I let out a startled yelp as I swung wide eyes on him. “Whoa. What are you doing now?”

“Still taking care of you.” He started toward the bathroom, his eyes heavily hooded, but there was a mischievous tilt to his lips. “I’ve just realized we both could clean up.”

That was the truth. Once again, I was spotted with grime and dried blood, and so was Daemon.

He took us into a surprisingly large bathroom, gently putting me down in front of a tub. It wasn’t as big as the one back in the mayor’s mansion, but it still seemed abnormally large.

Flicking on the low lights, he turned to me, wiggling his fingers. I stepped toward him. He grinned. “Closer.”

I made it another foot.

“Lift your arms.”

Telling him I was capable of undressing myself was on the tip of my tongue, but nervousness swallowed the words. I lifted my arms and he pulled off the ruined sweater, stopping to ease my hair out before dropping it onto the floor. He didn’t speak as he flicked the tiny pearl button on the pants and then tugged them off.

I placed my hand on his shoulder to balance myself as I snagged a leg free. A flush swept from my cheeks down my entire body. No matter all that we’d shared together, I was still shy around him. Not sure why, but maybe it was because he didn’t seem to have a single flaw while I had a very human body full of them.

The last remaining piece of clothing also hit the floor, and then I was standing there completely in the buff, with him fully dressed. I folded my arms across my chest as he reached around me, turning on the water.

Warm steam immediately poured into the bathroom. As he straightened, his lips brushed the curve of my cheek, sending a shiver down my spine.

I’d never seen a guy get undressed as quickly as Daemon, and before I knew it, I was face-to-face with his corded pecs. My gaze drifted down tightly rolled abs and then it moved lower—

Two fingertips pressed under my chin, guiding my gaze up to a pair of startling green eyes that seemed to carry a sheen of white behind them. “Eyes up here, or I’ll start feeling like man candy.”

My cheeks heated, but I laughed. “Whatever.”

He winked after he drew back the curtain. “After you.”

I’d never showered with a guy before. Obviously. But even if I had, I don’t think it would even remotely touch showering with Daemon Black.

My hands trembled as I stepped under the hot spray of water. A second later, he was in the tub, too, and it suddenly didn’t feel very big at all.

His hands were gentle, the pressure barely there as he turned me so my back was against the spray. Drawing in a stuttered breath, I lifted my head. I expected him to kiss me and do something that would most definitely make my knees go weak, but that’s not what he did.

His eyes locked with mine, and he carefully scooped the soaked strands of my hair over my shoulders. Then, his hands skimmed up my upper arms and coasted over my back.

His arms folded around me, drawing me against his chest, sealing our bodies together. I squeezed my eyes shut as a different kind of need slammed into me. The rising swell of emotion went beyond the physical, and as he held me so tightly that there was no space between us at all, I knew it was the same for him.

I don’t know how long we stood like that, just holding each other as the water beat down on us, but there was something intensely powerful between us that transcended words.

My knees went weak when he dropped his cheek to the top of my head and somehow managed to hold me closer.

God, I loved Daemon. I was in love with him as much as I had been the very first time I recognized what that burning sensation was, what that almost electric shock every time we touched meant.

It was hard looking back and thinking about all the time we’d wasted fighting what was between us, fighting each other, especially when the future looked appallingly short, but I couldn’t focus on that now, because we were together. It didn’t matter how many hours, days, months, or years we had stretched out in front of us; we’d always be together.

This kind of love was the real deal, stronger than a whole planet full of psycho aliens and an entire government.

We stood together for a long time, wrapped around each other, before we actually made good use of the shower—good, appropriate use of the shower. But bathing with Daemon was like . . . well, bathing with Daemon. We finally climbed out, dried off, and changed into the sweats and oversize cotton shirts, which weren’t so oversized on Daemon. The white shirt stretched taut over his shoulders, followed each dip of his abs. My skin was overly sensitive even though there’d been no shenanigans going down in the bathroom.

I’d found a comb and sat in the middle of the bed untangling all the knots, while Daemon turned on the TV, settling on a news station. Tossing the remote onto the foot of the bed, he sat behind me.

He took the comb from my fingers. “Let me do this.”

I made a face but sat still as he started to work the comb through my hair. I glanced at the TV, saw another city in ruins, and then looked away. I didn’t want to think about that, because I didn’t know where my mom was or how my friends back home were faring during all of this.

Daemon was surprisingly apt at combing out the knots. “Is there anything you can’t do?” I asked.

He laughed. “You know the answer to that.”

I grinned.

Once he was finished with my hair, I felt the edge of the comb poke me in the lower back. Brows raised, I glanced over my shoulder at him. “What?”