Chapter 174: Are You Challenging Me?
Kian said nothing. His shoulders barely moved, but she felt the silent laugh rumbling through him. That smug, quiet kind of laugh that somehow made her knees wobble more than a full-bodied roar.
She inhaled sharply. "You’re smug. You’re smug and that’s illegal."
"Illegal?"
"In several imaginary countries," she snapped, bending to retrieve the bowl—which was miraculously intact and still had soap in it, bless the stars.
Her fingers were definitely not trembling. She told them not to.
Kian stood still, arms relaxed at his sides, letting her fluster wash over him like waves against stone.
She stepped in closer. No backing out now. She was Isabella. She never backed down from a challenge.
Even when that challenge was standing half-naked with an unreadable smirk and eyes that could melt her entire composure in one look.
"I’m starting with your arms," she announced, like she was preparing to tend a battlefield wound. "Strictly practical."
He said nothing.
She dipped her fingers in the soap again, then gently, carefully pressed them against his arm.