He lathered his body, mostly ignoring the ridges that covered his left arm and chest. After rinsing himself, he turned off the shower and used one of the large dark blue towels that hung on a heating rack to dry himself.
Wrapping the towel around his lean waist, he propped his hands on the counter and stared into the only mirror in the house. With his long damp hair slicked back from his face, there was no hiding from his frightening visage. The light was muted, but he could make out his features. “You’re every woman’s nightmare,” he muttered to his reflection.
Turning slightly, the right side of his face appeared normal, not handsome, but not ugly. A twist in the other direction told a whole different story. His left eye was gone and his cheek still bore the scars from the fire. They continued down the left side of his neck to his chest and arm and stopped just above his leg. This was reality.
Stalking back to the bedroom, he dropped the towel over the bench seat that sat under the window and climbed into bed. Stacking his hands under his head, he contemplated the ceiling.
Every ounce of common sense was telling him to forget about her, but he knew that by this time tomorrow he would know everything there was to know about her. He drifted off to sleep with her still on his mind and his night was once again filled with erotic dreams where he indulged his every sexual whim. They were all of her.
Katie stared out the bedroom window at the street below. Most of the buildings were dark and traffic was practically nonexistent. The streetlights valiantly battled the darkness, waiting for the dawn. Nothing moved in the shadows. Not now, anyway.
There’d been someone there earlier. A man. She shivered at the thought. Should she tell Lucas? A woman who lived alone had to be careful, but Lucas worried enough about her as it was. Besides which, he’d had ample opportunity to hurt her this evening. Instead, he had sent his dog along to protect her.
But she wasn’t totally naïve. This could be a ploy to win her trust. The news was filled with reports of sick people who did unspeakable things to unsuspecting woman. Still, the dog was friendly, and that said a lot about the owner. Sighing, she turned away from the view and pulled the shade down so that most of the window was covered.
Knowing she wouldn’t sleep, she decided she could at least work. Her bare feet made no sound as she padded down the short hall and into the small living room. Turning on the lights, she placed a blank canvas on the waiting easel. Her plain white nightshirt was worn thin and the light shone straight through it, highlighting the shape of her body beneath. Katie was unaware of this as she stared at the waiting sheet of white.
Her mood was strange tonight. It happened so rarely that she didn’t recognize the sensation at first. She picked up a waiting brush and ran the soft bristles over her fingertips. She was lonely. Usually she was quite content in her own company and if she wanted to be with someone, she called Lucas for companionship.
How pathetic was that?
She’d worked her whole life. Part-time during school and full-time immediately after. Katie’s grandmother had not been a young woman when her mother had left her here. But she’d never had any doubt that her grandmother loved her. They’d lived as simply as possible on her grandmother’s pension and supplemented it with whatever work they could both find. It had been a godsend to them both when Lucas had hired her at fourteen to wash dishes. There’d been many nights that Lucas had sent “leftover” food home to her and her grandmother.
As a result, Katie had never had time to make close female friends. What few friends she had made had moved away to go to college and they’d lost touch. Since her grandmother died three years ago of a sudden heart attack, Katie had lived alone.
Well, almost. There’d been a brief six-month period where she’d had a live-in boyfriend. Kent. She rarely thought of him anymore. The only excuse she gave herself was that she was susceptible to his superficial good looks and charm so soon after her grandmother’s death.
Kent had swept her off her feet with his boyish charm and classic good looks. With his windswept brown hair and his blue eyes, he was model perfect, and in fact had worked occasionally as a model. Very occasionally. Usually, he was content to stay home and live off her paycheck. She couldn’t believe she’d let him sponge off her for six whole months. But with Kent, the big job was always just around the corner.
She really had Lucas to thank for opening her eyes. Lucas had walked her home late one evening from work. She hadn’t even been through the front door when Kent had started yelling at her for not being home on time. He was furious that she hadn’t been there to make his supper, and furthermore, he needed money to go out with his buddies. Didn’t she know that they were waiting for him down at Frank’s, his favorite sports bar?
Kent had reached out to grab her. Katie never knew if he’d intended to hit her or not. He never had a chance. One moment Kent was reaching for her, the next he found himself pinned against the living room wall.
In a low, menacing voice that Katie had never heard before, Lucas informed Kent that he was moving out. No, she laughed at the memory, what he’d really said was, “Get your stuff and get the fuck out.”
Lucas had watched Kent’s every move as he’d quickly collected his belongings. He might have been as tall as Lucas, but Lucas was massively built and Kent looked like a little boy next to him. Lucas’s reputation had also preceded him.
Kent handed over his apartment key when Lucas demanded it, but couldn’t resist a few parting comments as he hurried down the stairs. She could still hear him yelling, “You’re nothing but a frigid bitch and I only stayed out of pity.” She shivered as she remembered his parting words and wrapped her arms around herself to try and shake off the chill.
The look on Lucas’s face had been the worst part. He looked so disappointed in her. Then he’d shaken his head and wrapped his arms around her and told her to cry. Surprisingly enough, she had done just that. After she’d cried herself out, he’d fed her soup and shooed her off to bed.
She’d awakened the next morning to the sound of an electric drill. When she’d peeked into the living room, Lucas was changing the lock on her front door. He calmly told her breakfast was in the oven and that was the end of it. Neither of them had ever mentioned Kent again.
No, she was better off alone. Work and art classes took up most of her time. Besides, she liked being able to get up in the middle of the night and paint. With that thought in mind, she turned her attention back to the waiting canvas. She saw the shadows forming in her mind and began to paint. For hours she stood there and mixed and painted. The picture in her head began to take solid shape in front of her. She painted until her fingers cramped and her back ached.
The first ray of sunshine hitting her face finally broke her concentration. The sun had obviously been up for a while. Groaning, she glanced at the clock on the VCR. “Omigod.” Katie dumped the brush in a waiting jar. She was going to be late. It was already six-thirty and she had to open the shop at seven.
She hobbled down the hallway like a drunken sailor the morning after a binge. Her muscles ached all over her body and her head was spinning. She’d been painting for seven hours straight and she hadn’t slept in over twenty-four hours.
Hauling off her nightshirt, she stepped into the shower, turning it on as she went. When the first splash of cold hit her naked body, she gave a yelp and quickly adjusted the water temperature. There was no time to enjoy her shower this morning. Lather flew as she soaped her body and her hair and then stood beneath the spray. As soon as she was rinsed off, she turned off the taps and grabbed a towel. Her wet feet squished against the floor as she hurried to the bedroom.