his rampant cock—the signs were there. He simply chose to misinterpret them.
He didn’t know exactly when she’d removed her arms from around his shoulders, but her hands were now planted on the kitchen counter, holding her upright, it seemed, by sheer force of her will. Her legs dangled down the sides of the counter in limp parentheses to his thighs.
“Jesus,” he said again. “How can I make it up to you?”
She wouldn’t meet his gaze. He couldn’t tell if she was hiding tears of disgust at him or shame at herself.
Or physical pain. He glanced down and winced. Not only at the globs of his cum slithering down her belly but, more to the point, traces of red—fresh blood, virgin’s blood—on his wilting cock.
“Dammit,” he said in a raw voice, “you should have been coddled, pampered, fussed over. Not taken like a tavern slut. I’m nothing but a piece of shit you should have scraped off your shoe.” He took a deep, stabilizing breath and slid one arm under her knees. “I wouldn’t blame you if you never spoke to me again, but I am going to do this one thing for you.” He placed his other arm around her unresisting shoulders and lifted her into his arms. “Where’s your bathtub?”
She felt like a limp child, her head now slumped onto his chest, the weight of her surprisingly light for how voluptuous she was to the eye. When she didn’t answer, he walked down the hallway where they’d entered from the garage, and saw a stairway leading up at the far end. Flicking a light switch with his elbow, he climbed up with his precious burden, careful to keep her bare feet from hitting the walls.
The stairway ended at a small hallway with three opened doors. The one on the right showed the edge of a filing cabinet. An office, he surmised. The one in front of him was carpeted, probably her bedroom.
Assuming that the third door would be the bath, he turned to the left and stepped into a spacious, up-to-date bathroom done up in soothing shades of green and blue.
Still holding Crystal in his arms, he bent down to run hot water into an oversized Jacuzzi, then sat on the closed toilet seat and settled her on his lap while the tub filled. He dropped light, remorseful kisses on her temple, murmuring soft apologies into her hair. With a pang of self-loathing he noticed she still wore the scrap of panties that he’d ruthlessly yanked out of the way of his deaf, dumb and blind cock.
God. How could he make it right for her?
When the tub was more than half full, he got up and walked to it, sat on the ledge and, balancing her on his lap, dipped one hand to test the water temperature. Perfect.
Turning off the tap, he stood and began to lower her into the water. Her arms came around his neck and gripped him in a vicious hold, her face buried in the crook of his shoulder. “No.”
“Let me do this for you, honey. Let me wash away your pain and the evidence of my perversity. Then you can tell me to go to hell. Or worse.”
“No.” She clung to him in an unexpectedly strong embrace.
She lifted her face to him. He was not surprised to see tears shimmering in those soft brown eyes, tears of pain and humiliation that were certainly all his doing.
“What, then? What can I do to take away your tears?”
With a little shudder, she clung to him, tucked her face against his throat. “Us. You first. Together.”
A long moment passed before he processed her meaning. “You mean, in the tub?”
Still hiding her face, she nodded.
He swallowed hard, felt the soft skin of her cheek pressing into his Adam’s apple. “Sure. You got it.”
And stepped into the warmed porcelain, the water hot enough to relax but not to burn. Carefully balancing her, he knelt down then sat back on his haunches, lowering her into the water until her weight rested sideways on his thighs, her feet dangling over the side of the tub. Only then was he able to juggle her enough to stretch out his legs and settle her as well, her butt on his