38

“ F lorence?” Koen peeked around the corner. “I thought I heard you.”

His smile warmed my chest and dulled the ache that radiated through me. A stubborn, guilt-ridden feeling that had clung to me since my conversation with Wesley. I understood his fear but he made no effort to understand mine. I wasn’t rage-filled. I was lonely.

“Where have you been?” He asked.

He looked handsome today in a short-sleeved red shirt with sandy strands of curly hair poking out from beneath a backward hat. He picked up his feet to catch up with me as I walked down the hall. I didn’t want to answer him, to tell him that I had been avoiding them because of Wesley, not wanting to cause more upset between them as a family. Wesley had been right about one thing. Koen and Clay were distracted.

Green eyes searched my face for any clues.

“Would you like to walk with me?” I asked him, trying to avoid the conversation altogether.

Koen’s smile grew and that tiny dimple that stole all my attention appeared on his cheek as he offered his arm to me.

“Don’t you get sick of wearing all these clothes everyday?” He asked, staring down at the long brown skirt that brushed the floor. “It’s got to be hell in the summer with the heat.”

“My body self-regulates,” I said to him.

“You mean you’re never too hot or too cold?” His nose wiggled.

“I frankly never noticed until you just questioned it. The heat in the summer when I was a child was unbearable, but when…”

I paused. My mind produced ill thoughts swirling around the words Wesley had used.

‘ When you died.’

“You were trapped,” he finished the sentence for me.

Protected .

The floorboards growled beneath our feet in protest.

“Mmm, the heat, the cold. It didn’t seem to bother me as much.”

“You should tell Clay that,” he noted.

“I’m starting to feel like a monster again.” I swallowed tightly at the thought of being prodded with questions. Clay was careful and delicate whenever he needed information, but it still felt like he was doing it because he was more curious about the monster than me. Swallowing down the feeling, I squeezed Koen’s bicep between my fingers and he flexed under my touch. “Would you like to see one of my favorite rooms?”

“I got nothing else to do, Blossom.” He nodded.

I led him back toward the west of the Manor. There were certain rooms that I believed the Manor may have created especially for me. After intense emotional standoffs, where I was in my bleakest and darkest moments, typically I would wake up and there would be some new and unexplored wonder. The bathhouse had been one of them. I had woken up after an attempt to end my life and there it was. The sound of water gently lapping echoed through the door.

Koen noticed it, too. “Is that…”

I pushed open the massive glass doors. The bathing room was the largest room in the Manor next to the library, with stone walls and an arching glass ceiling that allowed the moon and stars to shine through onto the beautiful, old green floor tiles. The bath wasn’t large. The pool of water was meant to be warm enough to double as a steam room. A light haze floated over the surface and made everything ethereal.

“It’s a pool!” Koen’s laughter was loud and surprised me.

“It’s a bathing room,” I corrected him. It was another assurance that the house wasn’t as it seemed. The water in the pool never cooled. Just like the bathtub in my bedroom, it never greened or dirtied. It was as pristine and warm as when I encountered the room the first time.

Koen unlinked himself and kicked off his shoes, pulling the collar of his shirt over his head and tossing it in a pile. I inhaled sharply through my teeth, seeing his healing bruise, which was light in color and turning shades of green and yellow. It looked sore.

“If you’re going to stare, at least appreciate it,” he teased, following my eyes with a funny smile. “I’m fine.” His muscles were strong and taut with excitement.

It tickled at my core as I bit my bottom lip between my teeth and watched him undress. Shocked wasn’t the proper word for it, or at least not the only word. I was enamored by him. His fingers worked quickly at the buttons of his pants, shucked them over his muscular thighs, and left them on the deck.

Water splashed my skirts and pooled around my feet as he broke the surface.

“I’m not swimming alone,” he practically purred, moving closer to the edge. “Get in the water, Blossom.”

“You can’t possibly expect me to get in there with you.” I took a whole step backward out of his grabby hands and glared at him. “That’s indecent, Koen.”

