The Bride Test

by Helen Hoang

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Something wet landed on Khai’s face. And again. Like raindrops. Except he was in bed. Was the ceiling leaking? Was his house going to cave in on him?

  He opened his eyes and almost shouted.

  Esme stood next to his bed, dripping wet in nothing but a towel.

  “I think I broke your shower. Water is all over.” She bunched the towel closer to her chest.

  He sat upright, rubbed a hand over his face, and prepared to get out of bed. “Lemme get it. It’s probably just the setting—Shit.”

  He yanked the covers back over his crotch. He was sporting some mega-monster morning wood. She didn’t need to see this. The way he was pitching a tent in his boxers was grotesque, and she’d probably mistake it as a reaction to her. When it wasn’t.

  Most days, he woke up like this, and it wasn’t like he was nursing an out-of-control porn addiction or something. It was just a natural biological response to morning levels of testosterone. One that he could’ve done without. His mornings would be so much more efficient if he didn’t have to jack off in the shower every day.

  When he caught her looking at his naked chest and abs, however, he stopped thinking about efficiency and inconvenient hormone levels. She bit her bottom lip, and he swore he felt her teeth on his own lip. His stomach muscles tightened, and his senses sharpened. She was pretty even without makeup, wholesome, more real. The water drops on her smooth skin stood out in perfect clarity, calling to him. Something told him they would taste better than regular water. He hadn’t thought it was possible, but he hardened even further.

  Fuck.

  Doing his best to shield his boner from hell, he got up from bed and limp-scuffled into the bathroom—the only renovated room in his house. Then he stood in front of the shower and watched in awe as the lights flashed rainbow colors and water spurted from the nozzles concealed in the ceiling and along the sides. How had she done that? He hadn’t known there was a car-wash mode.

  “Is the shower broken? I’ll pay to fix it,” Esme said.

  “No, I think you just hit the wrong buttons.” A lot of them. Maybe all of them at once. Or perhaps it was like in a video game where you had to hit the buttons in a certain order. She’d accidentally found the secret combination they didn’t disclose in the manual.

  There was nothing else for it. He had to go in.

  He took a breath and marched in there in his boxers. Warm water soaked him from all directions, drenching his hair and massaging his muscles. It would have been nice if it weren’t for the flashing lights, his now-wet underwear, and his audience. When he reached the control panel, he hit the power button. The lights stopped cycling color, and the deluge cut off. Residual water trickled from the nozzles and hit the floor with intimate drips.

  He slicked his hair back and said, “Come here, and I’ll show you how to turn it on.”

  Ducking her head and hugging her towel to her chest, she came to stand next to him.

  “You hit the power button first, here. This turns it off, too. And I usually use rain mode, which is here. Just two buttons. Like this, see?” He pressed the buttons, and water washed down on them in a gentle downpour. “Got it?”

  She nodded. “You fixed it?”

  “It wasn’t broken.”

  Her shoulders sagged as she released a relieved breath and smiled at him. When the water ran into her eyes, she swiped a hand over her face, but it was no use. They were standing in the shower with the water on. Each second, her towel got more soaked. She should remove it.

  But then she’d be naked. With him. Surrounded by water and steam and misted stone walls.

  That odd state of heightened awareness returned, stronger this time. The roar of the pouring water grew louder, and he felt each water drop dissolving against his skin like a tiny kiss. Images of him peeling the wet towel off her flashed in his mind, but her body remained fuzzy from her chest down to her thighs. He didn’t know how to envision her there. But he wanted to. No, he didn’t. Yes, he did. No, he really didn’t. He didn’t need that imagery rambling around his perverted head.

  “We’re smart, huh?” she said with a grin. “We’re cleaning clothes, towels, and bodies at the same time. It saves water.”

  “I’m not sure we’re getting any cleaner.”

  She ducked her head and wiped the water from her eyes. “I’m just joking around.”

  “Are you ever serious?” he asked.

  She lifted an elegant shoulder and aimed a helpless sort of smile at him. “I only want you to be yourself with me.”

