Pike (The Pawn Duet #1) - T.M. Frazier Page 0,32
is better than several days unshowered and lingering in your own filth.
When I’m finished, I turn off the water and reach blindly to the counter for the towel only to have it placed in my hands. I gasp and quickly dab the water from my eyes. I look up to find Pike staring at me through the steam. “Such pretty bait you’ll make,” he says. His voice amplified within the small bathroom.
I quickly wrap the towel around my shoulders, careful to cover my left shoulder, although it leaves the rest of me naked from the bottom of my breasts down. I’m bare before him, open to his dark-eyed scrutiny. I’ve never been naked in front of a man before, never mind this kind of man. Papa has never even seen me naked, probably not even when I was a baby.
“What do you want?” I ask, pressing my back against the tile wall to put as much space between us as possible.
Pike rakes his gaze from my feet to between my legs and then to my breasts. “Afraid I’m going to kill you and that the food and shower was a last-meal clean-corpse situation?” he asks.
“I wasn’t until you just mentioned it,” I reply.
He chuckles. “I’m not going to kill you. Not today, anyway. I have a better use for you right now than as a sexy as fuck corpse.”
Sexy as fuck? Corpse?
His words vibrate through me in a way I can’t place with any feeling or emotion.
“Was that a threat or a compliment?” I ask.
He smirks, crossing his arms over his chest. “Maybe both.” He cocks his head to the side and his eyes drop to my chest once again. “Maybe neither.”
“And…what, exactly do you want to use me for?” I ask, bumping into the wet wall behind me.
He steps inside the shower fully clothed, but I’m already against the wall. There’s nowhere to go. He cages me in, lifting my chin to meet my eyes. “Bait.”
He leaves me standing in the steam, my entire body shuddering. “The door is unlocked. Get dressed and meet me in the kitchen.”
“Why?” I ask, breathlessly.
He spins around and glares at me. “Why?”
“Why bother with any of this? I’m not going to tell you anything. If you’re going to torture me some more, I still won’t tell you so you might as well kill me now and get it over with,” my words are brave, but inside, I’m a trembling child flinching at a raised hand.
“You misunderstand the point of torture then.”
“I understand perfectly well,” I say, straightening my shoulders. I bite my lip to keep it from quivering, hissing when I move the scab around my lips, and it pulls painfully on my skin.
He walks back up to me and looks me over, seeming genuinely disappointed. “Giving up so soon?”
I steel my nerves and try to pretend that his nearness doesn’t send a rushing wave of fear through my entire body. “No, that’s what I’m trying to tell you. I’m not giving up. I won’t ever give up.”
He steps back inside the shower and trails his fingertips down the side of my face. My body heats and not from the steam. I jerk away from his touch, angry at him, my reaction, and at biology itself for causing that reaction.
The look of disappointment is replaced with a new gleam in his eye. His chuckle vibrates in my chest. “Good. You seem like the kind who doesn’t give up on a good fight.” He leans in and brushes his lips against my neck as he speaks and the wave of fear turns into a hurricane of biology and hormones, smashing into me with a force that makes it hard to stay upright. I’m wet and it has nothing to do with my shower and everything to do with him. “And I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t looking forward to it.”
Chapter Thirteen
Mickey
After I finally calm myself down enough to stop shaking, I wrap the towel around my body tightly and brush my teeth three times before running a plastic comb through my hair. It takes a while to get the tangles out, painfully tugging at my scalp until the comb no longer catches and the knots are sufficiently smoothed out.
I put on the yoga pants and sweater shirt that Thorne had laid out for me and stifle a moan at the way the soft clean fabric brushes gently against my skin. The sweater is oversized but comfortable. The pants fit perfectly, hugging my