Cassandra's Dilemma (16 page)

Spider!
Cassie shuddered, jerking back and inadvertently striking his chin with the top of her head. His teeth clacked together.

“Sorry,” she muttered, but suddenly her skin was crawling, and she ran her desperate fingers through her hair, making sure there were no lingering phantom spiders waiting to spin a nest. Another shudder wracked her until Jacob caught her hands and pulled her back to him.

The hard weight of him pressed right at the juncture of her thighs, heat flooding through the layers of cloth. “Shhh,” he breathed into her hair, holding her tight until her struggles quieted. “There are no more spiders. I promise. But a shower will help you feel better, yes?”

“Yes.” Cassie cringed at the small note in her voice.

“Okay. How do you like your showers? Hot? Warm?”

“Hot. Definitely hot. Lots of water.”

“Okay.” The smile crept back into his voice. She was glad he could enjoy this. “Okay, what are you thinking?” He slid away from her, but a door opening and a knob turning before water began to flow told her what he was doing.

“I am thinking I hate spiders.”

“Well, yeah, I got that. I meant after you said hot, definitely hot and lots of water. You looked very mutinous.”

“Nothing.” It was the petulance that made her laugh. She hadn’t flounced a word like that since she was six years old and stamping her feet at her mother. If only she could just stamp her foot now.

“Cassie.” Jacob drew out her name, chiding her for the lie. Steam from the shower dampened the air. She turned her face up to inhale the moisture with the rich, loamy male scent of the man who hovered just inches away. She didn’t even have to touch him to realize how close he was. Still, his fingers gliding over the strap of her tank top and down the line of her chest to the hem pebbled her nipples and trapped her breath in her throat.

Jacob tugged the hem up, pulling the cloth upward, and Cassie grabbed at his hands to halt the action. It was a mistake. She trapped both hands, knuckles toward the swell of her breasts, fingers nudging at the lace she preferred in her bras.

“What are you doing?” Another shudder quivered through her, this one originating in the vicinity of her sex and traveling a lazy, tingling path through her belly to her breasts.

“Taking off your shirt.” He shifted his hands under hers, turning his palms to cup her breasts. His thumbs teased the turgid nipples beneath the lace, and Cassie’s thought process shut down.

How had she managed to get nearly naked with two very different men in the same day?

“I don’t know if this is a good idea,” she choked out. Her hands fell away from his when Jacob gave each breast a loving squeeze. Her tank top came up and over, catching on her hair and tugging her forward. She would have slipped off the counter if not for Jacob’s hands dropping back to catch her waist.

“Relax. It’s a shower. You want to get clean, right?”

Come here, little mousy. Come get the cheese. Ignore the big steel spring and trap waiting for you.

The snap of her bra jolted her out of the reverie, and Cassie drew her hands up to cover her breasts as the lace fell away. Jacob’s chuckle lacked mockery, even as a flush heated her skin.

Was he looking at her?

Did she want him to look at her?

Jacob lifted her off the counter, and her pants slid down her legs and fell onto the floor. She was now three-quarters nude with just a thin pair of panties between them.

The panties hadn’t been effective as a deterrent for Helcyon. When his fingers hooked into the waistband of her panties, Cassie had to choose between keeping her breasts covered or catching his hands. Jacob rewarded her hesitation by stripping the scraps down to fall around her ankles.

“Lift,” he murmured, tapping a calf, and Cassie picked up one foot and then the other.

Now she was standing there, completely naked, in Special Agent Jacob Book’s bathroom with steam filling the room, blinded and vulnerable. A whimper escaped. “I hate this.”

“The blindness will pass.” Jacob smoothed a hand down her right arm, an awkward mating of a caress with comfort. “Come on. Water’s hot, and it will help get all the dirt and dust off.” He cupped a hand under her elbow and nudged her toward the water pounding against tile and glass. At least it sounded like tile and glass.

“It’s not just that.” Cassie yanked her arm away, swinging blindly and slipping on the damp floor. Jacob caught her, hands in her armpits and dragging her upright before she could sprawl gracelessly at his feet.

“Gently.” He sighed. “I know it’s not just that. You’re tired. You’re hurting. You’re confused. And right now you’re naked with a guy you barely know.”

“Yes,” Cassie wailed, horrified to discover the tears leaking out of her eyes. She hated to cry. She looked terrible when she cried. She wasn’t a beauty crier where the makeup never smeared. No, she was the big-blotchy-nose, red-rimmed-eyes kind of crier.

Can this nightmare get any worse?

“Hey.” His voice started out rough and then dropped an octave with worry. Jacob wasn’t just holding her up anymore, his arms wrapped around her, tucking her head against his shoulder and stroking her hair. The gesture was so protective, so sweet, and so intensely intimate and innocent that Cassie lost the battle against tears.

Great gulping sobs shook her. She couldn’t imagine what was going through Jacob’s mind as she wept. He made soothing noises, petted her hair, and stroked her back.

Gradually, Cassie became aware the surface she was soaking with her tears wasn’t cloth but skin. Her hands held fast to his shoulders, his very bare shoulders, and the warmth of his skin was soaking through her own, igniting an entirely different set of emotions.