  “I am.” Wasn’t he? He certainly wasn’t pretending to be someone else, but if he looked at things objectively, that was what the people around him usually wanted—for him to act differently, more appropriate, more intuitive, more considerate, less eccentric, less . . . himself. Did she really not mind him as he was?

  Her smile widened, and all he could do was stare. Strange, incomprehensible, beautiful woman. She said the funniest things and smiled all the time. His fingers itched to touch that smile, and he stepped away out of self-preservation.

  “I’ll leave you to shower. Feel free to use the other towel over there.”

  He fled. The next thing he knew, he stood in his closet, dripping water onto the carpet as he stared blankly at the black clothes hanging on the racks. His heart crashed like he’d had five cans of Red Bull, and his cock did obscene things to the front of his wet boxers.

  It took conscious effort to recall what day it was and the corresponding schedule, but then frustration pumped through his body. She’d thrown everything off with her shower fiasco. He couldn’t even brush his teeth with her in there. Not without getting an eyeful, which, honestly speaking, he’d probably enjoy far too— He banged his forehead against the wall in his closet. Damn it all, he had to stop this.

  Determined to get the rest of the day right, he pulled on his workout clothes, tied the laces of his indoor cross-training shoes, grabbed a spare toothbrush and toothpaste from the linen closet, and went to the kitchen to brush his teeth over the sink, inhale a protein bar, and drink a cup of water. It was Sunday morning, and that meant upper-body-workout time. If he strayed from his exercise routine, he started to lose weight really fast, and he disliked that. It reminded him too much of when he was younger and clumsy and extremely awkward. He might still be awkward on occasion, but not clumsy. He’d trained it out of his muscles with hours upon hours of practice.

  Like always, he padded into his living room and took his spot at the proper machine. As he did overhead presses at 125 pounds, he was aware of Esme walking into the kitchen, helping herself to the fruit smorgasbord his mom had provided, and getting herself a glass of water, which she forgot on the counter, but he stayed focused and efficiently worked through five sets of five repetitions.

  By the time he finished with his bicep curls, he’d lost track of Esme’s whereabouts, but that was fine. She was an adult. She didn’t need to be supervised. He started his pull-up repetitions, always five sets of ten.

  One, two, three . . .

  He used to hate pull-ups, but now that he’d gotten good at them, he liked them. He had the timing of his breathing and the pulling of his arms perfectly synchronized.

  Four, five, six . . .

  If he tried, he’d probably be able to do a ridiculous number of them before his body gave, especially if he didn’t have the twenty-five-pound weight strapped to his waist.

  Seven, eight, nine—

  Movement outside the window caught his eye, and he froze with his feet dangling over the ground. Esme was in his backyard, hair in a ponytail, wearing baggy floral-print pants—were those Hammer pants?—and a white T-shirt with no goddamned bra underneath. Her breasts swayed seductively as she hacked a tree down with . . . one of his Japanese kitchen knives.

  His feet hit the carpet with a hard thud, and he was vaguely consciou
s of how lucky he was that he hadn’t injured himself with the weight hanging between his legs. Still, he couldn’t drag his eyes away from the window.

  Oh hell, it was the meat cleaver. She was cutting down a tree with a meat cleaver. He doubted lumber work was one of the knife’s intended uses, but in the manner of most Japanese engineering, the knife exceeded expectations. And he could see her dark nipples through her sheer shirt.

  He couldn’t be the only person who would find this utterly baffling. It was arousing and fascinating but scary, as she was weaponized, and also a little frustrating because she’d so grievously repurposed his fine cutlery.

  He marched to the window, cranked it open, and asked, “Why are you cutting that tree down?” With a meat cleaver.

  She pulled the cleaver out of the tree’s narrow trunk and smiled at him like all of this was perfectly normal. “I’m cleaning up a little.”

  His lips worked without making a sound for a bit before he finally said, “You don’t have to.”

  “I’m making the yard nicer. You’ll see.”

