long shower. It’s a truly humbling experience.”
I felt like I was still dirty even though we’d stayed in the shower until the water turned cold and my skin pruned.
I watched Loren’s pearl-white teeth sink into his bottom lip as the heat in his gaze turned up a thousand notches. My poor vagina emphatically protested his thoughts since she was still bearing the brunt of Loren’s attention last night, again in the shower, and Houston’s visit before the sun was fully up this morning.
Rich was back to being distant again, and I cursed myself for not keeping my word and getting to the bottom of it. I’d been too busy hiding to uncover their secrets.
Now I questioned if I cared anymore.
I wondered if I had the fortitude to chase someone who seemed so unsure about me.
The answer was no. I didn’t.
“You have nothing to worry about,” Loren said with all the confidence of a man used to getting what he wanted. “When we’re old and gray, and I’m struggling to get it up, rest assured there won’t be a part of you my tongue hasn’t touched.” Leaning over from his spot at the double vanity, he placed a sensual kiss on my neck that tasted like cherries and made my knees weak, even as he lewdly groped my ass. It wasn’t until he pulled away enough to meet my gaze that I caught his drift. “Not one.”
Giving my ass one last pointed squeeze, he resumed his high-maintenance routine.
I returned to my room to dress for the day, and by that time, Loren still wasn’t done perfecting his hair, so I tiptoed back out of the room and made my way downstairs. “Black is the Soul” by Korn was blaring, and it led me right to Houston.
I found him sitting at the island in their kitchen that was just as dark, Victorian, and gothic as the rest of their castle and scowling at the laptop in front of him. He was so into his search that he didn’t notice me standing next to him until it was too late.
“Are you writing a book?” I asked him when I read the headline of the medical article he was reading.
Quickly shutting the laptop closed, Houston regarded me long and hard. “You’re synesthetic.”
First, the song he’d written from my point-of-view as if we were one mind and now this. I was starting to feel uncomfortable, though strangely not creeped out, which was disturbing in itself.
No, I was having trouble coming to terms with the fact that I would never be able to hide from Houston Morrow. Never.
Suddenly, I was on the defensive.
“Or maybe everyone else is just doing it wrong, and you’re synesthetic,” I elusively pointed out. “Ever think of that?” My heart thudded as I waited for his answer while Houston waited for mine with all his composure intact.
I sighed when the staring contest ended with me silently accepting that Houston was just as assertive without needing to speak a word.
“I didn’t find out until a couple of years ago that not everyone—correction—no one I’ve ever met perceives sound through color.”
“Chromesthesia,” he said simply for confirmation.
I nodded. “It’s not always just color. Sometimes it’s shapes and movements too. The only constant seems to be music. Regular sounds like a dog barking or a horn honking have no effect.” The faint scent of the ocean warned me of my distress when I wondered if Houston thought I was a basket case now.
“And this?” he asked me, tapping my wriggling nose when I tried to push the emotion away. “What are you feeling right now?”
I took a step back.
My lips parted, but no words came.
He couldn’t know that.
After three years of searching for articles and conversing with strangers through forums, I hadn’t been able to name how or why I tasted my emotions or even smelled them. I’d already been scanned, prodded, and tested for tumors and dementia. The closest I’d come to finding an answer was other synesthetes who feel their emotions through colors, temperatures, and spatial sense. But none whose emotions caused them to hallucinate tastes and smells.
Sometimes I wondered if I would have preferred it that way. My emotions, including the good ones, had ruined my ability to appreciate simple things like roses and cinnamon when I actually encountered them.
“What do you mean?” I was back to being elusive.
Houston closed the gap I’d placed between us, making it clear I wouldn’t get away with it. “Tell me,” he demanded softly, and I found