleasure of the brush sliding through my hair rhythmically, hypnotically. He continues to stroke long after the tangles are smoothed out, his breaths steady and composed, rasping in sync with his hand.
I must’ve drifted off, because when I open my eyes, the brush lays on the mattress and his warm body presses against my back.
His breathing is no longer measured. It’s erratic and shallow. And his hand… He’s rubbing my bare thigh beneath the shirt. I’m not wearing panties, and each time his fingers creep upward, I ache to raise my leg so he can rub where I need him the most.
This is madness. What game is he playing?
The free-spirited, Bohemian half of my soul urges me to roll with it. What’s life without a little adventure?
But the broken half, the half that remembers what it feels like to love and lose, cringes in fear beneath every furtive caress of his hand. Furtive, because I’m certain he’ll stop touching me if I move.
That can only mean one thing. He’s hiding his feelings from me.
He said he’s never been in love, but maybe something or someone in his life made him distrustful and wary. Maybe it’s just his nature, hence the stiff upper-lip.
Or maybe I intimidate him?
Now that’s funny.
His fingers trail upward, following the curve of my hip over the shirt. When he reaches my elbow, he ghosts his touch along my arm, stretching toward my hand where it rests on the bed. He feathers his fingers over mine, circling, lingering. Then he bumps against the engagement band, and his breath stops.
He yanks his arm away, slips quietly off the bed, and pads toward the exit behind me.
I crane my neck and watch him leave with his hands stabbing through his hair and tension tightening his shoulders.
Something just happened, and it had everything to do with the ring on my finger. On my right hand!
I roll to my back and stare at the exposed beams in the vaulted ceiling. If I go after him and press him to talk, he’ll recoil with hateful, chest-thumping blather. Or he’ll turn into a statue and give me useless one-word answers—which is worse.
Wrapping the blankets around me, I try to sink back into sleep, but my brain won’t shut off.
Why does he care about a piece of jewelry on my right hand?
Because that ring symbolizes everything. The life I loved. The man I lost. The happiness I’ll never get back.
If my engagement to Cole is such a point of contention for Trace, why doesn’t he ask about it? Why doesn’t he ask how Cole died or why I still wear the ring?
The missing answers leave me wide awake. Confused. Flipping and flopping. Anxious. Huffing and puffing.
Screw it. I throw off the covers and find Trace in the sitting room. Perched on one end of the couch, he’s bent forward with elbows on spread knees, sipping an amber drink from a crystal tumbler. A bottle sits on the trunk in front of him. Scotch.
I stop within arm’s reach and put my hands on my hips. Then I lower them, because it feels confrontational.
With his head tilted down, he lifts only his eyes and suspends me there, in the full force of his gaze.
He says nothing. I say nothing. We’re rocking the communication.
I release a sigh and lower to sit on the trunk, facing him.
“What goes through your mind when you see this?” I hold out my right hand, and the silver band glints in the lamp light.
He takes a sip of the scotch, swallows. “Your fiancé could’ve splurged a little and at least bought you a diamond.”
My cheeks inflame, and the sharp rise of anger burns the backs of my eyes. “Diamonds are synonymous with greed and slavery and murder. No one had to die for my ring.” I drag in a serrated breath. “Cole gave me exactly what I wanted.”
“Except a marriage.”
I flinch, and my fingers ball into fists. “Why would you say something so cold and heartless?”
“It’s the truth.”
“A truth I live with every second of every day,” I whisper, on the verge of tears. “The reminder is merciless and unnecessary.”
I don’t need this. The more time I spend with him, the more I feel like a mat he uses to scrape the shit off his shoes. I stand on unsteady legs and stride toward the hall to change my clothes. This is me, being strong and mighty. Roar.
Until his voice drifts across the room.
“You’re the kind of woman a man marries.”
My feet stick to the floor, my heart thundering for more. More to that declaration. It sounds like a compliment, but coming from him, it could be anything.