  But he didn’t care what it looked like. No, that wasn’t right. He cared a little. Just enough so he derived perverse pleasure from irritating his neighbors with his dilapidated home exterior and lawn. He’d been about to start fixing things up, but the pint-sized old lady across the street, Ruthie, had sent him this letter, threatening to take him to civil court if he didn’t attempt to make his house fit in better with the neighborhood.

  He’d do almost anything if someone asked nicely—case in point being his current predicament, in which a knife-wielding woman was cohabitating with him—but if they threatened him . . . He and Ruthie were waging a silent battle, and he was going to demolish her. It didn’t matter that she was a hundred years old.

  Esme gave the sapling one more solid whack, and the trunk split in two. The leafy top of the tree crashed to the ground, and she held the cleaver up proudly, saying, “I’m good with knives.”

  He backed away from the window slowly.

  What number had he been on? He had no idea, so he started back at the beginning.

  One, two, three—

  Esme set the knife down and bent over to haul the fallen tree away, and her pants stretched over her ass in the most beguiling manner. It shouldn’t be sexy. He was absolutely certain those were Hammer pants now. But his cock didn’t care. It stiffened and pressed against his workout shorts.

  He shook his head and pushed himself to focus. Mind over penis. Mind over penis. He could do it. Rule Number Six, dammit.

  Four, five, six—

  The tree must have snagged on something because she began tugging on it, and her perfect Hammer-pants-clad ass shook like in a Beyoncé music video. Khai stared at her, caught helplessly in the most confusing arousal of his life.

  When the tree came free, she stumbled backward a few steps and then dragged it to the far side of the yard. She found a shovel from somewhere—he didn’t know where; he hadn’t known he owned a shovel—and returned to drive it into the earth at the base of the newly severed trunk. Her tits bounced, and sweat glistened on her reddened face before she swiped it away with the back of her arm.

  It occurred to him that maybe he should be helping instead of watching her like landscaper pornography. You weren’t supposed to let women do any kind of manual labor. He might as well add that to the Rules. But he’d already told her she didn’t have to do this. If her hands longed to till the Silicon Valley soil, what right did he have to steal her joy? Besides, he was philosophically opposed, what with his feud with Ruthie and all.

  He tore his eyes away and got back to his pull-ups. Focus. Mind over penis.

  One, two, three—

  She leaned over, making her pants stretch across her ass again, and a groan rumbled from his chest. After digging out a rock from the dirt and tossing it aside, she got back to shoveling.

  One, two, three . . .

  * * *

  • • •

  With every stab of shovel into dry earth, Esme’s determination grew. She’d woken up this morning with her new phone glued to her face and a blanket over her. He’d covered her in her sleep. It was a small thing to do, but the room had been cold. What if she’d gotten sick? It was a sign. He wasn’t perfect by any means, but he was perfect for her. And Jade. She was going to do her best to marry him.

  His name, Khải, meant victory, but the way he said it, flat like that without the accent, it meant to open. That was exactly what she needed to do. He was closed, and she had to open him. In her experience, when you wanted to open something, you cleaned it up first so you could see what you were dealing with, and then you worked on it really hard. Esme wasn’t great at a lot of things, but she was good at cleaning and working hard. She could do this. Maybe she’d been made for this.

  She’d start by straightening Khải’s yard. Then she’d move on to his house. Last, his life. He’d said he wasn’t unhappy with anything, but that was a lie if she’d ever heard one. For whatever reason, he’d built a thick wall around himself. She was going to knock it down, just like she’d taken down that tree, and work her way into his heart.

  With that in mind, she cleared the yard until the sun was high in the sky. Then she went inside to have lunch with him and seduce him subtly, or not so subtly.

  But he was gone.

  He’d abandoned her alone in this house without a word.

  CHAPTER SIX

  When Khai’s alarm rang the next morning, he smacked it off, sat up, and stared blearily at his room. He’d spent his Sunday in the office to escape her, but then she’d invaded his dreams. He was lucky if he’d gotten three hours of sleep. Fantasies had plagued him all night. Sexual ones. Featuring a certain pair of Hammer pants.

