Chapter 65
The first shower was not gentle.
Richard didn't carry Brett to the bathroom. He led him by the hand, like a child, like a pet on a leash he didn't need. Brett stumbled behind him in his bare feet — his white Louboutins abandoned by the bed — his white silk robe hanging open, his push-up bra askew, his garter belt twisted, one stocking torn, the other sagging around his ankle.
The white satin choker with slutty tramp in cursive still circled his throat, the only thing that still looked perfect.
The penthouse bathroom was all black marble and glass, bigger than Brett and Lance's entire rental in Kalispell. The shower was a glass box big enough for six people, with three rainfall heads in the ceiling.
Richard turned the water on scalding hot, steam instantly fogging the glass.
"Get in," he ordered.
Brett hesitated at the threshold, his hands clutching the robe closed, his eyes down. He was shaking again, his body still humming from what had happened on the bed, from the confusion of feeling pleasure in a body he'd been taught to hate, from the shame of untucking for his father-in-law.
"Please," Brett whispered, his voice hoarse and low. "Can I... can I do it alone?"
Richard looked at him, his blue eyes cool and assessing. "No."
He stepped forward, took the lapels of Brett's robe in both hands, and slid it off Brett's shoulders. It pooled on the black marble floor, white silk against black stone.
Then, with the same efficient, possessive care he'd used on the plane, Richard unhooked the white push-up bra. He peeled the lace away from Brett's skin, exposing breasts that were smaller than they'd been in Singapore, tender and pale and marked faintly red from Richard's mouth.
Brett made a small, wounded sound and tried to cover himself with his arms. Richard caught his wrists and held them gently but firmly at his sides.
"Don't hide from me," Richard said softly. "I paid to see all of you."
He knelt then — Richard Sullivan, billionaire, on his knees on the wet marble — and unhooked each garter strap, one by one, rolling the white stockings down Brett's legs with a slow reverence that made Brett's breath catch. The torn one, then the perfect one. He left the garter belt, left the white silk panties.
Then he stood, took Brett's hand, and led him into the steam.
The water hit Brett like a punishment and a baptism all at once, scalding hot, washing over his spray-tanned skin, over his ruined makeup, over his mussed blonde hair. He gasped and flinched and then sagged against the glass wall, letting it beat down on him.
Richard stepped in behind him, fully clothed at first — white shirt transparent in seconds, clinging to his chest — and then, with calm deliberation, he began to unbutton it, letting the water plaster it to him before he peeled it off and tossed it out of the shower.
Brett couldn't look. He stared at the black marble floor, at the water swirling down the drain, at his own white-painted toenails.
Richard picked up a white washcloth, poured expensive soap onto it — something clean and masculine and cedar-scented, nothing like Brett's floral perfume — and began to wash him.
He started with Brett's face, wiping away the black rivers of mascara, the smeared cherry lipstick, the foundation, the contour, until Brett's skin was bare and pink and twenty-six again. He washed his hair, his big hands massaging Brett's scalp, rinsing out the hairspray and the curls until Brett's honey blonde hair hung straight and wet around his face.
He washed his neck, careful around the choker, his thumb stroking over the words slutty tramp like a brand.
He washed his chest, his hands soaping over Brett's breasts with a clinical tenderness that made Brett sob out loud — not from pain, but from the sheer confusion of being touched there without desire, without worship, just... cleaned. Like an object being polished.
"Shhh," Richard murmured, his voice barely audible over the water. "Let it go, pet."
He washed Brett's stomach, his hips, his thighs, his legs, kneeling again to do it properly, his hands moving over every inch of skin that had been spray-tanned and made-up and dressed up for him.
When he stood, Brett was clean. Bare. Shaking. The water running clear down the drain, taking the last of Brielle with it.
Richard turned Brett around to face him, his hands on Brett's shoulders, his blue eyes searching Brett's face.
"Better," Richard said softly.
Brett couldn't answer. He just stood there, naked except for the garter belt and panties and choker, water streaming down his face like tears, feeling more exposed than he'd ever felt in his life.
Richard leaned in and kissed him, slow and deep, tasting clean skin and hot water and surrender.
It was the first kiss that didn't feel like a punishment.
The second shower was hours later.
Brett didn't know what time it was. The blackout curtains were drawn in the bedroom. The only light came from the bathroom, spilling golden across the black silk sheets where Brett lay curled on his side, staring at nothing, his body aching and wrung out and foreign to himself.
Richard had left him there for a while after... after everything. After claiming him again and again in that huge bed, after whispering filthy praise and cruel truths in his ear, after making Brett say "I'm yours, Sir" until his voice gave out.
Brett felt hollowed out. Empty. He didn't know if he was Brett or Brielle anymore. He didn't know if he wanted Lance anymore. He didn't know if he wanted anything at all.
He felt Richard's hand on his shoulder, gentle this time.
"Come on, pet," Richard said quietly. "Shower time."
Brett let himself be led again, too tired to fight, too numb to be ashamed. This time Richard undressed himself first, hanging his clothes neatly on the heated towel rack, before helping Brett out of the garter belt and panties — the last pieces of the wedding lingerie — leaving only the choker.
They stood under the water together, skin to skin, man to man, the steam curling around them.
This time Richard didn't wash him like an object. He washed him like a lover.
His hands were slow, reverent, soaping over Brett's chest, over his flat stomach, over his hips, over the parts of him Brett had been most ashamed of, without flinching, without comment. He washed Brett's back, his shoulders, the nape of his neck under the choker.
Brett stood with his forehead pressed to Richard's chest, his arms hanging limp at his sides, letting the water and the hands take him apart.
"You're beautiful like this," Richard murmured into his wet hair, his lips brushing Brett's temple. "Clean. Honest. No paint, no padding, no pretending."
Brett sobbed then — a deep, wracking sob that shook his whole body — and Richard just held him under the hot water, one arm banded tight around his back, the other cradling his head.
"I don't know who I am anymore," Brett whispered, his voice cracking, low and male and broken. "I don't... I don't feel like her anymore. I don't feel like me."
"I know," Richard said softly, and for the first time there was something almost like kindness in his voice. "That's why you're here, pet. To remember."
He tilted Brett's face up and kissed him again, slow and deep and claiming, water running between their mouths.
When they finally stepped out, Richard wrapped Brett in a huge white towel, drying him with the same careful attention he'd used to wash him, then led him back to the bed.
He didn't put the lingerie back on. He pulled a soft black t-shirt — his own — over Brett's head, the fabric falling to mid-thigh, and tucked Brett into the black silk sheets like he was something precious.
Brett curled into the warmth, into the clean cedar scent, his eyes heavy, his body finally still.
Richard slid in behind him, his big body curling around Brett's smaller one, his arm draped possessive over Brett's waist, his hand resting flat over Brett's stomach.
"Sleep, pet," Richard whispered against the back of Brett's neck, his lips brushing the choker. "We still have twenty-one hours left."
Brett closed his eyes, too exhausted to cry anymore, too confused to dream, and let the darkness take him.
In Kalispell, Lance Sullivan woke up alone for the second night in a row, checked his phone, saw no new messages from his wife, and told himself she was just having fun with Nico.
He had no idea his wife was asleep in his father's bed, wearing his father's t-shirt and a collar that called her a tramp, clean and bare and finally, terrifyingly, honest.…