Mischief flickered across his face as his smile went lopsided and he shrugged his shoulders. “It’s adventurous,” he corrected me.

It’s dangerous .

The Manor hummed through the tiles.

His arms stroked lazy circles as he waited for me to find my sense of adventure but I feared it might never appear, despite the urge I felt to do something reckless. Wet curls pressed to his neck and water dripped down his jaw and throat, catching the blue light of the moon and making him shine like a star.

“What if I close my eyes until you’re in?” He closed his eyes before I even answered. “I promise not to peek.”

“Forgive me if I don’t trust the gentlemen’s agreement you’re proposing.” I laughed.

“Florence.” He lowered down into the water further. His voice was hushed and husky as he demanded. “Get in the water, before I come and get you.” Had it come from anyone else I may have felt myself shrink away from the order, but instead it struck a sleeping chord of courage that he seemed to find easily.

He turned his back to me and it was a moment longer before I found the nerve to undo the lace of my bodice and clips of my corset. I felt naked against the moon as I slipped from the heavy skirts and laid it with the rest of my clothing. Staring at the wall in my chemise, I sighed; my skin felt hot.

I peered over my shoulder at him, still facing away, and counted to three before sliding into the pool quietly. The water rushed against the thin shift and it stuck to my skin, making me feel more exposed than if I had just removed it. Koen approached slowly, the green in his eyes glittering against the light that reflected through the pool from the moon.

“See?” He worked effortlessly to keep his eyes on mine as he closed the gap between us. “Not so bad is it?”

A sharp whimper left my mouth when his hands found my hips beneath the water, gripping tightly and pulling me into his gravity. The thin and clinging fabric felt almost non-existent when his skin pressed against mine. I looked between us, placing my hand on his bruised ribs beneath the surface, and scowled.

“The pain’s gone.” He raised an eyebrow at me. “Besides, it was my fault. I shouldn’t have pushed you to test the limits. Not without understanding what might happen.”

I offered a weak, breathy laugh and tried to steady the rapid pace of my heart, but it was so hard with his hands on me and the smell of his sharp, woody cologne in my nose. I wanted to feel his lips against mine but couldn’t bring myself to ask if I could.

“Do you feel human again?” His knuckles brushed against my chest, fingers toying with the collar of my chemise. His touch was rousing and left little lines of goosebumps wherever it went. I inhaled tightly as the pad of his fingers danced along the swell of my breast.

“Not quite,” I lied.

He crooked a finger, tracing it up my throat to my chin, and lifted my gaze to meet his. The heat of his stare would have set me on fire if not for the water. A dangerous smile formed on his lips as he realized I was lying and was inviting him to push the limits of what I had spent so long considering to be ‘respectable’.

I wanted out of the box that suffocated me.

I wanted to feel it all.

I had never felt more human than when he stared at me the way he was in that moment. It was the same look from that night on the balcony. Weighted and brimming with possibility.

The water was refreshing but the air around us was tense. I knew he had no trouble making the first move but he seemed to be waiting, forcing me to be the one to take the next step, and I wrestled with the two parts of me that were at odds with each other. The one that was grateful for his restraint and consideration… and the other that wanted so desperately to be devoured. I had never felt so present.

Koen’s eyes flickered across my face like he was reading every thought. “Can I help?”

I managed a quick nod, and that was all he needed. His fingers tightened on my hips as he walked us backward until my back rested against the wall of the small pool. Pinned by the weight of his body, he let his hands wander to the strings that bound my chemise closed. The fabric was transparent in the water, clinging to every dip and curve. Still, his fingers slid into the shift and peeled it back away from my skin, and exposed the fullness of my breasts, the sensation was exquisite. His hands caressed, as his lips trailed a line between them as far as he could reach before his chin and nose would be submerged beneath the water.

“You’re unbelievably soft,” he noted in a husky tone, rising to meet my lips.