  He was officially losing his mind, and look at that monster wood. His dick was so hard it was lifting his heavy down comforter all on its own. He needed to take care of this, but how did you do that with another person on the other side of the door? What if she barged in halfway through? None of the locks worked in this house. It hadn’t mattered before now.

  Walking with his dick pointing ahead like the needle on a compass, he went to the bathroom, turned on the light, and opened the drawer by the sink where he kept his toothbrush and toothpaste. They weren’t there. He yanked the drawer out all the way, but they didn’t roll out from the back. He knew he’d put them back last night. He always put them back.

  Was he hallucinating? Was he in the middle of a nightmare? Or had some really weird person stolen his oral hygiene products? Why would anyone—

  His toothbrush and toothpaste were laid out on the counter by the faucet next to a glass from the kitchen. What the hell?

  Esme must have done this.

  He picked up his toothbrush, squeezed toothpaste onto it, and crammed it in his mouth. As he brushed, he gazed at the bathroom. She must have gotten up at dawn, because there were new details everywhere. It hadn’t been like this last night. His Kleenex box had been rotated so the sides were no longer parallel to the walls, and the tissue sticking out of the box was folded into a neat triangle. The towels hanging on the racks had been rearranged so they were folded in thirds with a hand towel and washcloth on top. It looked okay, but how was that practical? Barely refraining from growling, he turned the Kleenex box back to the way it’d been before, sides parallel to the walls.

  In the shower, he accidentally conditioned his hair before shampooing it because she’d switched the locations of the bottles, and he had to condition his hair a second time, which was thoroughly obnoxious. On the way out, he grabbed his bath towel and sent the smaller ones scattering to the ground. He leaned down to grab them and banged his head on the towel rack on his way up.

  By the time he’d dressed and left his bedroom, he was out of sorts, harried for time, and possibly nursing a concussion. He strode into the kitchen, and the smell immediately envelop
ed him. Pungent. Seafoody. So strong it startled a cough out of him. Esme stood at the stove, splashing fish sauce into a boiling pot of soup as she distractedly wiped at a spill by the flames with a wet towel.

  For a stunned moment, he forgot all about the burnt-fish-sauce fumes. She was wearing a T-shirt—and nothing else. Wow, those legs of hers . . .

  She beamed at him over her shoulder. “Hi, Anh Khải.”

  Her chipperness jolted him out of his dazed state, and the heavy fish-sauce scent descended upon him all over again. So potent. Yeah, it made things taste good, but who wanted to smell this all day? And his name, she kept saying it that way.

  She sent him a puzzled look as he opened all the windows and the sliding glass door to the backyard and turned on the exhaust hood over the stove as well.

  “Airing out the smell,” he explained.

  “What smell?”

  He blinked once, twice. She didn’t notice? It was everywhere. He imagined it was soaking into the paint on the walls at this very moment. “The fish sauce?” He pointed to the tall bottle in her hand with a squid on the label.

  “Oh!” She set it down on the counter and awkwardly wiped her hands on the wet dish towel. After a tense moment, she whirled past him to open the cupboard next to him. “I made coffee already.” She stretched onto her tiptoes to grab the mug from the middle shelf, and the hem of her shirt snuck upward, revealing the perfectly alluring cheeks of her ass and her white underwear.

  His dick dug at his fly, reminding him he’d skipped an important part of his morning routine two days in a row now. After the landscaping incident yesterday, it made a strange sort of sense that Esme could cause him to have a concussion, an overwhelmed sense of smell, and blue balls at the same time. The wide neckline of her shirt slipped to the side and revealed one of her graceful shoulders, and he drew in a slow, fish-sauce-laden breath. Blue and getting bluer.

  She snatched a mug down, poured coffee in, and held it out, smiling at him over the rim, green eyes sparkling. Sexy sleep-tousled dark brown hair with a widow’s peak crowned a heart-shaped face. “For you.”