“Deep breaths,” Jacob spoke. He had been speaking the whole time, she realized as she hiccupped. He’d been speaking in soothing tones and letting her cry. “Hey, look who’s coming back to me.”

Cassie snuffled, grateful for the blindness that hid the mess she’d made of her face. Her snuffle quickly turned into a snicker.

“Hmm?” Jacob brushed a hand over her hair as the first snicker escaped. When it was quickly followed by a chuckle and then a guffaw, he held her away from him, hands smoothing over her upper arms. “Are you laughing?”

“Well, I was upset that I couldn’t see. And you know—about everything that’s happened, and I was crying, and now I’m glad that I can’t see because then I would see what happens when I cry.” Cassie laughed, swiping at the tears on her cheek. “I’m sorry. I don’t make much sense.”

“No. But, that’s okay.” His agreement sparked another guffaw of laughter that squeaked off when he picked her up again and carried her right into the shower. The hot water poured over cuts and scrapes, eliciting hisses and
ows
and
oohs
, but he didn’t slow or pause until she was fully under the drenching showerhead.

She closed her eyes instinctively at the water that poured over her face, plastering her hair to her skull.

“Stay put.” The door to the shower closed. The steam that had been escaping billowed up around her. She inhaled the sultry, humid air and sighed at the pungent cloves and spices that accompanied Jacob’s return. He was soaping her down.

“I can do that,” she protested, trying to catch his hand with hers, but he easily evaded her. Of course, she was trying not to move too much or risk another inelegant tumble to her ass.

“You could. But you’re not going to.” Jacob caught her right hand in a firm but gentle grip and began soaping over her fingers. “You’ve got a lot of debris here, and I want to get it out without causing other injuries.”

“Is it really that bad?” The loofah swirled over her hand in a gentle, circular motion. Little stings became less. As he finished with her hand, he worked on her forearm, gentle, economical motions that felt good.

“It was a rocky area, arid and filled with scrub brush and cactus-like plants with saguaro needles. I imagine it was like riding down a splintery slide.”

“Ouch.” That made for a bad mental image.

“Exactly. It’s a lot of surface damage, but considering your skin is freshly pinked and just healed, you need to be more careful with it.”

“You can see that!” The exclamation was more an aha moment for herself than for any great revelation.

“Hmm-hmm. You forgot yourself a time or two at the hospital. You kept rubbing at your face.”

If she wasn’t already red and blotchy from crying, hot water, and newly healed skin, Cassie imagined she’d be blushing right now. “I’ve never been healed before.”

“I doubt you’d ever been that burned before, either.”

Jacob had finished with the first arm and the second, but he turned her into the spray so he could work on her back, soapy loofah dipping down to the swell of her buttocks and then up again. She reached out, tentatively searching, and placed her hands flat against the tile. The water cascaded over the back of her head as she tipped her face to the floor. Jacob’s massaging hands were getting rid of the dirt, the debris, and the tension.

“Was it bad?” She asked the question quietly, almost hoping that the noise of the shower would muffle the words.

The loofah paused on the swell of her hip. The loofah dropped, and Jacob slid his hand around, flattening it against her abdomen, drawing her back until her bottom nestled against his groin and his very active cock jutting between them. He held her steady, wrapping both arms around her, one hand on her belly and the other closing firmly on her breast.

Cassie inhaled sharply. Her desire woke up like a damp kitten, hissing and spitting from the wet. Her nipples hardened, and moisture flooded her pussy. She was panting as she held completely still, waiting for what Jacob would do next.

His lips pressed a kiss to the soft spot behind her ear. “Cassie, I am not saying this to scare you or to upset you, particularly not after earlier, but I want to be honest with you. I want you to be able to trust me. If you hadn’t been healed, you’d have been scarred, pretty badly. The image I saw of you from the first on-scene was that nearly the entire right side of your face had been destroyed.”

Ice and apprehension rode like two horsemen of doom through her blood. She understood why he held her so tightly when her legs buckled and threatened to give out. Despite his evident desire, he comforted her. He was the voice in the dark, telling her it would be okay. He was the caring hand buckling her into the car. He was the gentle giant stripping off her torn and bloodied clothing. He was the tender caretaker who treated her wounds. Now he was the nursemaid protecting her feelings.

“Who
are
you, Jacob Book?” Cassie whispered, escaping the sinking sand beneath her emotions by latching onto him.

“I’m a Wizard,” came the solemn reply.

“That’s
what
you are.” Cassie began to relax against him, the water pounding on her front, his heartbeat pounding her from the back. “I’m still not even sure what Wizard means—is it Harry Potter or Harry Houdini?”

“Yes.” Jacob chuckled. “It’s a little bit like both, I’m afraid. Are you feeling better now?”

He pressed another kiss to the back of her ear and then one along the lobe. Cassie tilted her head, letting his mouth follow a trail along her jaw, sighing at the caress of his hands gently massaging her breasts, his fingers rolling her nipples, teasing them into hard rosebuds.

“A little,” she confessed. “Yeah.”

“Your eyes?”

Cassie frowned, squinting against the darkness, but no light flickered. She was intimately aware of his stroking hands, the way his fingers teased her nipples, pinching, tugging, and tormenting. She was aware of the way he rubbed against her bottom and the cock that prodded against the curve of her bottom, as though wanting to remind her of his presence.