Our collision was velvety and tender. Koen’s tongue swiped into my mouth slowly, deepening the kiss as his hand wrapped around my jaw and held me in place. I pushed back, wanting more of his touch and unsure how much he would grant me.

He smiled against my mouth, bright and warm, before kissing the corners of my lips and peppering my cheek until his lips found my throat. My body arched into his touch as he grazed along my skin to my jaw. My breath hitched in my throat as his hand slipped between my thighs beneath the surface.

“Oh, oh…” Pleasure curled my toes and tickled in the pit of my stomach as his fingers grazed my inner thigh, higher and higher, working in tandem with his lips.

Koen’s teeth tugged on my ear and his other hand tangled into my hair at the back of my neck. His breathing was quiet and shallow. It fluttered across my skin in cold waves that tickled my hot skin and sent shivers down my spine. His fingers gripped the sensitive flesh at my thigh, pausing as he broke from his lustful intentions to look at me.

“Is this too much?” He asked. If I had spoken, I would have confessed, yes, but I wanted him so badly that instead I pressed my lips against him to silence his worries. Overwhelmed and starving for his attention, I parted my thighs and urged him further.

His fingers deftly navigated beneath the clinging fabric barrier so his hand could find skin, a groan escaping from his lips as his fingers made contact with the most intimate part of me. The water lapped against his chest as he deepened the kiss, and his thumb brushed the cluster of nerves that hid there.

I inhaled so sharply that I thought he might stop when he pulled away from my lips, but there was a grin on his face, and he repeated the touch, dragging another soft whine from me.

“Listen to that sound,” he huffed, kissing me quickly and stealing what little air I had left.

The moans spilled from me without thought as he began to stroke me. It was gentle, but built a pressure in me that I had only ever experienced on my own– and never to this magnitude. I had never been touched that way before, and it surged through me like lightning and lit my soul alight.

“Don’t stop.” I gripped his shoulders, digging my fingernails into his skin as he slipped his fingers into me.

“I don’t plan on it.” His hand grasped my seat and lifted me so that I was angled more openly around his waist and he slotted himself tighter against my body. I could feel every inch of him, hard beneath his undergarments but never acting on it.

“Koen.” My hips rolled forward, unable to stop myself from needing him.

A small chuckle left his throat, his fingers digging into my wet skin beneath the water. “Tonight is about you,” he said quietly. “I can wait.”

Something about how he wanted to care for me only made the needy feeling grow. It tickled across my skin, pulsing in waves. A low gasp fell on my lips as he curled his fingers inside my body and raked against my sensitive skin until I was trembling beneath his touch in a way I had never experienced. His pace was intentional and he watched my every move. My heart raced with every languid brush of his fingers against an intoxicating spot deep within me I had never felt before, curling and twisting the pleasure in my stomach into a tight coil near its breaking point.

His plump, kiss-sore lips found my throat again, nuzzling there as I rolled through my climax. My eyes fluttered closed, and my cunt clenched around his fingers as his thumb rubbed soft circles as I fell over the edge.

It felt like soaring.

My skin was hot, and my body was exhausted, but I didn’t want it to stop. Sparks tingled in my veins like I was lit on fire. Koen slipped his fingers out, holding his palm between my shaking thighs as he scanned my features.

“I—” the words were silenced as he kissed my lips, delicately dragging his teeth along my bottom lip and peppering the corners as he pulled away.

The pool’s reflection danced in his green eyes, and my breath caught in my throat at the sight of his soft smile and the proud flush on his cheeks as he wrapped his arms around me and lifted me back into the deeper parts of the water.

I raked my hands through his blond hair and pressed myself tightly to his chest as he waded us in gentle circles. “Thank you, Koen,” I whispered, brushing my thumb over his bottom lip. “That helped.”

A soft, breathy laugh fell from him. “At your service, Blossom.”

I forced a smile to my face, but I could feel the house seize up. The tiles beneath our toes vibrated, and brick walls inhaled so slowly it was practically unnoticeable, but I could feel it.

Warning me. Reminding me.

You belong to me.