Chapter 766 - Cool down

The water fell on her, jolting her out of her shock, quickly extinguishing the sparks of fire ignited by their brief contact.

When Alicia moved slightly forward and started washing her face in haste, he retracted his hand and backed off as well. After that, he then offered her the soap. Alicia blinked at it for a while but she eventually took it. For some reason, the tension that was ignited was not dropping.

Alicia cleared her throat, wanting to distract herself.

"Is everything good?" was the words that came out of her lips. She regretted that, wondering why she had spouted out such words of all things. Her face was so red as she tried to redeem herself. "You're suddenly back to being the quiet Ezekiel again?"

He shifted a little, looking slightly upwards as he slowly ran his tongue across his teeth.

"You're so talkative just a while ago. So it's weird you're suddenly so quiet again." Alicia blabbered on nonsensically. Her nervousness caused her to just want to fill this growing silence between them with something… anything. But now that she mentioned this, curiosity suddenly hit her, and she really wanted to know.

"Talkative…" he echoed, shaking his head a little.

"You were so talkative just a while ago. So don't you dare deny it." she was not aware that she was facing him now, even tipping her chin up as if daring him to deny it. "You're actually quite talkative, aren't you?"

"No, I'm not. I just don't have a choice but to speak as much words as I can since I touched you." he answered her.

"And why would you even bother to do that?" she raised a brow, obviously doubtful at his claims.

"If I don't talk, it would rile you up, wouldn't it? Talking is not my thing… but I would choose it over you being so emotional. I can only choose the lesser of the two evils."

What?!! Her jaw almost hit the floor listening to the way he had explained his reasoning on why he seemed so 'talkative' according to her description.

"Did you just referred to 'talking' as an evil?" Alicia was not sure to be amazed or shocked at his way of looking at it.

"I'm not that fond of it." He spoke lowly, defending his stand.

Alicia was speechless. She could only shake her head when he spoke again.

"Are you really okay bathing with your undergarments on like that?" he asked but his gaze was holding hers, never straying to look downwards or anywhere further than her chin.

The tips of her ears heated up and suddenly, she felt like she could not move. Now she could not take her eyes off him. While she was still soapy and all bubbly, Ezekiel already looked like he was already done bathing. His wet hair… the droplets of water all over his skin… his wet lips… his…

She swallowed, hard. What had she done? Why did she turn?! When did she turn?!!

The soap slipped from her suddenly limp fingers, causing the both of them to instinctively look down. Alicia caught sight of it… of his… oh g-gods!!!

As if caught red handed, Alicia quickly spun around and looked away, her face blazing so damned red while Ezekiel bent over and picked up the soap rather nonchalantly.

When he lifted his hand to hand the soap back to her, Alicia suddenly walked towards the tub. "I want to soak first." She said dragging Ezekiel along with her in haste. She immediately began to fill the tub and climbed into it before there was even enough water in it to cover her to her waist.

She never looked at him again even when she heard him drew out a small sigh as he stood right next to her. He did not move until the water had filled the tub up to Alicia's chest.

The bathroom was deafeningly silent again, so Alicia created some noise by playing and splashing around with the water and washing her face, hoping that the heat on her face would cool down. She regretted this move of hers again. She should have just washed up and finished the bath! What the hell was wrong with her? She wanted to facepalm her dumb self so hard, but Ezekiel was watching.

She fought for calm. A few moments more and she would leave the tub as naturally as possible and be done with this.

But just as she was about to rise, she halted at the sight of Ezekiel climbing into the tub. W-wait… wait a moment…

Before she could manage to speak or react, he had already lowered himself and sat across from her, folding his long legs and bracing his arms on the sides of the tub. But even though he had folded his legs, his feet still reached all the way to her side. What the… what the hell is he doing?!!

The tub was not that small. But with him in it as well, it suddenly felt so cramped that even though the water was not even warm, she was feeling it getting hotter! Her cheeks flushed a hot pink as she looked over at him trying to get comfortable on his side.

"What are you doing? Y-you never used your tub…" she spluttered as she spoke and struggled a little to make herself confront him.

He folded his elbow and leaned his temple against his knuckles. "You're right. But I can't just be standing here like a statue while you're happily soaking yourself in here, right? Might as well join you."

She bit her lip and then abruptly, she rose, forgetting about their inseparable hands.

The pull of his hand to keep their hands from separating caused her to lose her balance in the already slippery floor of the tub.

And she fell right onto him.

Water splashed and the two of them instantly stilled as Alicia quickly realized where her free hand had landed at in her attempt of trying to balance herself when she fell.

Alicia: !!!!