She was — her body was the body she'd used as a tool for years. Deliberately maintained. Understood. She knew exactly what she was, physically, had understood it since she was eighteen and had started using the understanding to navigate rooms. She held no particular modesty about it.
But the way he was looking at her was not the way Alexander had looked at her. Was not the way the clients at the pool had looked at her. Was not the look of men categorizing and acquiring.
It was the look of someone seeing something he's already decided about.
"'Come,'" he said.
The bathroom was marble and glass, the kind of bathroom that cost more than some apartments.
A bathtub sunk into the floor, already filled — she hadn't seen him fill it, hadn't heard water running, but it was there, warm, steam rising from the surface.
The water was the clear, deep warm of something that had been prepared rather than simply run.
He walked in.
She followed.
The tile was warm under her feet.
